On its final tour of the year, the MCO presents the world premiere of Endorphin - Concerto Grosso for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra by Danish composer Søren Nils Eichberg, a piece commissioned by the orchestra itself with support from the MCO Foundation.

According to the MCO’s wishes, Eichberg wrote an orchestral work that allows diverse groups of instruments and orchestral soloists to stand out and, in doing so, promotes the orchestra’s chamber music character. The MCO and the MCO Foundation intend to commission further works in the future that demonstrate a similar emphasis.

Søren Nils Eichberg dedicates Endorphin to Kolja Blacher, who will lead the world premiere from the concertmaster’s chair. Eichberg writes of his new composition:

"After a period of great popularity in the Baroque era, the musical form concerto grosso largely disappeared. My goal with Endorphin was to illuminate what in this traditional form can remain interesting for us today in a contemporary piece, and how this forgotten tradition can be rescued in our time.
In a concerto grosso, in contrast to a solo concerto, it is not an individual soloist but instead a group of players - in this case a string quartet - that emerges out of the orchestra. Sometimes the orchestra leads, sometimes the quartet. Sometimes they play against one another, sometimes together. Ideas originate here and are taken up there, are altered, responded to or even contradicted - and vice versa. The focus in the concerto grosso is not on the soloists’ virtuosic ability so much as on the constant changing of colours between the large and the small group. And just as interesting in itself is the dissolution and reconstitution of the small group into and out of the large.

About the title: Endorphins are what we often refer to colloquially as 'happiness hormones'. 'They are produced,' explains Wikipedia 'by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise, excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, and orgasm.'
Our own bodies reward us - or stimulate us - in certain situations with chemical substances that allow us to feel happiness. These substances are at the same time very similar to dangerous drugs, which can be very destructive even when used with caution. I found this ambivalence between euphoria and constant threat fitting for the atmosphere this music generated during the composition process: an ostensibly unadulterated joy in play and life that is at the same time almost at the point of collapsing into something hidden, broken. This duality is present from the very first tempo marking ('Overwrought', quarter note = 120)."

Endorphin will be combined with two works of Beethoven. The world premiere will take place in Landshut, followed by two further performances in Neumarkt and Viersen. The concert in Neumarkt will be recorded for CD and also broadcast live on Deutschlandradio.