Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen is currently running at La Monnaie De Munt. You can now watch a recording of the production on ARTE Concert:
The US première of Georg Friedrich Haas’ concerto grosso No. 1 for four alphorns and orchestra (hornroh modern alphorn quartet; Los Angeles Philharmonic, cond. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla) takes place on 1 April at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
Arvo Pärt with Gidon Kremer, Tatjana Grindenko and the Kremerata Baltica rehearsing Tabula rasa at the Fondation Louis Vuitton – a work that Kremer and Grindenko premièred 40 years ago (on 30 September 1977) and later recorded on ECM’s homonymous seminal album.
Tabula rasa, Fratres, Passacaglia and the French première of Greater Antiphons will be performed tomorrow and the day after at the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s Hommage à Arvo Pärt.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the death of Karol Szymanowski – a man whose life comprises a Polish lack of openness and Viennese bohème, Catholic strictness and the Dionysian, ecstasy and ascesis.
The latest issue of our magazine MusikSalon is dedicated to the composer.
The concert version of Frank Martin’s Le Vin herbé (The Magic Potion) – “A Tristan with a difference” – was premièred 75 years ago, on 28 March 1942 in Zurich.
We are happy to see the work being performed today in Bristol by the WNO.
I would bind Jenůfa simply with the black ribbon from the long illness, suffering and laments of my daughter Olga and my little boy Vladimír. (Leoš Janáček, 1924)
With his third opera Jenůfa Leoš Janáček succeeded in making his breakthrough as an operatic composer. Since the premiere of this moving story about the fate of the sexton and her stepdaughter Jenůfa at the Brno National Theatre in 1904, it has become one of the composer’s most frequently performed works.
Annilese Miskimmon’s critically acclaimed production is currently being performed at the Royal Swedish Opera. The production opened on 18 March, further performances take place on 25, 28 and 31 March and on 3 and 6 April.
Watch the trailer on YouTube:
Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen premières in the new production by Belgian artist and director Christophe Coppens tonight at La Monnaie / De Munt.
The young Italian-French conductor Antonello Manacorda leads the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra.
Watch the trailer here:
With the Ensemble intercontemporain, Matthias Pintscher will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the ensembles founding in an evening that pays homage to Pierre Boulez.
arte will broadcast the whole concert live on 18 March at 20:30. On the programme: works by Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern and Pierre Boulez.
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Alexander Zemlinsky.
Mahler’s famous remark that his “time will come” was echoed by Schönberg’s assessment of Zemlinsky when he said about him in 1949: “I always firmly believed that he was a great composer and I still believe this. It is possible that his time will come sooner than we think”.
A new production of our critical edition of his one-act opera The Birthday of the Infanta will be premièred on 25 March at the Oper Graz.
Slowly but surely, Germany has played catch-up with Weill’s music – in particular through the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, currently celebrating its 25th anniversary. The festival, which ends this year on Sunday, March 12, began as a fantasy and has since grown into a microcosm of the work Germany has done to restore the legacy of a musical hero. (Joshua Barone, The New York Times, 9 March 2017)
The New York Times has dedicated an extensive article to the 25th Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, which runs until 12 March.
Panopticon continues a line of enquiry present in pieces of mine beginning with graft (1999) for string quartet through to Hauptstimme (2013) for solo viola and ensemble, and Hirta Rounds (2015) for sixteen unconducted strings – namely the role of the individual within a larger, group setting and particularly, the functions of leaders and followers. (David Fennessy)
Congratulations to David Fennessy! This is how Scottish Award for New Music looks like, which the composer has received for his work Panopticon. The award ceremony took place yesterday, on 8 March.
The bowl was made by Elaine Henderson and was cast in black porcelain – and it is engraved with a unique sound print taken from an extract of Fennessy’s music.
Wolfgang Rihm’s Missa brevis for choir a cappella will be premièred by Rupert Huber and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks on 11 March at the Prinzregententheater in Munich.
Before the concert, host Johann Jahn presents a concert introduction with Rupert Huber, Martin Smolka, Robert Moran and Vinko Globokar.
The concert will be broadcast live on br-klassik.de and a recording will be available on demand for one week.
In its 25th year, the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau celebrates Kurt Weill with almost 60 events on 17 days.
ZDF did a feature on the festival on their evening news programme, which you can watch here:
“We can establish our knowledge about the world, and through the light of other musical languages we can understand ours better as well. … The world becomes more and more open, and the art limited to one nation loses its sense as time passes. We are closer to the realisation of world music than to the world literature imagined by Goethe.” (Zoltán Kodály)
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Zoltán Kodály. In the article A patriot, not a nationalist, Mihály Ittzés writes about the composer’s aim “to make his nation’s voice audible” and to be a “teacher of Hungary”.
Leoš Janáček’s Katya Kabanova is currently running at the McCaw Hall in Seattle. Oliver von Dohnányi conducts Patrick Nolan’s Seattle Opera production.
Watch the trailer: