Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft e.V.

Works by important female composers are also on the program of the symphony concerts of the Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft this season. Salome, Ophelia and Cleopatra are three femmes de légende that the French composer Mel Bonis has selected and orchestrated from her piano cycle of the same name. Her real name was Mélanie Bonis, but in times when women were not supposed to compose, she published her works under the neutral pseudonym Mel to be on the safe side. The cycle, written over a period of almost 50 years, spans an arc from French piano romanticism to impressionism.

Richard Strauss portrayed his own wife and heroine within the family in the domestic symphony, the Symphonia domestica. Similar to the symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben, which was premiered at the museum concerts, the Symphonia domestica has autobiographical features and is a fantasy about Strauss's family life: Visits from relatives, bickering and strife in the family, but reconciliation at the end.

A master of the cello is the young Salzburg native Julia Hagen, who makes her debut in this concert series with the 1st Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns. The work is considered a "pearl" among cello concertos. Important composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Rachmaninov considered it to be the best cello concerto ever.

The Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra performs with Julia Hagen on the cello under the direction of Thomas Guggeis.

Photo: Simon Pauly

19.10., 11 a.m. & 20.10., 8 p.m. (concert introduction with Ulrike Kienzle one hour before the start in the Great Hall)

Alte Oper, Großer Saal, Opernplatz 1, Frankfurt

2for1: price category 1 = 71 €, price category 2 = 62 € (tickets subject to availability)

Oct. 16-18, advance booking Alte Oper, Mon-Fri 10am-6.30pm & Sat 10am-2pm, tickets subject to availability