Festival 2025

Dear friends of the Herrenchiemsee Festival,

Today we would like to present the program of the Herrenchiemsee Festival 2025 – in gratitude for the fact that you have made the past festival summer a special success together with us and in anticipation of new concerts with outstanding ensembles and soloists. For summer 2025, we cordially invite you to experience unique moments of art together with our artists in Frauenchiemsee Minster and the Royal Palace on Herreninsel.
“Time of flourishing” – With this life-affirming motto, which carries the unconditional belief in the constant return of the new and beautiful, we are also referring this year to the thoughts of Ludwig II, who, despite all the real historical turmoil, was absolutely convinced that he was living in a “time of flourishing”. Ludwig followed with amazement and above all interest how quickly new developments and innovations were able to assert themselves in his time. The king was just as enthusiastic about new technical achievements as his boundless admiration for Richard Wagner’s music and his “work of art of the future”.
“Time of Blossoming” – We are taking the motto further and would like to use the Herrenchiemsee Festival 2025 to highlight great moments in music history in which new musical epochs developed to perfection. It is therefore no coincidence that Bach’s Mass in B minor closes the program as the monumental pinnacle of Baroque sacred music: a touching Catholic mass across all denominations from the pen of a Lutheran deeply rooted in the Protestant faith.
Several concerts also focus on the miracle of Mozart: his Great Mass in C minor, both unfinished and the pinnacle of classical sacred music, stands for the complexity of Mozart’s genius. Another focus of the Herrenchiemsee Festival 2025 is dedicated to Johannes Brahms’ symphonic music. His work represents the end and culmination of the classical side of Romanticism: in his symphonies, Beethoven’s spiritual legacy culminated in the sound possibilities of the Romantic orchestra.
In addition to a select program, we are particularly honored that His Royal Highness Duke Franz of Bavaria will be the patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival 2025 together with Kent Nagano. We welcome the KlangVerwaltung orchestra and choir, who have a special relationship with our festival, as well as the Hofkapelle München, the Westdeutsche Sinfonia and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Köln, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Munich Chamber Orchestra – not least “Il Giardino Armonico” as one of the leading baroque ensembles of our time and the LGT Young Soloists as a young, top international ensemble that exemplifies our motto this year.
“Time of Blossom” – We cordially invite you to share these moments of beauty as a lived emotion with us and look forward to seeing you!

Sincerely

Yours, Josef Kröner
Managing Director