The video for ECM New Series’ “Arvo Pärt: Musica Selecta – A Sequence by Manfred Eicher” is out, you can watch it here:
“[The Sonnets] show Wellesz’s music at that time to be closest to Berg’s, but still retaining echoes of Brahms, Mahler and even Richard Strauss.” (Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 9 September 2015)
Five out of five stars from Andrew Clements for Renée Fleming’s and the Emerson Quartet’s recording of Berg’s Lyric Suite and Egon Wellesz’ Sonnets after Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
“We listen to Feldman listening. We hear what he hears…we watch him compose in real-time.”
This is going to be a CD not to miss – Ivan Ilić plays Morton Feldman:
Catch a glimpse behind the scenes of the Neue Oper Wien’s upcoming production of Shostakovich’s The Nose in this short [German] video.
Matthias Oldag’s production will première on 22 September at the Kammeroper Wien, Walter Kobéra conducts the amadeus ensemble-wien and the Vienna Chamber Choir:
“Eine Akademie kann heute nur der Ort des Un-Akademischen sein!” (Wolfgang Rihm)
News from Lucerne: the Lucerne Festival has announced that from summer 2016, Wolfgang Rihm will be the new artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Academy.
Congratulations!
On 11 September, Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday, Helga Davis presents Toomas Siitan’s 24-hour playlist A World Apärt, a programme that originally streamed on 24 September 2014.
This year, the marathon will culminate with a live webcast of the New Juilliard Ensemble performing chamber works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur. Among the works performed will be Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel and Wallfahrtslied.
“- Welche Bedeutung hat oder hatte Schönberg für Sie?
- Von ihm ging ich aus. Er, Alban Berg und Anton Webern waren für mich musikalisch Grundnahrung in frühester Zeit.“ (Wolfgang Rihm and Tobias Schwartz, Der Tagesspiegel, 3 September 2015)
Composer Wolfgang Rihm talks to Der Tagesspiegel about Arnold Schönberg, twelve-tone technique and sensuous mathematicians.
The interview was held on the occasion of the opening of the Musikfest Berlin.
“When heard alongside the other composers of his generation, Schmidt can appear like a cheerful fish out of water.” (Gavin Plumley, The Guardian, 29 August 2015)
Gavin Plumley explores the question of why Franz Schmidt has almost disappeared from concert halls on The Guardian.
The next opportunity to hear Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 will be on 10 September, when it’ll be performed at this year’s BBC Proms. Before the concert, Gavin Plumley discusses the composer’s life and work.
Tune in to BBC Radio 3 on 10 September at 20:40 CET/CEST.
Issue No. 3 of our MusikSalon is out now and available for free!
We’ve dedicated our latest issue to Arvo Pärt – and interviewed music journalist Michael Stallknecht, record producer Manfred Eicher, director Dorian Supin, conductors Tõnu Kaljuste and Paul Hillier, and others.
David Sawer, Nicholas Collon and others talk about “Objects at an Exhibition”, a project by the Science Museum London and the Aurora Orchestra.
A live concert will take place on 3 October at 7:45pm at the Science Museum. Among the six world premières – all of them commissioned by NMC Recordings – that will be performed is David Sawer’s Coachman Chronos.
The accompanying album “Objects at an Exhibition“ will be released on NMC Recordings on 18 September.
The fully orchestrated versions, composed towards the end of the century, were laid bare by the presentation of the original piano pieces of 1945, written when he was just 20. It was a revelation. (Jonathan McAloon, The Telegraph, 24 August 2015)
Jonathan McAloon has recently reviewed A Day for Pierre Boulez for The Telegraph. The concert was held on Sunday, 23 August, at the Lucerne Festival.
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen for three orchestras: Petr Kotík, Johannes Kalitzke and Rolf Gupta will conduct the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ostravská banda at the Ostrava Days on 23 August.
“Don’t expect melodies, don’t expect harmonies: just expect soundscapes. I try to create a musical language which is not based on notated structures but only based on the perception of the sound.”
Georg Friedrich Haas talks about his upcoming opera Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening), which will première at the Royal Opera House on 13 November.
Michael Boder conducts Graham Vick production, which stars world renowned actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.
“To browse through the album of Marion Kalter is much more than to look at portraits of musicians [...] it is to enter in deep contact with the impenetrable world of music and musicians.” (Pierre Boulez on Marion Kalter, Paris, December 2006)
No other photographer has been as close to Boulez as French photographer Marion Kalter. For several decades she has accompanied him not only in Paris, but also at other focal points of his musical creativity.
Tonight, 20 August, she presents “Pierre Boulez: Images Exposed” at Das Kino in Salzburg.
Happy Birthday Johannes Maria Staud!
September will see three world premières by the composer: Auf die Stimme der weißen Kreide premières on 19 September in Strasbourg, Wasserzeichen on 20 September in Cologne.
Last but not least, Ensemble Modern premières the installation-based concert performance Specter of the Gardenia oder Der Tag wird kommen – an artistic venture by Staud and poet Josef Winkler – at the steirischer herbst opening on 25 September in Graz – we are excited!