Zurich Music Festival 2025 Concert III: Correspondances
Program note:
The title “Correspondances” refers in this concert to an imaginary correspondence with Johann Sebastian Bach.
Arvo Pärt and Maxim Shalygin – two contemporary composers from different generations – enter into a quiet dialogue with Bach’s legacy. Not through external stylization or direct quotations, but through a deep understanding of structure, form, and the inner silence of Bach’s music.
The first part of the evening is centered around Bach’s organ chorales and works by Arvo Pärt from recent decades. The compositions alternate and allow us to hear how the sound and musical logic of one continue in the language of the other. This section is complemented by an organ improvisation by Christoph Schönfelder on the name Arvo Pärt. In 2025, Pärt celebrates his 90th birthday.
The second part of the concert is dedicated to the solo violin: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne from the second Partita meets Letters to Anna by Maxim Shalygin – a solo symphony shortlisted for the prestigious Gaudeamus Award in 2012 and celebrated in professional circles as one of the most outstanding works since Bach’s Partitas and Ysaÿe’s Sonatas — ranks among the most virtuosic and exquisite compositions of our time, for solo violin.
Program:
Maxim Shalygin
Letters to Anna (2009–2010)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Chaconne from Partita No. 2, BWV 1004
Musician
Andrii Pavlov, violin
Johann Sebastian Bach
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639
O Lamm Gottes unschuldig, BWV 618
Prelude in C minor, BWV 546
Arvo Pärt
Trivium (1976)
Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler (1989)
Annum per annum (1980)
Musician
Christoph Schönfelder, organ
Georg Philipp Telemann
Fantasy No. 7 for solo violin (1735)
Musician
Vira Zholobova, violin* Zero set
Andrii Pavlov
violin
Ukrainian violinist, performed with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ukho Ensemble Kyiv, and the Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam among others. Guest at festivals such as Gaudeamus, Warsaw Autumn, and Ravenna Festival. One of the first interpreters of Letters to Anna, committed musician in the field of contemporary chamber music.
Christoph Schönfelder
organ
Christoph Schönfelder one of the most promising and interesting organists of his generation. Born in Landshut in 1992, he began his promising musical career with the Regensburger Domspatzen. The multiple award-winning prizewinner studied organ, Catholic church music, and piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich, where he now also serves as a lecturer alongside his diverse musical activities. Cathedral organist at the famous St. Gallen Cathedral. Selected transcriptions by him have been featured by Bayerischer Rundfunk.
