The poems of Georg Trakl have proved rich source material for composers: Anton Webern, Paul Hindemith, Peter Maxwell Davies and Thea Musgrave have all been drawn to the Austrian expressionist’s rich, macabre imagery. Donghoon Shin, who often looks to literature for inspiration, is the latest. In his cello concerto Nachtergebung, commissioned by the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, he takes one of Trakl’s poems as the starting point for each of its five movements, crafting a succession of (primarily) night-time portraits. Like the poems, these sinister nocturnes are an expression of a more general foreboding – in Shin’s words, ‘a contemplation on the madness around the world, as the kind soul struggles with cruel reality’.
Read the full programme note and profile on the London Symphony Orchestra website