BACK TO THE FUTURE – A HOMAGE TO LUDWIG II

The year 2011 is the 125th anniversary of the mysterious death of King Ludwig II in Lake Starnberg. The state of Bavaria is taking this opportunity to honour the life and works of the “fairy-tale king” with a major exhibition in his palace, Schloss Herrenchiemsee.
The Herrenchiemsee Festival is also taking the anniversary as an occasion to commemorate Ludwig II. The programme focuses on composers and works of his era: Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms and the French Romantics, as well as compositions of the early 20th century on the watershed between Wagner’s sound-ideals and the iconoclasm of the new age. The motto “Back to the Future” relates in addition to one particular characteristic of the Bavarian king: his passion for using the latest technologies in order to recreate the past. Thus the Festival will be concentrating on compositions which make use of the forms and motifs of the past in order to create music that points ahead to the future.