All five operas, significantly perhaps, were first performed within a relatively short period – 1887 to 1925 – when the nature of marriage as an institution was under scrutiny right across the arts: think of the plays of Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov and Shaw, and the fiction of Henry James, Proust and DH Lawrence. (Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 6.1.2015)
In his final opera guide, Tim Ashley of The Guardian picked five operas that explore marital hell. Three of these picks are UE works: Leoš Janáček’s Katya Kabanova, Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
Read the full article on The Guardian.
Dear reader, dear Mozart-programmer,
we would like to thank you for the numerous positive reactions to our Newsletter's new format. They confirm our belief that there is a need for concise and clearly structured information on the music, composers and activities of UE.
It may surprise some to find themselves reading about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the editorial of this second volume. But Mozart's 250th anniversary in 2006 is of twofold importance to UE: firstly due to the results of the latest research on Mozart interpretation (Wiener Urtext Edition), and secondly thanks to all the new, exciting and highly individual ways in which our composers continue to deal with the phenomenon of Mozart. You can read more about Mozart - viewed and heard anew on page 18 -19.
The editors
Find our newsletter from 2004/2005 online and read the aforementioned feature on Mozart on pages 16 and 17 – yes, as the attentive reader might have noticed, we had the page numbers wrong.
The Opera de Lyon will host a new production Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten [The Stigmatized] under the direction of David Bösch on 13 March. Further performances take place on 17, 20, 22, 26 and 28 March.
View their teaser online:
I feel that whenever I play Arvo Pärt’s music I do begin to go deeper within myself in order to try to create something of this spirituality that his music contains. So it’s almost as if you go inside yourself and you question who you are and how this music is bringing out different aspects.
The piece of music that I have almost the least to do is the Spiegel im Spiegel, but what I have to do is almost let go of myself. I think that being a vessel for this piece is a good way of describing it. (Tasmin Little)
In August 2011, BBC Radio 4 published a show exploring the impact of Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel on listener’s lives.
BBC Radio 4 has recently uploaded the full programme to SoundCloud, listen to it here:
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In 1984, ECM brought “a new sound into the musical world” with the release of Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula rasa”, the first album on the label’s New Series imprint which was subsequently rereleased as a special edition CD. Tyran Grillo has written a short text on the history of the series for Sequenza 21. The full text is available here. Follow our #ArvoPart80 blog. |
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So what is this piece? This is a piece on Mona Lisa. It was premièred in 1915 and had well over 2000 performances between 1915 and 1933 – it was hit! It was a hit for well over a decade. We haven’t discovered this from some dusty shelf.
Leon Botstein brings Max von Schillings’ Mona Lisa to New York: the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival Chorale will perform a concert performance of the opera in 2 acts on 20 February at Carnegie Hall.
WQXR’s Elliott Forrest has recently interviewed Leon Botstein about Mona Lisa, watch the interview on YouTube:
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The Escher String Quartet’s recording of Alexander Zemlinsky’s String Quartets Nos 1 and 2 (we blogged about it earlier this year) has made it to The Guardian’s list of best classical CDs of 2014. Find out more on The Guardian. |
Stockhausen’s early percussion music is among the most visionary of the percussion repertoire. This unique collection features some works which are almost impossible to find elsewhere. (Mode Records)
Mode Records has recently released “Karlheinz Stockhausen: Complete Early Works for Percussion”, which includes the UE works Mikrophonie, Zyklus, Refrain and Schlagtrio.
Among the performing artists are Steven Schick (percussion and director) James Avery, Pavlos Antoniadis, Katalin Lukács and the percussion ensemble red fish blue fish.
The recording is available as 2-CD set or as a DVD, featuring a full video performance and interviews with Schick.
Congratulations!
The Recording Academy has announced its Special Merit Awards recipients: among this year’s honorees is Pierre Boulez.
A special invitation-only ceremony will be held during Grammy Week on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, and a formal acknowledgment will be made during the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.
Walk up, walk up! and spend a pleasant hour,
Fair ladies, noble gentlemen, with me;
Inside my tent you'll thrill – and chill – to see
The beasts I have in my menagerie
Tamed by superior force of human power.
Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production of Lulu at La Monnaie in Brussels was recently released on DVD by Bel Air Classiques. Find out more here.
Barbara Hannigan gives everything she’s got and then some to the title role. Charles Workman is the finely lyrical Alwa; Dietrich Henschel, never bettered, the troubled Schoen. It’s nicely conducted by Paul Daniel, too.
Read Tim Ashley’s review of the DVD on The Guardian.
“Music says what I need to say. And it is dangerous to say anything, because if I’ve said it already in words there might be nothing left for my music.”
John Allison of The Telegraph has published an interview with Arvo Pärt. Find the full text on The Telegraph.
Opera News has announced that Teresa Stratas will be among five recipients of the tenth annual Opera News Awards. Congratulations!
To the right: Teresa Stratas in the première of Boulez’ and Chéreau’s production of Lulu (in Friedrich Cerha’s orchestration).
“It is deeply shocking that the musical decisions of the Third Reich should continue to influence the programming of today’s cultural institutions. But what other explanation is there for the relative obscurity of Verlobung im Traum?” (Financial Times, Shirley Apthorp, 26.10.2014)
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the murder of Hans Krása in Auschwitz, the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe hosted a new production of the long-thought lost opera Verlobung im Traum [Betrothal in a Dream]. Almost two months after its première, Ingo Kerkhof’s production now returns for a second season in Karlsruhe.
Find the full programme on the website of the Badisches Staatstheater.
Hans Krása: Verlobung im Traum
opera in 2 Acts | 135'
12.12.2014, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe; Agnieszka Tomaszewska, Sina; Martina Borst/Dana Beth Miller, Marja Alexandrowna; Sofia Mara, Barbara; Badische Staatskapelle, cond. Justin Brown
Further performances: 17.12.2014, 6.1., 15.1, 21.1.2015
Together with HK Gruber, Hans Kann, H. C. Artmann, Gerhard Rühm, Fritz Wotruba and many others, Friedrich Cerha was a frequent guest at the Viennese Strohkoffer [straw case]. In 1987, he finished the 60 miniatures of Eine Art Chansons, most of which are based on texts by members of the Viennese Group.
Agnes Heginger and Studio Dan will present a selection of Friedrich Cerha’s Eine Art Chansons at the Sargfabrik in Vienna on 14 December. After having been encouraged by the composer to record the pieces, this will be a preview of their upcoming CD.