Full volume in the Beethovenhalle

Stefan Behrisch composes a work tailored to the space and acoustics of the Beethovenhalle: his new piece, to be performed at the opening concert of the 2026 Beethovenfest, uses surround sound to bring the renovated hall to life. We asked him how, as a composer, he intends to make this iconic architecture audible.

Beethovenfest is returning to the Beethovenhalle. What has been your experience of this hall? What do you appreciate about it?

I grew up in Cologne and have known the hall for a long time. A few months ago, whilst preparing for the commissioned work, I returned to the Beethovenhalle to understand how it now sounds and looks. My piece has been composed specifically for this space. Together with the trumpeter Andy Haderer and the organist George Warren, we tested how the musicians could be positioned and what is possible there. It is a beautiful wooden hall with superb acoustics. The acoustic ceiling elements also look very attractive, as do many details in the foyers, such as the golden fresco.

This year, Beethovenfest aims to offer the people of Bonn a home in the Beethovenhalle. What does it take for a concert hall to become a city’s home?

I’d say it needs a programme that really appeals to a wide audience, not just niche programmes. Music that inspires people to come along. Music that thrills, touches the emotions and moves the soul. That is the sort of music I want to listen to myself, and that is also what I try to achieve with my music.

For the opening concert, you have composed a new piece to mark the inauguration of the hall. It is called a call to the heavens – is that meant to be religious? Who are we calling?

The title and the piece are not intended to be religious. By a call to the heavens, I mean a call for a greater power. It’s about the issues, conflicts and hardships of our time, and the search for solutions and answers. I want to describe, in a poetic, abstract way, the urge to solve seemingly impossible problems, and to find a way through great endeavour.

Do you see a concert hall as a place where people come together to contemplate the big questions?

That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it’s true. The piece is, after all, conceived in a very spatial way. The trumpets are positioned all around the audience, enveloping them. This creates an even greater sense of community than in a normal concert. In that sense, the collective of musicians and audience sends out this call.

Are there any particular features of the acoustics or the hall that you make the most of?

Yes. What’s really unusual about this hall is that it isn’t symmetrical. The galleries are only on the left, not on the right. I’ve never seen that in any other hall. Nor is the organ positioned in the centre; it’s on the left of the stage. I find that very appealing, because too much symmetry can make a space seem unnatural. Asymmetry creates tension, and that’s always more interesting. I’m actually playing with these very characteristics of the Beethovenhalle in the piece itself.

You’ve opted for an ensemble of 14 trumpets and organ. Why these instruments? How does that sound together in the hall?

I want this work to send out a powerful, energetic call. For that, I need the strongest instruments, and those are trumpets and the organ. The organ is, of course, very closely linked to the hall anyway, and also to the city of Bonn through the world-renowned firm Klais, which built the instrument for the Beethovenhalle. Seen in this light, Bonn is also a city of organs. Alongside the organ – the queen of instruments – comes the trumpet, the loudest instrument. Some of the musicians also play the flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet and bass trumpet to have even more registers and timbres at their disposal. The number of 14 trumpets is dictated by the architecture of the Beethovenhalle. The trumpets are positioned all around the audience – on stage, in the gallery, at the sides and at the back of the balcony. That makes 14 positions. What does that sound like? I’m aiming for a vast spatial sound – a sort of 14-channel stereo effect. All possible combinations form part of the work; the sound comes from the front, the back, the centre, the sides, in echoes, crossfades and much more besides. This makes the space tangible and audible. This is only possible in a concert hall and cannot be achieved at home with speakers.

You’re referring to 17th-century Venetian polyphonic choral music, where such spatial effects were experimented with from various galleries in St Mark’s Basilica. Is there also a connection to Beethoven’s sister-inauguration piece, Die Weihe des Hauses, which will be performed before?

Die Weihe des Hauses is a truly wonderful piece, but I’m not referring to it specifically: it does, however, share the solemn gesture with my work, as both are dedication pieces. The finales in particular, with their fanfare-like sense of redemption, bear an abstract resemblance. In fact, though, Giovanni Gabrieli’s polyphonic music was an important source of inspiration. I’ve been a fan of his music for a long time and have sung it a great deal myself in choirs. It was a wonderful discovery for me to learn that he experimented with the positioning of his musicians on the galleries of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Four hundred years ago, he did exactly what fascinates me so much today.

How would you describe your music in the context of the styles of New Music? What influences you?

I have to say that I don’t think in those terms at all. We often feel the urge to pigeonhole things, but as soon as certain buzzwords are bandied about, it’s no longer possible to perceive things freely, and that’s a great pity. I’m influenced by a great deal of very diverse music. From early music to contemporary music, serious music to popular music, and a whole range of different composers. In my music, my aim is to tell a story – and in an intuitive way, these influences and my own ideas come together differently with every piece. A call to the heavens could be compared to contemporary music from the USA, such as John Adams or Bryce Dessner, »post-minimal music«. But there are also quite different influences at play. It’s best to approach it with an open mind, allow yourself to be surprised, and let this unusual combination of sounds work its magic on you.

How did your commission from Beethovenfest come about? And what do you appreciate about the festival?

I’d already worked for Beethovenfest two years ago on the production A Soulful Missa. That was a soulful mass for choir and orchestra, performed together with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and the vocal ensemble A Song For You – a fantastic production. Later, I presented the artistic director, Steven Walter, with the idea of writing a site-specific piece for trumpets and organ. I think it’s brilliant that this has now become part of the 2026 opening concert. The openness of Beethovenfest is fantastic. You can see that in the musical programme for the opening concert too. The fact that there’s a world premiere there at all – I don’t know of any other similar festival where something like that happens. The stylistic breadth of the programme as a whole is incredibly wide. The openness and courage that this demonstrates are marvellous. This also ties in with the question of what sort of music is needed to inspire people and make them want to go to concerts. That is, after all, what we’re all looking for, and that’s why I feel at home at Beethovenfest.