Work of the week

On 11 November, Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s 1930s opera Simplicius Simplicissimus will be given its UK premiere at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. The Independent Opera production, directed by Polly Graham with Timothy Redmond conducting the Britten Sinfonia, will use a new English translation by David Poutney.

In three acts, the opera tells the story of a naïve shepherd boy, Simplicius Simplicissimus, during the horrific Thirty Years' War which devastated Germany in the seventeenth century. Simplicius doesn’t understand his father who tries to warn him of the evils of the world, nor his mysterious dreams of a ‘tree of life’. After a series of unfortunate events, such as the destruction of his family farm and his kidnapping, Simplicius retrospectively understands his dream as a metaphor for social injustice.

Hartmann's Simplicius Simpliccissimus - History repeats itself

Hartmann’s work, based on the 1668 novel “Der Abentheurliche Simpliccimus Teutsch” by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, was also shaped by the political circumstances of his present time. Though it was composed in 1934-1935, Simplicius Simplicissimus was not premiered until 1949 since Hartmann’s music was classified as “degenerate Art” by the Nazi regime. A parallel is drawn between the two historically distinct events, and the opera becomes an allegorical outcry against war and tyranny.

I became acquainted with the book and the descriptions of the Thirty Year’s War captured my attention. How current the line seemed to me: “The times are so strange, that nobody knows whether they will get out of it all without losing their life.” Then, as now, the individual was helplessly at the mercy of the devastating brutality of the age, where people were close to losing their souls. There was no hope for salvation, except in the most simple-minded human brought forth against it. – Karl Amadeus Hartmann

Hartmann realises this historic parallel musically by incorporating among others passages of Jewish melodies, creating a complex network of compositional meaning. Also prominent is the use of a German folk melody from the 13th century, put to the words “oh world I must leave you” (“Oh Welt ich muss dich lassen”). Withdrawal from the world is a very important theme in Hartmann’s work, but at the same time, the opera shows its impossibility: reality can be found reflected in Hartmann’s engagement with an older history, and even in Simplicius innocent fantasies.

The Independent Opera’s production of Simplicius Simplissimus will have repeat performances on the 15, 17 and 19 November. Next year the work will be performed in Bremen, Germany from 28 January.

 

• Karl Ama­deus Hart­mann — Pro­file


• Sim­pli­cius Sim­pli­cis­si­mus — Details


• Inde­pen­dent Opera at Sadler’s Wells Lon­don 

 

Photo: Monika Rit­ters­haus, Oper Frank­furt 2009

On 5 November Heinz Holliger will conduct the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música for the Portuguese premiere of his violin concerto "Hommage à Louis Soutter" with the work’s dedicatee, violinist Thomas Zehetmair, as soloist.

Like other concertos by Holliger, such as Siebengesang and Turm-Musik, Hommage à Louis Soutter is inspired by the life of an artist. As a painter, Louis Soutter’s art was shaped by mental illness and an obsessive creative urge. He spent the last 20 years of his life in a care home where he produced most of his artworks, often painting with his fingers and sometimes with his whole body. In his youth, Soutter was also a gifted violinist and performed with the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, and Holliger composed the concerto in honour of the orchestra’s 75th anniversary.

Holliger’s Hommage a Louis Soutter – ‘Paint Truth. The Truth is terrifying.’ (Hermann Hesse)

The concerto is divided into four movements – Mourning, Obsession, Shadows, and Epilogue – which are played continuously without breaks. The first movement contains musical quotations from the third violin sonata of composer/violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who was Soutter’s violin teacher for many years. The elegiac and sombre tone of the first movement gradually descends into madness for the second movement (‘Obsession’) as stirring rhythms are developed in the music. In ‘Shadows’, Holliger evokes a sense of alienation, a dislocation from one’s former experience of life in an eerie third movement that builds to a climax before the music collapses in on itself.

The concerto’s final movement ‘Epilogue’ was added much later and captures the resigned atmosphere of Soutter’s painting ‘Before the Massacre’. Like Soutter’s black and crooked figures, the music is in agony. The violin plays tormented chords over gloomy sonorities from the orchestra to create an overwhelming sense of despair.

For me, being different is something natural in life. I don’t look for sickness in a person; I am looking for people who do not have limits to their imagination, who can break through, into either the world of insanity or a hereafter. Such people have finer antennas than others; they have a more direct access to their subconscious minds. – Heinz Holliger

On 1 November, Casa da Música will also present Holliger’s large scale work Scardanelli-Zyklus based on texts of Friedrich Hölderlin, a poet who was also affected by mental illness in the last years of his life. Prior to the national premiere of Hommage à Louis Soutter on 5 November, Holliger’s solo works will be performed in different locations throughout the venue in preparation for the evening’s performance.

• Heinz Hol­li­ger — Pro­file


• Concerto “Hom­mage à Louis Sout­ter” — Details 


• Scar­da­nelli-Zyklus — Details


• Porto Casa da Música

On 27 October the opening of the new Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr concert hall in Bochum, Germany, will be celebrated with an inaugural concert featuring the world premiere of Stefan Heucke’s cantata Baruch ata Adonaj. Commissioned by Bochumer Symphoniker, the new 30 minute work for solo baritone, three treble voices, choir and orchestra will be performed by Bochumer Symphoniker, ChorWerk Ruhr and Philharmonische Chor Bochum under the baton of Steven Sloane. The baritone part will be sung by Martijn Cornet and the three treble parts will be performed by members of the Chorakademie Dortmund.

Baruch ata Adonaj by Stefan Heucke – Space and sound rearranged

Heuke’s intended staging of Baruch ata Adonaj aims to showcase the new hall’s excellent acoustics. Beginning with an empty stage, the solo baritone and trebles sing the cantata’s opening rhapsodic melody in call and response from opposing balconies to form the basis of eight sequential variations. The eight movements alternate between instrumental and vocal settings of the central melody as Heucke gradually develops delicate chamber music-like textures into the full sound capabilities of the combined large ensembles. As the empty stage gradually fills with musicians the concert hall is progressively filled with sound.

For the inauguration of the new Musikforum, Bochum Symphony commissioned from me a work to celebrate the completion of the long term project as well as a blessing for its future. In it, more and more singers and instrumentalists enter the stage, leading to a radiant culminating Amen, at which point the whole room is inhabited and inaugurated with music. - Stefan Heucke

The text ‘Baruch ata Adonaj’ is a Hebrew blessing that holds an important place in Jewish tradition. Whilst it is customarily used to give thanks for food or wine, it can also be used to remark on exceptional occasions, such as the opening of the Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr promises to be. The Musikforum will also become the first permanent venue of the Bochumer Symphoniker.

A second performance of Heucke’s Baruch ata Adonaj will take place on 28 October and on 29/30 October, Bochumer Symphoniker will present a program including Igor Stravinsky’s ever popular Firebird Suite.

• Stefan Heucke - Profile


• Baruch ata Adonaj - Details


• Bochumer Sinfoniker

On 20 October, Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (“Der Fliegende Holländer”) will celebrate its opening night at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp, Belgium. Directed by Tatjana Gürbacas and conducted by Cornelius Meister and Philipp Pointer, the production will run until 4 November, followed by performances in Gent until the 22 November. This production is the first to use material for The Flying Dutchman from the Richard Wagner Complete Edition.



First completed in 1841 as a “Romantic Opera in One Act and Three Scenes”, The Flying Dutchman went through a tale of constant revision. Even before the Dresden premiere (2 January 1843) Wagner undertook fundamental alterations. He transposed the location from Scotland to Norway, changed characters’ names as appropriate, divided the opera into three acts, and transposed Senta’s Ballad from A minor to G minor. It was this version of the opera that went to print in 1845. For a performance in 1860 he composed the later so-called ‘Tristan’ or ‘Redemption’ ending to the Overture. As with Wagner’s later opera Tannhäuser, to this day there is no definitive final version of The Flying Dutchman.

The Flying Dutchman – An eternal work in progress?

 

Despite claiming to have written the original version in just seven weeks, Wagner ultimately found The Flying Dutchman to be unendingly problematic, and the lack of a final version continues to fascinate Wagner scholars. The Wagner Complete Edition, however, rejects the concept and priority of the last available version, instead endeavouring to assemble all of Wagner’s multitudinous revisions as completely and accurately as possible. Despite Wagner’s difficulties with the work, it endures as one of his most popular operas today.

If I reach my aim [of approval] among merely a handful of individuals, that attainment will richly compensate me for all those who remain unconvinced; and cordially do I grasp the hands of those valiant artists who shall not feel shame to concern themselves with me, and more familiarly to befriend me, than is typical in our modern art world. – Richard Wagner

Because the Compete Edition consolidates all available source material and the most current developments of Wagnerian scholarship, it allows performers a deeper understanding of the composer’s processes and musical intentions. This new performance material is now available from Schott for any production of The Flying Dutchman.

• The Flying Dutchman, Version 1842-1880 - Details


• The Flying Dutchman, Original Version - Details


• Opera Vlaanderen 

A new production of Nino Rota’s Aladino e la lampada magica ("Aladdin and the Magic Lamp") directed by Julien Ostini will open in Saint-Etienne in France on 16 October, performed by the Orchestre Symphonique Saint-Etienne Loire and conducted by Laurent Touche. The fairytale opera will be performed in a French translation.



Rota, sometimes called the “Italian Mozart”, composed his first children’s opera Il principe porcaro (1925-26) at the age of 13. A sense of childlike wonder has infused Rota’s music throughout his career, evident particularly in his film scores composed for director Federico Fellini, which remain among his best-known works today. For Rota, fairytales were never trivial; although they provided fantastical entertainment, they stemmed from deeper moral motivations and life lessons. Such is Rota’s understanding of Aladdin, which was first recounted to him as a child by his Grandmother.

Aladino e la lampada magica by Nino Rota – an opera for everyone

Aladino e la lampada magica (1968) comes from one of the most popular tales of the well-known collection of stories “One Thousand and One Nights,” commonly known as “Arabian Nights”. The narrative follows Aladdin, an impoverished young boy, who dreams of wealth. After a sorcerer gains Aladdin’s trust, intending to use him only as a tool to obtain a mysterious oil lamp from a magical cave, an exciting and dangerous adventure begins.

The enchanted world of Rota’s Aladino e la lampada magica gives great scope for appealing staging, with colourful bazaars and extravagant costumes, presenting an ideal first opera experience for young children.  The work is further full of refreshingly tonal musical language, employing the traditions of operatic composition yet in a modern and distinctive fashion. Despite being termed a children’s opera, it will nonetheless appeal to audience members of all ages.

When I’m creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but, the eternal dilemma arises - how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do anything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music. – Nino Rota

The Leipzig Opera will perform a reduced orchestration version of Aladino e la lampada magica, as arranged by Rainer Schottstädt, on 28 and 31 October.

 

• Nino Rota - profile


• Aladino e la lampada magica - workdetails


• Reduced version by Rainer Schottstädt - details


• Grand Théâtre Massenet 

On 22 September György Ligeti’s Ramifications will be performed in Oslo by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Per Kristian Skalstad. Later in the week, another performance will be given at the festival Les Musicales de Quiberon conducted by Pascal Gallois on 25 September.



Ligeti’s compositions from the early 1960s employ dense compositional structures, as in pieces such as Atmosphères (1961), but his later works become increasingly unstructured. Ramifications (1968-69) exemplifies Ligeti’s development of what he termed “musical net-formations,” a method of composition in which many small repeated musical motifs are layered so intricately, that when played, they cannot be discerned separately by the listening ear.

Ligeti's Ramifications - From "dense and static" to "fragmented and agile"

Composed for string orchestra or 12 solo strings, Ramifications divides the players into two groups. Half of the instruments are tuned to a slightly higher pitch, resulting in an inescapable dissonance. The 12 musical parts then each move independently in detailed repeating patterns, yet layered in such close proximity of pitch that the detail becomes impossible to perceive. In only a few places do these layered strands disentangle, resulting in brief moments of more unified harmony.

Ramifications is an end point of sorts in my development from ‘dense and static’ to ‘fragmented and agile’. Especially in the areas where the musical material is tightly meshed, a whole new kind of ‘uncertain’ harmony appears, as if the harmonies have ‘rotted’. Ramifications has a strong taste and decay has permeated the music. – György Ligeti

Further performances of Ligeti's music this week include Études pour piano with Boris Berezovsky on 19 September at Beethovenfest Bonn, and Lontano with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester conducted by Kirill Petrenko at the National Theatre in Munich on 19 and 20 September. Mysteries of the Macabre will be played three times in the next fortnight: on 20 September by the Philharmonisches Orchester Gießen conducted by Michael Hofstetter with soprano Marie Friederike Schöder, and on 23 and 25 September by the Düsseldorf Symphoniker conducted by Alexandre Bloch, with Eir Inderhaug as soloist at the Tonhalle in Dusseldorf.

• György Ligeti - profile


• Ramifications - workdetails

Toru Takemitsu’s Nostalghia for violin and orchestra will be performed on 13 September in the Martinskirche in Basel, and on 14 September in St. Peter's Church in Zurich, by violinist Ilya Gringolts and the I Tempi chamber orchestra conducted by Gevorg Gharabekyan.

Composed in 1987 for Yehudi Menuhin, Nostalghia draws inspiration from Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film of the same name, and its central theme of homesickness. While the word nostalgia refers to desire for a time since past, in both Russian and Italian nostalghia means to acutely miss a place or a person.

Nostalghia - “In Memory of Andrei Tarkovsky”

Takemitsu was attracted to the quiet camera work, sparing use of music, and tendency for long uncut scenes in Tarkovsky’s film, and after the filmmaker’s death in 1986 he dedicated Nostalghia to Tarkovsky’s memory. After a brief introduction, a simple solo violin melody dominates the composition, seeking to evoke a sense of memory, loss and longing. Maintaining the contrasts characteristically found in Tarkovsky’s films, Takemitsu uses a divided string orchestra beneath the violin to musically represent the differing states of water and fog. At the work’s end, the orchestral groups divide again into polyphony, while the solo violin remains in the highest heights.

I would like to follow both Japanese tradition and Western innovation, and to maintain both musical styles simultaneously has become the core focus of my compositional operations. It is a contradiction I do not want to solve – on the contrary, I want the two styles to combat each other. I want to achieve a sound that is as intense as the silence. – Toru Takemitsu

The same concert will also feature Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Concerto funebre for solo violin and string orchestra. On 14 and 15 September, the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi will play Takemitsu’s A Way a Lone II arranged for string quartet and How Slow the Wind for orchestra in the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Also on 15 September, the Tokyo Sinfonietta conducted by Yasuaki Itakura will perform Rain Coming in the Supporo Concert Hall Kitara in Hokkaido. On 16 September, Pirmin Grehl plays Itinerant for flute at the Schumann Festival in Leipzig, and a day later the Philharmonic State Orchestra Mainz performs Night Signal at the theatre festival Mainz, conducted by Hermann Bäumer.

• Toru Takemitsu - profile

 

• Nostalghia - workdetails

 

The Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle will give two national premieres of Julian Anderson's new orchestral work Incantesimi this week at the Lucerne Festival on Wednesday 31 August and at the BBC Proms on Saturday 3 September.



Written with this orchestra's particular colour in mind, Incantesimi is an 8-minute glittering exploration of orbiting musical ideas. Following its world premiere in Berlin in June, the Berlin Philharmonic have taken the piece on tour to Rotterdam, Lucerne, and culminating with the UK premiere at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Incantesimi (meaning ‘spells’ or ‘enchantments’ in Italian) is based on five musical ideas which circle around each other, sometimes accompanying in the background, sometimes rising to the foreground. The work is characterised by a recurring Cor Anglais solo, a long arching string figure, low chords, and bell chords in the middle and high registers. The piece unfolds slowly in what the composer describes as an “almost hypnotic state”, which lends the work its title. Toward the end of the work, the tempo dramatically shifts, bringing about an eruption of sound. This subsides and the music continues its orbit to close the piece.

When Sir Simon Rattle asked me to compose a work for the Berlin Philharmonic, I decided to write a piece which focused upon line and timbre unfolding at a slow rate. I have always admired the ability of Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic to play long, flowing musical lines with exceptional beauty of tone. – Julian Anderson

A co-commission between the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, the Royal Philharmonic Society and Boston Symphony Orchestra, Incantesimi will be given its US premiere by the BSO on 26 January 2017 followed by performances on 27 and 28 January at Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts.

• Julian Anderson - profile


• Incantesimi - workdetails

On 28 August, Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No. 2 ‘Kenotaph’ will receive its UK premiere at the BBC Proms in London, played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Bychkov, to whom the symphony is dedicated, conducted the world premiere with the Vienna Philharmonic earlier this year on 3 June in Vienna.



While his earlier compositions primarily extended from his wealth of experience as a chamber musician, Larcher has progressively ventured into larger orchestral writing, beginning with Red and Green (2010). This later became the creative groundwork to his first symphony Alle Tage for baritone and orchestra (2015) following the success of A Padmore Cycle (2014) for tenor and orchestra.

Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No. 2 - “a grave for lost and forgotten souls”

Symphony No. 2 is a 35-minute long, four-movement symphony that still maintains in passages the more intimate sounds of how it was originally envisioned - as a concerto for orchestra. Written for a large orchestra with prominent percussion, Larcher’s composition traverses diverse levels of musical energy, seeking ways to find tonality and structure that is at once exploratory yet aware of classical tradition and form. The symphony’s subtitle ‘Kenotaph’ (cenotaph) refers to monuments erected to commemorate those killed in war, or in the composer’s own words, “graves for lost and forgotten souls”. Feeling anguish over the continuing European immigrant crisis in particular, Larcher poured his feeling into this work.

Thousands upon thousands of people drowned in the Mediterranean while all of Europe stood on the sidelines idly observing this tragedy or even looking away. [The symphony] is a symbol for what has been going on and is still going on in the middle of Europe. – Thomas Larcher

Performances of Larcher’s works in the next few months include Ouroboros for cello and chamber orchestra by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra on 13 September with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and conductor Per Kristian Skalstad, and by the BBC Philharmonic on 13 October with cellist Matthew Barley and Ben Gernon conducting. On 6 October, Edward Gardner will conduct A Padmore Cycle with tenor Mark Padmore and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. The Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich conducted by Yutaka Sado will perform Red and Green in Austria from 7-10 October.

• Thomas Larcher - profile


• Symphony No. 2 - workdetails

On 19 August, the world premiere of Christian Jost’s An die Hoffnung will be performed by Yutaka Sado and the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, opening the 10th annual Grafenegg Festival. Jost was commissioned to write An die Hoffnung as Composer in Residence at this year's festival. The residency will include performances of several of his existing compositions and he will also appear as a conductor and leader of the young composers' workshop INK STILL WET from 1-5 September.

An die Hoffnung—A modern allusion to Beethoven

In 1804, Beethoven set Christoph August Tiedge’s poem ‘An die Hoffnung’ (from Urania) to music, revisiting and revising the vocal work nine years later (Op. 94). Beethoven’s song provides the starting point for Jost’s orchestral work of the same name, which maintains much of Beethoven’s harmonic and sung material integrated into a newly composed orchestral score. Jost’s orchestration further draws from Beethoven by instrumentally mirroring his Symphony No. 9, which will also feature in the opening concert of the festival.

The agitated, rhythmically driven composition begins with an orchestral landscape characterised by minor thirds, expanding orchestrally on Beethoven’s fragile motif of ‘hope’ and interweaving with Tiedge’s final lines: ‘whether an angel waiting above will count my tears.’ – Christian Jost

Other performances of Jost's music at the Grafenegg Festival include the world premiere of another new work, a Fanfare for 9 wind instruments on 19 August, CocoonSymphonie on 25 August with the composer conducting, lautlos for solo cello on 28 August played by Georgy Goryunov, and Portrait for solo violin solo played by Sophie Kolarz-Lakenbacher on 10 September.

• Christian Jost - Profil


• Grafenegg Festival