From the Midsummer Night’s Gala to the Festival Finale

Over four weekends from mid-August to early September, the Grafenegg Festival 2025 takes place at the various venues in the Schlosspark, the castle’s magnificent grounds. At the opening concert on Thursday, August 14th 2025, the Tonkunstler Orchestra under ist Music Director Fabien Gabel climbs a summit of music history in the form of Richard Strauss’s «Alpine Symphony». Poulenc’s Double Concerto is certainly a peak of the concert literature for two pianos. Virtuosity, sensitivity and a gently transfigured look back to Viennese Classicism – it could have been made for soloists Katia and Marielle Labèque. The following saturday, the European Union Youth Orchestra performs the second concert of its summer residency in Grafenegg, this time under its Music Director Iván Fischer and with violinist Alina Ibragimova, who plays Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. The next day, Daniel Lozakovich makes his Grafenegg debut with Sibelius’s Violin Concerto.

On Sunday, August 24th, participants of the composer conductor workshop Ink Still Wet present their new works, which they’ve rehearsed with the Tonkunstler Orchestra – under the attentive gaze of Composer in Residence Fabián Panisello. This is always one of the most exciting concert experiences of the Festival. Musical history is, after all, full of great successes – and great failures – of premieres. Grafenegg is proud that many of the workshop composers since 2011, and many of their works, have won awards and acclaim worldwide. 

The third weekend opens with the Tonkunstler Orchestra andone of the most famous piano concertos awaits. Tchaikovsky revised his concerto in B minor repeatedly, and these days we usually hear the final version. But here the great pianist Kirill Gerstein goes back to his earlier ideas, the concerto shifting away from thundering virtuosity.

J. Williams’ music has transcended its films and leads a life of its own. Williams is particularly famous for his work with Spielberg and films from the 1970s such as «Jaws», «Star Wars» and «Superman». But he also created great works outside film, as this guest performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and its Music Director Vasily Petrenko with Anne-Sophie Mutter proves.

Christina Pluhar and her ensemble L’Arpeggiata were last guests in the Auditorium in 2012, when they delighted their audience. The Early Music specialist from Graz returns for a Sunday matinee on August 24th with an unconventional programme: «Wonder Women», with music by and about strong women. Sunday evening will delight with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons and with multiple Grammy winner Hilary Hahn.

For the third week of the Festival, the Czech Philharmonic and Gautier Capuçon under the direction of Grafenegg debutant Petr Popelka bring with them a programme of pure Dvorák. A concert by the Tonkunstler Orchestra with David Afkham promises to be an exceptional debut: A few years ago, Alexandra Dovgan’s fellow pianist Grigory Sokolov said of the now 17-year-old Russian that you could hardly call her a Wunderkind because «while her piano playing is indeed a wonder,» there is «nothing childish» about her. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conclude their programme with Maurice Ravel’s most popular work. Ravel himself is said to have sardonically noted that he had written «only one masterpiece – Boléro. Unfortunately, there’s no music in it.» But even if it alienated the composer himself, the work fascinates us to this day. C’est la vie. On this Festival Sunday, a matinee by one of the great singers of our time: Juan Diego Flórez, a guarantor of impeccable vocal technique and taste for bel canto singing. 

The 2025 Festival finale is quite something: six concerts in five days, Rudolf Buchbinder with great piano concertos, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Daniel Harding, the Hong Kong Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden – and Klaus Florian Vogt not with a lone pianist but an octet for Schubert’s Lied cycle «Die schöne Müllerin». Zubin Mehta last conducted the Tonkunstler Orchestra on March 10th, 1962. Together with his close friend Rudolf Buchbinder, he will first conduct the Symphony No.1 and then the Symphony No.1 by Johannes Brahms: A truly extraordinary finale to the summer of 2025.