Rosendal Chamber Music Festival 2025
Photo: Liv Øvland
About Rosendal Chamber Music Festival
“A festival that is intimate and rich in personality, idyllic and profound”
Bayerische Rundfunk
The Rosendal Chamber Music Festival was founded in 2016 by pianist and Artistic Director Leif Ove Andsnes, who invites guest musicians and speakers to join him each summer for five days of music-making. Set within the spectacular landscape of Baroniet Rosendal in west Norway, the remote location – surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and the sea – creates an ideal environment for an intense chamber music experience, drawing visitors from around the world.
Photo: Liv Øvland
With up to 10 concerts, each festival explores a different theme centred around a particular composer or specific period, whilst accompanying lectures give additional insight to the musical life and arts of the time.
“One of the joys of creating a festival programme is that it allows you to focus in depth on a particular aspect of a composer’s life and music” says Leif Ove Andsnes. “In 2016, for the first Rosendal Chamber Music Festival we focused on 1828 – the year of Franz Schubert’s death which was also a year in which the composer wrote some of his most poignantly beautiful music.”
“For our second festival I put together a programme around another big passion of mine – the chamber music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Despite all the wonderful chamber music Mozart wrote, only a few pieces are regularly performed in festivals and so I wanted 2017 to be an intense Mozart celebration, showing the extraordinary diversity of his music.”
In subsequent years the focus has ranged from the poignant legacy of music written In the Shadow of War 1914-1918 (2018), to the life and times of Shostakovich (2019), the national identity of the music of Dvořák and his contemporaries in From my Homeland (2021) and the inner worlds of Ludvig van Beethoven (2022) and Johannes Brahms (2023).
Photo: Liv Øvland
“Sadly, the 2020 festival had to be cancelled because of the pandemic and, though we managed to film one concert without audience that year, our celebration for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludvig van Beethoven’s birth had to be postponed to 2022. That was followed by an indepth focus on the life and times of Johannes Brahms (2023).”
The mowt amitious of all Leif Ove Andsnes’ programmes came in 2024 with contrasts – an exploration into the world of Hungarian music, including works by Liszt, Bartók, Kodaly and Kúrtag. In direct contrast, and also central to the festival, was the music of J.S. Bach with two performances of the St John Passion, featuring the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir and an orchestra of internationally renowned baroque players led by Grete Pedersen.
Photo: Liv Øvland
“The idea for an intimate festival running over several days grew from my love of Baroniet Rosendal” says Leif Ove Andsnes, who has been a regular guest at the Manor House, performing there for more than twenty-five years. “This is a very special place and music has been a part of its cultural life for generations. It’s incredible to think that artists and musicians have been crossing the fjord for over three hundred years and amongst them were apparently both Edvard Grieg and Ole Bull – our Bergen musical legends.”
Today Leif Ove Andsnes invites fellow musicians from around the world, who all make the same long journey across the fjord, to perform together in Rosendal. International guest artists who have appeared at the festival to date include pianists Kristian Bezuidenhout, Bertrand Chamayou, Kirill Gerstein, Marc-André Hamelin, Vikingur Ólafsson and Francesco Piemontesi, as well as Vilde Frang, Alina Ibragimova and Christian Tetzlaff (violin), Tabea Zimmermann and Antoine Tamestilt (viola), Sol Gabetta, Clemens Hagen, Steven Isserlis and Christian Poltéra (cello), Sharon Kam and Martin Fröst (clarinet), Anna Prohaska and Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Andrei Bondarenko and Matthias Goerne (baritone).
Photo: Liv Øvland
Baroniet Rosendal
The history of Rosendal dates back to the 1650s, when the nobleman Ludvig Rosenkrantz arrived in Bergen as War Commissioner to the Danish-Norwegian King, Frederick III. There he met Karen Mowat, sole heiress to the largest fortune in the country at the time. They were married in 1658 and were given the noble estate Hatteberg as a wedding present. Here they built their home which they named Rosendal, a manor house in stone with a walled renaissance garden. It became the administrative centre of an estate of 500 farms and was given the unique status of the only barony in Norway by King Christian V of Denmark and Norway in 1678. The property remained in private ownership until 1927, when the last owner donated it to the University of Oslo. Today Baroniet Rosendal is a museum offering valuable insight into an important period of Norwegian History.
Photo: Liv Øvland
Festival locations
Alongside occasional performances in the manor house itself, the main location for the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival is Riddersalen (Great Hall) – a 400 seat concert hall, converted from a barn on the estate especially for the festival. Additional concerts take place in the white-washed 13th century Kvinnherad church, majestically perched on top of a hill overlooking the fjord.
”A chamber music festival rich and precious for the quality of the performers and for the depth of the themed programmes.”
La Repubblica
“The four day experience of this music festival is indescribable. With the backdrop of such wonderful scenery, the festival is somehow augmented by a deeper concentration of the theme and the high level of performance.”
Asia Music Weekly
Previous Rosendal Chamber Festivals
About
In 2024, pianist and Artistic Director Leif Ove Andsnes presented his most ambitious programme to date and invited more than 60 guest artists to the “small but big festival in the wilds of Norway” (El Pais).
The scene and title for the 2024 Festival is set by Bela Bartók’s Contrasts, which launches a five day exploration into the world of Hungarian music, including works by Liszt, Kodaly and Kúrtag. In direct contrast, and also central to the festival, is the music of J.S. Bach with two performances of the St John Passion featuring the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir and an orchestra of internationally renowned baroque players led by Grete Pedersen, as well as further programmes exploring Bach’s secular and chamber music works.
Additional guest artists this summer include Zlata Chochieva and Nikita Khnykin (piano), Masato Suzuki (harpsichord), Vilde Frang and Florian Donderer (violin), Antoine Tamestit (viola), Tanja Teztlaff (cello), Christian Henriksen (doublebass), Quatour Agate, Aleksander Aga Røynstrand (hardanger fiddle), Wenzel Fuchs (clarinet), Ragnhild Lothe (horn), Benedikt Kristjánsson (tenor), Ruth Wilhelmine Meyer (vocal artist and composer) and Ragnhild Gudbrandsen (actress).
Introducing the 2024 festival Leif Ove Andsnes says: “The idea for CONTRASTS, evolved out of last year’s festival where we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Ligeti’s birth and the life of Brahms, whose music includes so many Hungarian traits. It therefore felt natural to continue that line of exploration, especially as Hungarian music history is particularly potent. Few other countries have given birth to such a wide range of musical personalities, all of whom have integrated the narrative of their homeland into their works in such spectacular ways, especially when one thinks of the challenges many of these composers endured as a result of politics past and present. Their lives and times are reflected in their music – both in the virtuosity and demands of extreme expression.”
“In complete contrast, we will pay tribute to Johan Sebastian Bach. It has long been my wish to invite the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir to Rosendal and this year provides us with the perfect opportunity to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first performance of the St John Passion. This masterpiece is as powerfully dramatic and moving today as it was in 1724 and bringing it to Rosendal – a place far removed from the world’s political stage, built around the time that Bach was born – offers us a calm space to listen and think, in sympathy with those suffering in times of conflict around the world.”
“Med Rosendal Kammermusikfestival har Leif Ove Andsnes satt en standard som allerede i åpningsåret har gjort den til en av landets viktigste i sitt slag. Alle skyhøye forventninger ble i høyeste grad innfridd.”
Mona Levin / Klassisk Musikk
“In addition to the intelligence of its programming and the very high level of its performers, the festival benefits from what is often lacking in more upscale venues: authenticity and a truly magical atmosphere.”
Bertrand Boissard / Diapason Magazine
“Rosendal simply must be experienced.”
Ursula Magnes / Radio Klassik / Austria
“Mozart in paradise … Leif Ove Andsnes and a group of extraordinary musicians immersed themselves in the genius of the composer in a small but big festival in the wilds of Norway.”
Luis Gago / El Pais
"A festival that is intimate and rich in personality, idyllic and profound."
Kathrin Hasselbeck / Bayerische Rundfunk / Germany
“Intelligent formidling og enestående musikere får den klassiske musikken til å skinne i Rosendal.“
Emil Bernhardt / Morgenbladet
“The four day experience of this music festival is indescribable. With the backdrop of such wonderful scenery, the festival is somehow augmented by a deeper concentration of the theme and the high level of performance.”
Rudolf Tang / Asia Music Weekly
“Rosendalfestivalen solgte ut alle billetene på et par dager i vinter. Oppskriften er enkel: Kammermusikalsk kjernestoff, uten sviskeappell og med et modig innslag av samtidsmusikk.”
Lars O.Flydal / Vårt Land
“This is a Utopian place for Utopian musicians.”
David Nice / The Arts Desk
“Det er lenge siden jeg har sett fram til en festival så mye som Rosendal Kammermusikkfestival.“
Magnus Andersson / Klassekampen
A chamber music festival rich and precious for the quality of the performers and for the depth of the themed programmes.”
Leonetta Bentivoglio / La Repubblica
"Nivået på musikerne og den kløktige utformingen av konsertprogrammene gjør denne festivalen enestående …"
Eystein Sandvik / NRK Radio
“Ten concerts in four days in a spot of breathtaking natural beauty … This, in a nutshell, is the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival“
Matthew Gurewitsch / Classical Voice North America
In cooperation with
The Rosendal Chamber Music Festival extends deep thanks to Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen, whose meaningful financial support has made the festival’s ambitious artistic goals attainable.