In Search of the Uncertain

Composer in Residence: Jörg Widmann

Jörg Widmann über seine Residency bei den Berliner Philharmonikern

Jörg Widmann’s compositions are enormously diverse, and for a simple reason: he doesn’t want to bore himself with doing the same thing. The chief beneficiary of this passion for discovery, of course, is the audience. Jörg Widmann is the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Composer in Residence for the 2023-24 season.  

“My main driving force in composing always comes from the emotion. Beethoven once wrote: ‘From the heart – may it return to the heart.’ My art comes from the heart. Or I would go even further: Art comes from necessity. I cannot do anything other than compose a piece that’s weighing on my mind.” Jörg Widmann is regarded as one of the most exciting musicians of our time – and as one of the most versatile. For more than two decades, he’s been receiving commissions from leading orchestras and ensembles. As one of the finest clarinettists, he tours the concert halls of the world and regularly inspires composers to create new works for his instrument. And for several years, his third area of activity has been conducting. Widmann was principal conductor of the Irish Chamber Orchestra until the end of 2022 and is constantly expanding his activities as an orchestral director. In addition, he teaches young composers, currently at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.

The most important thing for Jörg Widmann: the sound

If one can still talk about musical child prodigies nowadays, then Jörg Widmann was one of them. His first clarinet instruction at seven, compositional instruction at the age of eleven, major concert appearances already in his youth. After that a solid musical training as instrumentalist and composer with the most renowned teachers in Munich, Karlsruhe and New York, among them Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm. By his early 20s, Widmann, born in 1973 in Munich, was numbered among the most interesting musical personalities of his generation.

From the beginning he has addressed people of the most diverse backgrounds with his music. His mainly large-scale scores are just as impressive in a specialized avant-garde forum as in a traditional symphony concert. His musical language is modern, experimental, while at the same time of such clarity and urgency that it wins over laymen as readily as experts. The sound is everything for him. It isn’t by chance that he calls himself an “instrumentation fetishist”.

Dialogue across the centuries

As an interpreter of the clarinet concertos of Mozart and Weber, he is fundamentally preoccupied with a critical examination of the tradition. “I find the most exciting programmes to be those which combine music of the past with music of today. It sometimes isn’t enough for me to hear only contemporary works. But the same is true of an entire evening of just Baroque music. Music really catches fire for me in a dialogue across the centuries.” Widmann the musician is constantly being driven into the open-ended, into the uncertain: “I wish for my own sake that each work is different, quite simply because I don’t want to bore myself. When somebody always does the same thing all his life, at some point they call that style. For me, the new and different is much more important.”

Concerts with works by Jörg Widmann

Saturday,

09 Sep 2023,
19:00

Main Auditorium

Series: A – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Sat 09 Sep 2023, 19:00
Main Auditorium

Musikfest Berlin

Berliner Philharmoniker

Jörg Widmann conductor and clarinet

Carolin Widmann violin

Works by Jörg Widmann and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

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Sunday,

10 Sep 2023,
20:00

Main Auditorium

Series: B – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Sun 10 Sep 2023, 20:00
Main Auditorium

Musikfest Berlin

Berliner Philharmoniker

Jörg Widmann conductor and clarinet

Carolin Widmann violin

Works by Jörg Widmann and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

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Thursday,

18 Jan 2024,
20:00

Main Auditorium

Series: L – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Thu 18 Jan 2024, 20:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Daniel Harding conductor

Antoine Tamestit viola

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

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Friday,

19 Jan 2024,
20:00

Main Auditorium

Series: K – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Fri 19 Jan 2024, 20:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Daniel Harding conductor

Antoine Tamestit viola

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

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Saturday,

20 Jan 2024,
19:00

Main Auditorium

Series: A – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Sat 20 Jan 2024, 19:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Daniel Harding conductor

Antoine Tamestit viola

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

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Wednesday,

14 Feb 2024,
20:00

Chamber Music Hall

Chamber Music | Series: U – Piano

Wed 14 Feb 2024, 20:00
Chamber Music Hall

Lucas & Arthur Jussenpiano duo

Works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Jörg Widmann, Claude Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff

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Saturday,

02 Mar 2024,
22:00

Main Auditorium

Philharmonie »Late Night«

Sat 02 Mar 2024, 22:00
Main Auditorium

Late Night

Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker

Jörg Widmann conductor and clarinet

Sarah Aristidou soprano

Annika Treutler piano

Works by Jörg Widmann and Franz Schubert

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Wednesday,

10 Apr 2024,
20:00

Chamber Music Hall

Chamber Music | Series: W – Artist in Residence

Wed 10 Apr 2024, 20:00
Chamber Music Hall

Lisa Batiashvili violin

Jörg Widmann clarinet

Denis Kozhukhin piano

Tsotne Zedginidze piano

Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker

Works by Jörg Widmann, Tsotne Zedginidze, Sergei Prokofiev and Béla Bartók

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Friday,

17 May 2024,
20:00

Chamber Music Hall

Karajan-Akademie

Karajan Academy | Series: KA – Karajan Academy

Fri 17 May 2024, 20:00
Chamber Music Hall

Karajan-Akademie

Karajan-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko conductor

Works by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Jörg Widmann

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Thursday,

30 May 2024,
20:00

Main Auditorium

Series: C – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Thu 30 May 2024, 20:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Sir Simon Rattle conductor

Stefan Dohr french horn

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

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Friday,

31 May 2024,
20:00

Main Auditorium

Series: B – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Fri 31 May 2024, 20:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Sir Simon Rattle conductor

Stefan Dohr french horn

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

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Saturday,

01 Jun 2024,
19:00

Main Auditorium

Series: I – Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Sat 01 Jun 2024, 19:00
Main Auditorium

Berliner Philharmoniker

Sir Simon Rattle conductor

Stefan Dohr french horn

Works by Jörg Widmann and Anton Bruckner

Read more Watch online