Gerald Barry's Schott and Sons, Mainz in World Premiere

A new setting of Beethoven’s letters to the Schott publishing house in Germany towards the end of his life is given its world premiere by the Irish Chamber Choir and bass Stephen Richardson in Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery on October 21, with a repeat performance the following evening at the Belfast Festival. Irish composer Gerald Barry’s new work, Schott and Sons, Mainz for solo bass and SATB choir is set to be a dramatic, touching, humorous and sometimes volatile work displaying Barry’s talent for virtuoso word setting. Schott and Sons, Mainz follows the composer’s 2008 work Beethoven, a setting of Beethoven’s only surviving love letter to the so-called Immortal Beloved.

Barry’s new opera The Importance of Being Earnest will be given its world premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on April 7, 2011 and The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra will give the US premiere of the composer’s ensemble work Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions later in the season.

Gerald Barry-Composer Profile

Gerald Barry
Schott and Sons, Mainz (2009)
for bass solo and SATB choir
texts arranged by the composer from The Letters of Beethoven
collected and translated by Emily Anderson
22’

Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions (2008/2009)
for ensemble
1(afl).1.1.bcl.1-2.1.1.0-pno(cel)-str(2.0.1.1.1)
20’