Ian Bostridge tenor
Alexander Chance countertenor
Krešimir Stražanac baritone
Rodrigo Ortiz Serrano french horn
Anneleen Lenaerts harp
Julius Drake piano

71st Chamber Music Week
Since the 1950s, the Chamber Music Week has been the heart of the cultural program at Schloss Elmau. This festival week was particularly shaped and reached a great artistic peak through the Amadeus Quartet and the composer Benjamin Britten, who visited Elmau many times and even premiered some works there. In the concerts of the 71st Chamber Music Week, alongside a rich repertoire of classical and Romantic chamber music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms, Britten’s works will also be featured in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death in 2026.

Benjamin Britten composed the five Canticles over a period of more than a quarter of a century for his life partner Peter Pears, who took on the major tenor role. These pieces rank among the composer’s most intimate and spiritually profound works—five compositions in which Britten set a wide range of literary texts to music, including texts by the poet T. S. Eliot. Canticle V was premiered on 15 January 1975 at Schloss Elmau by Peter Pears, Osian Ellis, and others.

Programme:
Britten: Canticles I-V