Romantics of R Wagner & R Strauss

PIANO enlivened PHILHARMONICS

Screening of Exclusive Orchestral Concerts from

the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker

with Live Piano Recitals by K M Music Conservatory

Goethe-Institut invites the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to its auditorium especially for the connoisseurs of Western classical music of Chennai.
        
We welcome you to enjoy this Digital Concert Hall with high-definition video live-screening and excellent sound in superior quality with ultra-high definition (4K UHD) and outstanding image dynamics (HDR) to get the best close-to-real experience.

With this presentation, we hope to make some of the exclusive orchestral concerts with works of great composers presented by exceptional conductors and performed by eminent soloists a reality, which may be practically impossible otherwise.

In our specially curated series, we bring you three wonderful concerts.

Romantics of R Wagner & R Strauss

Lavania Kumar  Piano

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss became famous as a composer in his mid-20s and wrote his last works when he was over 80. He himself closed this circle when he quoted a theme from his tone poem Tod und Verklärung, written six decades earlier, in his 1948 Four Last Songs.

Strauss was surrounded by orchestral music from an early age, as his father was a horn player at the Munich Hofoper. This early exposure was to pay off – Strauss developed into a supreme master of the art of orchestration. After two early symphonies, several solo concertos, chamber music and numerous lieder, two genres dominated the composer’s work: symphonic poems and operas. Between 1886 and 1915, he wrote ten programmatic orchestral works inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lenau’s Don Juan, Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra, among others. Richard Strauss was also one of the influential musicians of his time as a conductor. He conducted numerous concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker between 1888 and 1939.

Strauss’s career as an opera composer began with a scandal: the Viennese premiere of his Salome was banned because of the ‘perverse sensuality’ of the material. All the greater was the excitement of the Dresden audience, where the opera celebrated its premiere shortly afterwards. Today, it is impossible to imagine the repertoire without Strauss’s stage works. In particular, the operas written in collaboration with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, such as Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten, are to be found in opera house repertoires all over the world.

Richard Wagner

By virtue of his innovative harmony, ingenious instrumentation and his conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk, Richard Wagner influenced all the significant composers that followed him. Not even official opponents such as Brahms and Debussy could escape the fascination of his music. The Bayreuth Festival, which has taken place in the opera house designed by Wagner since 1876, is to this day dedicated exclusively to performances of the great musical dramas from the Flying Dutchman to Parsifal. After four generations, the direction of the festival is still in the hands of the family.

His unorthodox theatrical background, his affair and marriage to Franz Liszt’s daughter Cosima, his friendship with Friedrich Nietzsche which ended in discord, the patronage of the Bavarian King Ludwig II, the constant shifts between precariousness and a life of luxury all made the Wagner who died in Venice in 1883, one of the most dazzling artistic figures of the 19th century. His anti-Semitism alienates to this day.

All chief conductors of the Berliner Philharmoniker from Hans von Bülow to Kirill Petrenko were and are passionate interpreters of Wagner. Herbert von Karajan realised the Philharmoniker’s first complete performance of the Ring des Nibelungen at the Salzburg Festival in the 1960s, Simon Rattle the second in the same place and in Aix-en-Provence almost 40 years later. Sir Simon also conducted acclaimed concert performances of The Valkyrie and Tristan und Isolde in Berlin.

Lavania Subash Kumar is a Chennai-based Western Classical piano teacher. She has completed all major qualifications from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and from the Trinity College of Music London.

She was awarded the Exhibition Award and Hanon Clarke Award from the Trinity College of Music London for gaining the highest distinction mark in the Grade 8 Piano Practical Examination. She later studied Piano Performance, initially with Concert Pianist David Quigley from the Birmingham Conservatoire UK, and later for seven years with Concert Pianist, Professor Boris Kraljevic, Faculty member of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) Singapore. She moved to Chennai in 2017
It was under the tutelage of Mr. Kraljevic that she obtained the prestigious Fellowship Diploma (FRSM) in Piano Performance from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. She also holds the Licentiate Diploma (LTCL) in Piano Performance from the Trinity College of Music, and the Licentiate Teaching Diploma (LLCM) from the London College of Music.

Lavania has a special interest in working with children. From 2000 until 2004 she trained and worked as music teacher at The Forte School of Music in Cardiff, UK. The Forte teaching method put the emphasis firmly on fun and was designed to build confidence at the same time as teaching music skills to children as young as 3 years.

Some of the teaching methods used in the course included the Orff-Schulwerk approach, the Kodaly, Suzuki and Dalcroze methods of teaching. In 2021 she was invited to give an online lecture ‘Teaching and Young Learners’, which focused on music pedagogy, piano practice, techniques and accompaniment. The lecture was part of a pedagogy series held by the Nagaland Piano Festival ‘Brillante’ which included online workshops, master classes and tutorials designed to provide high quality resource to pianists all across India.

Her students have gone on to win top prizes in International Piano Competitions such as the International Music Competition ‘Salzburg & Barcelona’ and the Grand Maestro International Music Competition in Singapore. They have also participated in Master Classes held by such distinguished artists as Gabriele Baldocci.

She currently now works full-time as member of the Piano Faculty and also as Foundation Program Leader for KM Music Conservatoire, Chennai.