Tagged with 'Donaueschinger Musiktage'

What happens when the past and present become one? In Double Chaconne with Gaps Alexander Goehr takes the idea of a chaconne and transforms it with new dimensions. This exciting piece received its premiere on October 15th 2022 in the framework of the Donaueschinger Musiktage with the Talea Ensemble under the baton of Dirk von Lowtzow.

On 18 October at the Donaueschingen Festival, Ensemble Musikfabrik and with conductor Mariano Chiacchiarini will give the world premiere of Gerald Barry's No People. for 13 instruments. The work which has been commissioned by SWR, draws on Barry's earlier work by the same name.

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Please note:
After the publication of this article, the Donaueschingen Festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, we would like to invite you to learn about this interesting composition.

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The title, No People. is taken from surrealist Raymond Roussel's 1932 poem New Impressions of Africa for which he commissioned 59 drawings to illustrate the text. The commission was given to the artist via a detective agency - the artist, not knowing who the commissioner was and having never seen the texts, would receive simple instructions such as 'Nocturnal Landscape. Very starry sky with a thin crescent of moon. (No people.)' from which to realize the drawing.

“together, the ordinary everyday drawings take on a strangeness they might otherwise not have had if the artist had drawn on with the poem's text in front of him. It's the juxtaposition of both unknowns - poem/drawings - that give the final work its strange quality.” - Gerald Barry

No People. will be performed twice at the festival at 11.00 and 15.00 on 18 October allowing for as many attendees as possible to hear the music.

• Gerald Barry: composer profile


• No People.: work details


• Donaueschinger Musiktage

Chaya Czernowin’s inspiration for her new cello concerto, Guardian, grew from her in depth research of the human experience of time. The work is dedicated to cellist Séverine Ballon who along with the SWR-Sinfonieorchester and Pablo Rus Broseta, will give its world premiere at the closing concert of the 2017 Donaueschingen Festival on 22 October.



In our dreams, the brain creates its own worlds using fragments from our waking reality combined with figments of our imagination. In the same way, Czernowin creates works using fragments from the natural world expressed through her own creative voice. Guardian creates a gloomy alternative reality, in which time is elongated and compressed like an accordion.

Chaya Czernowin – Guardian: exploring the elastic quality of time

On the surface, Czernowin seems to adhere to traditional concerto form: a distinct solo line is supported by an orchestral accompaniment, interspersed with orchestral tuttis and a final cadenza.  But if we look more closely, the roles are anything but traditional.

Guardian is a floating exchange between the merging and parting of two sound bodies.  In one instance, the cello emerges from the orchestra but increasingly pulls away, getting louder and louder. At times the orchestra acts as a single cello.  The wind instruments for example are instructed to create breathy tones instead of distinct clear notes in order to resemble the bow being pulled on a string. The resulting dense clusters, played at pianissimo, create the illusion of a unison sound.

Two speakers amplify the solo cello, which ranges in sound from plaintive cantabiles to roaring like a wild animal. In the orchestra, extended techniques add shade and colour to Czernowin’s alternative world.

The field of Open Form in algorithmic visual computer work enables a multi-dimensional development of objects […], at any moment one or the other parameters of the shape takes over, impacting the overall form. This is the way in which this concerto thinks. – Chaya Czernowin

Guardian will be performed again at the rainy days festival in Luxembourg on 17 November with Roland Kluttig conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg with Séverine Ballon.

• Chaya Czernowin – profile


• Guardian – workdetails and score


• Donaueschinger Musiktage