Drei Gesänge ohne Worte

“The premiere made an enormous effect, and the audience virtually showered the composer of the commissioned work – Detlev Glanert wrote the Three Songs Without Words for Orchestra especially for the Leipzig festivities [Mendelssohn Festtage] – with praise and honor. And they are indeed a pleasure to listen to, sympathetic to the listener as well as to the musician, clearly structured, traditionally set. Glanert sounds out the nuances of orchestral timbre between the intimate viola solo and clamorous despair, delights with eloquent expression, with bustling escalations, with the jazz-oriented rhythm of the middle movement – and nevertheless does justice at all times to the poetry in Mendelssohn’s music, to the delicacy of their melodies.” (Ute van der Sanden, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 23 Aug 2009)

“The Three Songs Without Words do not take the idea, and certainly not the form from Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. They take only the impulse, they sound out how much song there might be in a large modern orchestra ... Glanert understands his trade: he plays masterfullly with the emotions of the listener; he orchestrates brilliantly. How, on the one hand, the form seems to create itself vegetatively and is, on the other, meticulously calculated and balanced – this develops grandeur and power. The Gewandhaus Orchestra is the right resonator for such sounds, and Markus Stenz on the rostrum sensitively fashions them, the sounds that, according to Glanert, have to do with love and with passion, and with despair; sounds that, when delicate and ethereal, are much more precious than at the points of culmination. And it pleases the audience. Applause, bravos, flowers.” (Peter Korfmacher, Leipziger Volkszeitung, 22/23 Aug 2009)