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New Music Concert Listings
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11 Nov
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Monday, August 11, 2014 at 7.30pm
SALZBURG CONTEMPORARY • DALBAVIE • MOZARTEUM ORCHESTRA SALZBURG
Salzburger Festspiele
various, Salzburg, Austria
Austria
ttel.: +43-662-8045-500
http://www.salzburgfestival.at/
info@salzburgfestival.at
Christoph Eschenbach, Conductor
Mathieu Dufour, Flute
Dimitri Maslennikov, Cello
Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg
One part of the series Salzburg contemporary is dedicated to the French composer Marc-André Dalbavie, whose opera Charlotte Salomon will have its world premiere at the Felsenreitschule this year. Dalbavie, born in 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, began his career among the practitioners of Musique spectrale. This movement, also known as Spectralism, began to leave the approaches of serial music behind, turning instead towards the individual tone and analyzing its sound spectrum. Dalbavie, whose teachers included Tristan Murail (represented by his work Winter Fragments (2002) at Klangforum Wien’s concert), typically uses a compositional approach he himself calls ‘morphing’: musical subjects – scales, a chord, a sound field, a rhythmic or melodic figure – develop from each other or evolve into each other, overlapping and resulting in ever-new forms.
Like Stravinsky, whose Octet turned purposefully to the music of past centuries in 1922, marking the beginning of the phase of his output called ‘neo-classicism’, Marc-André Dalbavie makes frequent reference to past epochs. His piece Melodia (2008) for mixed ensemble is based on sound gestures found in Gregorian chant. In Palimpseste (2002) he superimposes his own writing on a madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo which continues to be heard in multiple ways, affecting Dalbavie’s music while being influenced and transformed by the latter. Dalbavie has also explored traditional genres, for example in his Quatuor à cordes, his string quartet from 2012 which will be performed by the Gringolts Quartet. Over the course of the years, he has written numerous instrumental concertos, including those for violin and piano, as well as Antiphonie, a double concerto for clarinet, basset horn and orchestra. In 2006 he wrote his Flute Concerto (revised in 2007) which uses the reduced instrumentation of orchestras of Mozart’s era; this will be performed by the Mozarteum Orchestra. Furthermore, there are concertos for orchestra such as Color (2001), Ciaccona (2002) and Concertate il suono (2007).
Dalbavie has always been interested in the human voice. In 2008 he wrote Sonnets de Louise Labé, setting poems by the French 16th century poet; Philippe Jaroussky, the cycle’s dedicatee, will interpret the work together with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Many facets of Marc-André Dalbavie’s oeuvre will be highlighted in Salzburg; the transparency and distinctive sound effects of his works, which can develop a tantalizing allure, along with his unmistakable personal style, have made him one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers.
Joseph Haydn : Symphony No. 21 in A, Hob. I:21
Marc-Andre Dalbavie : Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (2006, rev. 2007)
Marc-Andre Dalbavie : Suite for Cello and Orchestra (2013)
Ludwig Van Beethoven : Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 21
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11 Nov
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Monday, August 11, 2014 at 5.45pm
Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh
Scotland
http://www.eif.co.uk
Jörg Widmann Clarinet
Antje Weithaas Violin
Alban Gerhardt Cello
Steven Osborne Piano
The Festival’s Greyfriars concert series opens with one of the landmark compositions of the 20th century. Olivier Messiaen wrote his immensely powerful Quartet for the End of Time while a prisoner of war in Stalag VIII-A in Silesia, and it was premiered in the camp in 1941 to an audience of 400 fellow prisoners and Nazi guards. Despite its apocalyptic themes, drawn from the Book of Revelation, it is a glittering work of sublime, transcendent beauty, and it is performed by an ensemble of exceptional international soloists.
Olivier Messiaen : Quartet for the End of Time
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| 12 Nov |
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| 13 Nov |
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14 Nov
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Thursday, August 14, 2014 at 8pm
Britten War Requiem
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh
Scotland
http://www.eif.co.uk
Sir Andrew Davis Conductor
Albina Shagimuratova Soprano
Toby Spence Tenor
Matthias Goerne Baritone
Edinburgh Festival Chorus
NYCoS National Boys Choir
Christopher Bell Chorus Master
A cry of fury at the futility of war, and an intensely moving tribute to the dead. Benjamin Britten summed up his deeply held pacifist beliefs in his powerful War Requiem, which contrasts texts from the Latin Requiem Mass with searing visions of the First World War in poetry by Wilfred Owen.
It is a deeply humane masterpiece with a timely message of compassion and reconciliation, from the shattering fanfares of the 'Dies irae' to the exquisite concluding plea for peace.
Widely admired for his incisive accounts of British music and his expertise in choral works, Sir Andrew Davis directs the outstanding Philharmonia Orchestra, and gathers a stellar line-up of international vocalists, as well as the combined forces of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the boys of the NYCoS National Boys Choir.
Benjamin Britten : War Requiem
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15 Nov
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16 Nov
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Saturday, August 16, 2014 at 4.00pm
Basler Madrigalisten | ensemble dialogue | Soloists & Percussionists | Raphael Immoos | Fritz Hauser | Brigitte Dubach
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
ensemble dialogue | Basler Madrigalisten | Raphael Immoos conductor | Irina Ungureanu soprano | Rebecca Ockenden soprano | Barbara Schingnitz mezzo-soprano | Leslie Leon mezzo-soprano | Daniel Issa tenor | Robert Koller baritone | Jan Sauer baritone | Tiago Mota bass | Alexandre Babel percussion | Rie Watanabe percussion | Michael Weilacher percussion | Daniel Eichholz percussion | Fritz Hauser stage director | Katja Nestle costumes | Brigitte Dubach lighting
Jewish custom ascribes great significance to honoring the memory of the deceased. And so those who take part in mourning stay at home for a week of “sitting shiva,” during which period they are visited, cared for, and comforted by members of the community as they commemorate the dead. In Tante Hänsi (2006), the Swiss composer Mela Meierhans addressed herself to Christian folk rituals of mourning in her homeland and, in Rithaa (2010), to Islamic traditions. Now, in Shiva for Anne, the concluding third part of her Afterlife Trilogy, she explores Judaism – while also commemorating the British poet Anne Blonstein, who was originally to have written the libretto but who died in 2011.
Mela Meierhans : Shiva for Anne
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17 Nov
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Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 11am
Buchbinder & Friends
Grafenegg Auditorium
3485 Grafenegg 10 Österreich
Austria
+43 (0)1 586 83 83
http://www.grafenegg.com
tickets@tonkuenstler.at
PERFORMERS
Rudolf Buchbinder, piano
Georgy Goryunov, cello
Stefan Schilli, oboe
Jörg Widmann, clarinet
Bence Bogányi, bassoon
Radek Baborák, horn
Sunday could hardly begin more harmoniously: Following their great success in 2013, the matinees in Grafenegg are now entering their second year. Host Rudolf Buchbinder performs with outstanding chamber music partners from internationally acclaimed orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich. Jörg Widmann is on hand as composer and clarinettist; his Quintet for Winds and Piano opens the matinee, which is rounded off n classical style with music by Beethoven and Mozart.
Joerg Widmann : Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon and Piano
Ludwig Van Beethoven : Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano No. 4 B-flat major op. 11
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn and Piano in E-flat major KV 452
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17 Nov
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Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 7.30pm
TRPCESKI, PETRENKO
Grafenegg Auditorium
3485 Grafenegg 10 Österreich
Austria
+43 (0)1 586 83 83
http://www.grafenegg.com
tickets@tonkuenstler.at
European Union Youth Orchestra, orchestra
Simon Trpceski, piano
Vasily Petrenko, conductor
For the first time in 2014, the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) is also performing as part of the Grafenegg Festival, whilst away from the stage it will be honing its orchestral skills still further at the Academy. Both the prelude and the main concert feature music by Jörg Widmann, before the EUYO flies across the Atlantic to bring George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and John Adams back to Grafenegg. Conducting the EUYO is Vasily Petrenko, Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. The evening’s soloist is Simon Trpceski, a rising star of the international piano scene. After the concert, the EUYO winds down the evening with a Late Night Session.
Joerg Widmann : «Con brio» Concert Overture for Orchestra after motifs by Ludwig van Beethoven
George Gershwin : Rhapsody in Blue
John Adams : The Chairman Dances Foxtrot for Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein : Symphonic Dances from the Musical «West Side Story»
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17 Nov
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Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 6.30pm
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra | Daniel Barenboim | Soloists
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra | Daniel Barenboim conductor | Peter Seiffert Tristan | Waltraud Meier Isolde | Ekaterina Gubanova Brangäne | René Pape King Marke | Stephan Rügamer Melot
“O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe” (“Descend, o night of love”): No one has expressed emotional exuberance and feelings of boundless ecstasy more powerfully than Richard Wagner. In the second act of Tristan und Isolde he created a sound world celebrating the act of love – and was himself shocked by the powerful effect his own music had: “I fear that the opera will be banned,” wrote Wagner to his muse, Mathilde Wesendonck. “Only mediocre performances can save me! Completely good ones will drive people to insanity.” Be forewarned, then, that this concert may induce in you a state of madness! … Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is also capable of playing a tremendous diversity of music, as we will hear in the program’s first half, which features new works by the Israeli composer Ayal Adler and the Syrian composer Kareem Roustom. And it’s all in the spirit of Wagner: “Children! Make new things!”
Ayal Adler : Resonating Sounds for large orchestra
Kareem Roustom : Ramal for orchestra
Richard Wagner : Tristan und Isolde. Concert performance of Act Two
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| 18 Nov |
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19 Nov
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Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 7.30pm
Mahler Chamber Orchestra | Daniel Harding | Stefan Dohr
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
Mahler Chamber Orchestra | Daniel Harding conductor | Stefan Dohr french horn
Can music suggest hypocrisy? Antonín Dvořák's late-period tone poem The Wood Dove tests the idea. It involves a widow who makes the motions of mourning at her husband’s coffin, but her grief turns out to be a sham, for she had poisoned her spouse… Dvořák translates the inner voice of her tormented conscience into the plaintive cooing of a dove that in the end drives the murderess to suicide. Meanwhile, the putatively “American” melodies of the New World Symphony turn out, on closer inspection, to be a mirage. In fact, their syncopated rhythms and pentatonic lines could just as well be at home in the Bohemian provinces. Dvořák himself once mentioned that there was a popular pub in Prague called “Nový svet,” which means “new world.” And this interesting tidbit could perhaps give his Ninth Symphony an intriguing double meaning.
Antonin Dvorak : The Wood Dove
Wolfgang Rihm : Horn Concerto
Antonin Dvorak : Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 From the New World
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| 20 Nov |
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21 Nov
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Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 7.30pm
Britten – War Requiem
Royal Albert Hall, London
Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AP
United Kingdom
020 7589 8212
http://www.royalalberthall.com/
boxofficeenquiries@royalalberthall.com
Susan Gritton soprano
Toby Spence tenor
Hanno Müller-Brachmann baritone
BBC Proms Youth Choir
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons conductor
‘My subject is War, and the pity of War.’ Wilfred Owen’s shattering verse sits at the heart of Britten’s War Requiem – that great pacifist outpouring of horror and sorrow. To mark 100 years since the start of the 1914–18 conflict, the War Requiem is performed here by the same orchestra that premiered it in 1962.
The CBSO and Music Director Andris Nelsons are joined by the BBC Proms Youth Choir in its third great English choral work, following powerful performances of Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (2012) and Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony (2013).
Benjamin Britten : War Requiem
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21 Nov
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Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 8pm
PROMETHEUS DROWNED | AIRBORNE
Presteigne Festival
United Kingdom
01544 267800
http://www.presteignefestival.com
Nova Music Opera
Richard Williams director | George Vass conductor
Cast includes: Clare McCaldin mezzo-soprano; Christopher Good actor;
Donna Lennard soprano; Henry Manning baritone
Nova Music Ensemble
United by a common theme of misadventure, but distinct enough to engage and excite on many levels, Prometheus Drowned and Airborne make perfect performance partners.
Prometheus Drowned, Stephen McNeff’s reworking of an earlier Presteigne Festival
commission, is a chilling exploration of the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1822 at Livorno in Tuscany. Richard Williams has worked the libretto from contemporary sources, using journals, diaries and a number of Shelley’s own writings.
For Airborne, we move forward in history to World War I, where we meet Johnny, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, and Alice, a nurse in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The opera reflects their parallel experiences on 1 July 1916, allowing them to interact and sing and dance together as their minds go back to the high spots of their deepening love affair; both anticipate and then witness the huge debacle that was the Battle of the Somme.
Stephen McNeff : PROMETHEUS DROWNED
Cecilia McDowall : AIRBORNE
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21 Nov
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Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 7.30pm
TILLING, WIDMANN, NAGANO
Grafenegg Auditorium
3485 Grafenegg 10 Österreich
Austria
+43 (0)1 586 83 83
http://www.grafenegg.com
tickets@tonkuenstler.at
Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, orchestra
Camilla Tilling, soprano
Jörg Widmann, clarinet
Kent Nagano, conductor
The second weekend of the Grafenegg Festival opens with the premiere of the «Babylon-Suite» by Jörg Widmann, based on the opera «Babylon» which premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 2012. Conducting that celebrated opera premiere was Kent Nagano, recognised as one of the leading conductors of contemporary music. Afterwards Jörg Widmann performs as soloist in Mozart’s moving Clarinet Concerto. Gustav’s Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, with its famous soprano solo – sung here by Camilla Tilling – brings this evening in Grafenegg to a close.
The concert will be recorded and broadcast on 26 September at 7.30 p.m. on Radio Österreich 1 and on 12 October at 8 pm on Radio Niederösterreich.
Joerg Widmann : Babylon Suite for Large Orchestra
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major KV 622
Gustav Mahler : Symphony no. 4 in G major
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22 Nov
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23 Nov
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23 Nov
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23 Nov
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23 Nov
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Saturday, August 23, 2014 at 6.30pm
LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Orchestra & Chorus | Simon Rattle | Barbara Hannigan
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Orchestra | LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Chorus (James Wood chorus master) | Simon Rattle conductor | Barbara Hannigan soprano
The Academy kicks off with a triple premiere! This is the first time that Simon Rattle will have conducted the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY Orchestra, in a program that includes two works never before heard at the Festival. Le Silence des Sirènes is a brand-new score by the Korean composer Unsuk Chin that was especially written for her Lucerne retrospective as composer-in-residence. Coro, a major work by the Italian composer Luciano Berio, juxtaposes poems by Pablo Neruda with song lyrics from all around the world. It’s yet another example of Berio’s consistently non-dogmatic attitude. The vocal techniques of folk music from a widely diverse range of cultural traditions are at the center of this “anthology of different methods of setting words to music.” They are made to enter into a dialogue that erases the conventional boundaries between “serious” and “entertaining” music, between high art and folklore.
Unsuk Chin : Le Silence des Sirènes
Luciano Berio : Coro for 40 voices and orchestra
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24 Nov
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25 Nov
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25 Nov
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Monday, August 25, 2014 at 21.00
SALZBURG CONTEMPORARY • RIHM • GUSTAV MAHLER YOUTH ORCHESTRA
Salzburger Festspiele
various, Salzburg, Austria
Austria
ttel.: +43-662-8045-500
http://www.salzburgfestival.at/
info@salzburgfestival.at
Christoph Eschenbach, Conductor
Tzimon Barto, Piano
Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
As a child, Wolfgang Rihm wanted to be a painter, then a writer and finally a composer. Entire groups of works illustrate his close relationship with the visual arts, while numerous artist friendships give testament to the constant flow of energy between Wolfgang Rihm and painting.
His anti-cyclical ‘over-painting’ of works that seem to grow from one germ cell has led to large-scale open series and complexes of works. Starting with his Chiffren and Tutuguri cycles from the 1980s, Rihm made it clear that in his flow of music, form generates itself from beginnings and endings of music. The works Gedrängte Form and Gejagte Form, all the way to his Jagden und Formen (1995–2001), are eloquent examples of this, already evoking the principle of continuous shaping within their titles.
By now, there are three of Rihm’s Will Sound works: Will Sound More (2005/2011) is clearly differentiated from the wild movement of its predecessor Will Sound (2005) by its lyrical moments. ‘Something will sound because it wants to sound’, Rihm wrote about this: ‘The composer follows the will and the process of becoming and notates the spaces in between. The result is a form which reflects the energy wanting to shape itself.’ Expanding the work further, the composer has written Will Sound More Again, first performed in October 2011. With their free interplay of musical forces and their existence-affirming attitude, these Will Sound works are also an extension of his Jagden und Formen into a new complex of works.
The world premiere of a new piano concerto by Wolfgang Rihm is an event to look forward to particularly. Rihm began to compose piano music as a teenager. A first piano concerto is dated 1969. One year later and for a period of one decade exactly, he created seven very different and expansive piano works which set standards in contemporary piano literature on account of their playing technique, sensuality of sound, energy and aesthetics. Nachstudie for piano (1992/1994), lasting almost half an hour and placing enormous demands on the pianist as a whole, can be considered the crowning highlight of his piano oeuvre so far.
The entire experience of his life as a composer so far, all his studies of tradition – despite all outside interference – and all his visions for the history of piano music, far from complete: Wolfgang Rihm will bring them all to bear on his new piano concerto for pianist Tzimon Barto. One thing we can be sure of: musical balance will be attained through great arches of tension, through an audible ‘cutting into one’s own flesh’ and an articulation of tradition ‘which can only ever be my tradition’: ‘There are no historical models anymore, but there are positions which define a Now with a view to a Past (not derived from it), allowing us to see the Past as another Now (that of the past).’
Wolfgang Rihm : Piano Concerto No. 2
Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 7 in E
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25 Nov
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Monday, August 25, 2014 at 7.30pm
Ink Still Wet
Grafenegg Auditorium
3485 Grafenegg 10 Österreich
Austria
+43 (0)1 586 83 83
http://www.grafenegg.com
tickets@tonkuenstler.at
Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer des Composer-Conductor-Workshops, conductor
Jörg Widmann, director, presentation
Lothar Zagrosek, director of studies
«Ink Still Wet» is the title of the workshop offering composers the opportunity to rehearse their own compositions with a professional orchestra. Under the guidance of Jörg Widmann (Composer in Residence) and Lothar Zagrosek, one of the world’s leading conductors of contemporary music, the participants take the conductor’s stand to work on a finished performance of their music. «Ink Still Wet» promotes creative exchange not only between the writers and performers of contemporary music, but also the audience. Every stage of the workshop as well as the final concert are open to the public and free of charge. At the post-concert talk with the artists, you are invited to learn more about how composers and orchestras work together!
Contemporary Composers : Various
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26 Nov
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26 Nov
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27 Nov
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Wednesday, August 27, 2014 at 7.30pm
Lucerne Symphony Orchestra | James Gaffigan | Midori
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
Lucerne Symphony Orchestra | James Gaffigan conductor | Midori violin
Do composers always follow the strict rules of logic when they write their works? No, says the pianist Alfred Brendel, who compares Franz Schubert’s approach to that of a sleepwalker groping about as if in a dream. Rather than dissect his musical material, he repeats it, transforming and showing it in a new light. The psychological impression left on the listener is remarkable: “We feel as though we are not masters of the situation but its victims,” declares Brendel. James Gaffigan and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra will demonstrate this astonishing effect when they perform the Great Symphony in C major, about whose “heavenly lengths” Robert Schumann rhapsodized. As to which path composer-in-residence Johannes Maria Staud will take, that remains to be disclosed with the world premiere of his new violin concerto, which he wrote for “artiste étoile” Midori.
Carl Maria von Weber : Overture to the Romantic opera Oberon
Johannes Maria Staud : Oskar (Towards a Brighter Hue II)
Franz Schubert : Symphony No. 8 in C major, D. 944 Great
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| 28 Nov |
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| 29 Nov |
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30 Nov
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30 Nov
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Saturday, August 30, 2014 at
Jonathan Mills Sandakan Threnody
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh
Scotland
http://www.eif.co.uk
Ilan Volkov Conductor
Hibla Gerzmava Soprano
Claudia Huckle Contralto
Simon O’Neill Tenor
Andrew Staples Tenor
Jan Martiník Bass
Thomas Trotter Organ
Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Christopher Bell Chorus Master
The Festival's concert series at the Usher Hall concludes in epic style, with a blazing confrontation between darkness and light given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov.
Edinburgh International Festival Director and composer Sir Jonathan Mills's oratorio Sandakan Threnody honours the 2,500 British and Australian prisoners of war who lost their lives in the death marches in North Borneo during the Second World War.
By contrast, Janáček's Glagolitic Mass is a joyous affirmation of life. A cast of renowned international singers, the full force of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and acclaimed organist Thomas Trotter bring the Festival to a spectacular, jubilant close.
Jonathan Mills : Sandakan Threnody
Leos Janacek : Glagolitic Mass
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30 Nov
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Saturday, August 30, 2014 at 4.00pm
Zehetmair Quartet | Anu Komsi
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch
Zehetmair Quartet: Thomas Zehetmair violin | Kuba Jakowicz violin | Ruth Killius viola | Christian Elliott violoncello | Anu Komsi soprano
Heinz Holliger enjoys a close artistic friendship with Thomas Zehetmair, for whom he wrote his violin concerto titled Hommage à Louis Soutter. The composer’s Second String Quartet was likewise premiered by Zehetmair and his formidable quartet. The richly expressive sound world that Holliger has created in this work gives the players almost no time to breathe and explores the limits of this genre of “four reasonable people in conversation,” as Goethe once described the string quartet. Claude Debussy took a new look at this long-standing genre in his only string quartet, which is written not for a single, homogeneous ensemble but for four individuals and which disturbed his contemporaries with its unprecedented harmonies and shimmering timbres. We are excitedly looking forward to discovering the new paths Heinz Holliger will forge in his latest work, based on poems by Nikolaus Lenau!
Heinz Holliger : String Quartet no. 2
Claude Debussy : String Quartet in G minor
Heinz Holliger : Increschantüm. Poems by Luisa Famos (1930–1974) for soprano
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5 Dec
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Friday, September 5, 2014 at 20:00
Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden
Philharmonie Hall, Berlin
Germany
GIDON KREMER violin
SÄCHSISCHE STAATSKAPELLE DRESDEN
CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN conductor
Composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who was born in 1931, once wrote that “as an ideal, I regard a kind of relationship to tradition and to new compositional means in which the artist masters all the means – both the new ones and the traditional ones – but in such a way as if he were not paying attention to either. There are composers who construct their works very consciously, but I am one of those who instead tend to ‘cultivate’ their works. And this is why the entire world as I perceive it forms more or less the roots of a tree, and the work which grows out of it represents the branches and the leaves. One can call them new, but they are nonetheless leaves, and from this point of view they are always traditional, old.”
This Sächsische Staatskapelle Berlin concert under Christian Thielemann will present Gubaidulina’s Second Violin Concert, which was composed in 2007 and is titled “In Tempus prasens”; the soloist is Gidon Kremer. Also on the programme is the Ninth Symphony by Anton Bruckner, a composer who also “cultivated” his works – even if for entirely different reasons than Gubaidulina. The lack of understanding that Bruckner’s symphonies were met with – Eduard Hanslick once chastised them as “gigantic snakes” – led to the composer revising many of his works multiple times. Unfinished at the time of Bruckner’s death in 1896, the Ninth was time and again interrupted by work on new versions of the composer’s First, Third and Eighth Symphonies.
Sofia Gubaidulina : In Tempus praesens Concerto for violin and orchestra
Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 9
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6 Dec
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Saturday, September 6, 2014 at 3.00pm
A Portrait of Sir Harrison Birtwistle
Albert Hall, London
Kensington Gore London SW7 2AP
United Kingdom
http://www.royalalberthall.com
Christine Rice mezzo-soprano
Exaudi
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Oliver Knussen conductor
Along with fellow Lancastrian composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Harrison Birtwistle celebrates his 80th birthday this year. The Proms marks the occasion with a concert from one of the UK’s leading new music ensembles, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
The group’s relationship with Birtwistle’s music is a long one, and here it performs three of the composer’s classic early works. Each explores the spatial dramatisation of music, playing aural games with the audience and exposing them to intriguing and unfamiliar textures, while never neglecting the ever-unfolding melody that is at the core of all Birtwistle’s music.
Harrison Birtwistle : Verses for Ensembles
Harrison Birtwistle : Dinah and Nick's Love Song
Harrison Birtwistle : Meridian
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7 Dec
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Sunday, September 7, 2014 at 17:00
Musikfest Berlin
Philharmonie Hall, Berlin
Germany
Nicolas Hodges
In “Serynade”, the piano piece Helmut Lachenmann composed between 1997 and 2000, he traces new sounds the instrument can produce, how they might emerge through differentiated touch techniques or a new way of using the pedals. The wordplay in the title of the approximately 30-minute composition alludes to the first letter of the first name of Lachenmann’s wife, Japanese pianist Yukiko Sugawara. This title, however, also places the composition in a series of piano works by other composers, who took up the tradition of the serenade as a form of sophisticated 18th century entertainment music and sublimated it into subtle musical character portraits. English pianist Nicolas Hodges’ repertoire has included Lachenmann’s “Serynade” for over a decade now, and his interpretation has received high praise, not least from the composer himself. In the first part of his piano evening, Hodges presents “Zwei Linien”, a piece that Wolfgang Rihm spent 13 years on as a kind of “work in progress”. The title of the composition reflects Rihm’s focus on the two-part piano works of Johann Sebastian Bach such as the Inventions or Duetti. Rihm used Bach’s music as a starting point for his own creative work, and Hodges highlights this by opening the recital with Bach’s 4 Duetti BWV 802-805.
J.S. Bach : Four Duets from Clavier-Übung III BWV 802-805
Wolfgang Rihm : Zwei Linien
Franz Schubert : Plaintes d’un troubadour in A flat major from Six Moments musicaux D 780
Helmut Lachenmann : Serynade for piano
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8 Dec
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Monday, September 8, 2014 at 20:00
Bamberger Symphoniker
Philharmonie Hall, Berlin
Germany
CHRISTINE SCHÄFER soprano
PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD piano
CHRISTIAN SCHMITT organ
BAMBERGER SYMPHONIKER
JONATHAN NOTT conductor
“In ‘The Man Without Qualities’ Musil commented on the zeitgeist of the early 20th century to the effect that: “some spotted new ideas, and others, knowing they would have to move out, really ‘lived’ in the old building one last time. Strauss does it with a huge orchestral apparatus.” (Helmut Lachenmann)
The composer Helmut Lachenmann, who like no other moulded the instrumental language of our time, reveals in this comment his deep admiration for Richard Strauss, man of the fin de siècle, and the link between the two composers also becomes apparent. Richard Strauss features on this evening’s concert programme with his “Four Final Songs” for soprano and orchestra, which was composed a year before his death in 1948 – yet another of his works that explore the possibilities of the late Romantic orchestral apparatus with great expertise and artistry in orchestration. 36 years later, Helmut Lachenmann devoted himself to a musical form that was certainly called into question after 1945 and developed a contemporary redefinition of the genre – the piano concerto. Fragments of material are subjected to a permanent metamorphosis in “Ausklang”, his work piano and orchestra. Max Reger, too, showed in particular in his organ compositions how one could redefine “old forms and genres” – such as choral preludes, fantasies and fugues – that had already been confined to the annals of history.
With this programme and the renowned soloists Christine Schäfer (soprano), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano) and Christian Schmitt (organ), the Bamberger Symphoniker under Jonathan Nott are once again guests at Musikfest Berlin.
Max Reger : Fantasy and Fugue for organ in D minor op. 135b
Richard Strauss : Four Last Songs
Helmut Lachenmann : Ausklang
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8 Dec
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Monday, September 8, 2014 at 10.15pm – c11.30pm
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Birthday Concert
Albert Hall, London
Kensington Gore London SW7 2AP
United Kingdom
http://www.royalalberthall.com
Dimitri Ashkenazy clarinet, Proms debut artist
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Ben Gernon conductor, Proms debut artist
On Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s 80th birthday the Proms pays tribute to this leading figure in contemporary British music with a late-night programme of works selected by the composer.
The concert overture Ebb of Winter, commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations, captures the rugged, rough-hewn beauty of Davies’s Orkney home. We see a different side of island life in the joyous ebullience of the much-loved An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise. The fourth Strathclyde Concerto, for clarinet and orchestra, completes the concert – a thrilling tour de force, demanding equal virtuosity from soloist and ensemble.
Peter Maxwell Davies : Concert Overture 'Ebb of Winter'
Peter Maxwell Davies : Strathclyde Concerto No. 4
Peter Maxwell Davies : An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
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