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On 26 July, Julian Anderson’s new piano concerto, The Imaginary Museum, will receive its world premiere at the BBC Proms with Steven Osborne, to whom the work is dedicated, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ilan Volkov. The work was co-commissioned by the BBC, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra.



The Imaginary Museum is the title of a book by André Malraux who argues that only in our minds can there be a coherent collection of art due to the dispersal of great works in museums around the world.  Inspired by this idea, Anderson evokes an acoustic journey for the most immobile of instruments, the piano. The six movements conjure varied terrains, from the still of the concert hall to the swirl of the sea and even birdsong in the Australian desert. Steven Osborne's virtuosic and stylistically diverse playing served as further inspiration for these contrasting sections.

A journey for the piano

The acoustics of Anderson's virtual locations were also important to the sound of the music, represented by a changing musical relationship between the piano and orchestra.  The soloist leads at times, echoing games are played out and, in one instance at the end of the fifth movement, traditional roles are reversed and the orchestra takes the solo with a piano accompaniment.

Linking music to images is potentially contentious or problematic. Although there were images in my mind throughout this work…it’s perfectly viable to listen throughout without giving any thought to anything but the sounds.  This is above all an imaginary museum – the listeners’ imaginations should be let loose in hearing the work. – Julian Anderson 

The Norwegian premiere of The Imaginary Museum will take place on 14 September with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra at the Grieghallen in Bergen, and the piece can be heard with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra next year.

• Julian Anderson - Profile


• The Imaginary Museum - Workdetails


• BBC Proms

 

Poto: © John Batten (Julian Anderson)

In August 2013, Ensemble Musikfabrik presented the European premiere of Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury at the Ruhrtriennale Festival in Germany, 45 years after the world premiere in the USA. Inspired by this performance, Schott created a new series of facsimile study scores featuring Partch’s remarkable handwriting, beginning with Delusion of the Fury. The series currently features twelve works.



The Harry Partch Edition scores offer a deep insight in the unique musical world of the composer. His simple titles include Daphne of the Dunes, based upon the ancient Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo, and The Lord is my Shepherd, a setting of the well-known psalm. Other works in the Harry Partch Edition are Rotate the Body in all its Planes, a piece conceived to accompany gymnastics, Two Settings from “Finnegan’s Wake”, composed for soprano Ethel Luening, whose voice Partch admired, and the recently published Summer 1955 is a collection of pieces written in that same year.

The Harry Partch Edition: a unique musical cosmos

As a pioneer of microtonality, Partch created his own large collection of unique instruments with various timbres, each adapted to work with his own, continually developing, tonal system. Instead of the standard twelve note octave, he invented his own scale consisting of 43 microtones.

To realise the sounds in his imagination, Partch became an equally imaginative instrument-maker. He initially resorted to using unusual and exotic instruments but when this was no longer enough, he began to develop his own inventions in order to exploit the full potential of sound in his compositions. His never-ending creativity led to the "Chromelodeon I", an expansion on a harmonium to fit his tonal system. He built other instruments by adapting everyday objects: the "Zymo-Xyl" was built out of wine and spirit bottles, and the "Bloboy" was made from car horns.

The direction in which I have been going for the last forty-four years has much in common with the activities and actions of primitive man as I imagine him. Primitive man found magical sounds in the materials around him – in a reed, a piece of bamboo, a particular piece of wood held in a certain way, or a skin stretched over a gourd or a tortoise shell: some resonating body. He then proceeded to make the object, the vehicle, the instrument, as visually beautiful as he could. His last step was almost automatic: the magical sounds and visual beauty into something spiritual. – Harry Partch

The next work in the Harry Partch Edition will be Ring around the Moon. Other planned releases this year are Castor and Pollux, Windsong and Oedipus.

• Harry Partch - Profile

 

Photo: MazdaMarimba of the Ensemble Musikfabrik

Olli Mustonen’s first String Quartet receives its world premiere in Gravdal, Norway, on 12 July. The Engegård Quartet will perform the work as part of the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival.



Mustonen’s works encompass a range of instrumentations, from pieces for solo piano (he is an in-demand pianist) to large symphonies. It seems appropriate for Mustonen, a composer rooted in the classical-romantic tradition, to finally take up the genre of the string quartet, which has remained a favoured but challenging branch of chamber music since Haydn.

Mustonen’s String Quartet No. 1: With passion and fire

Mustonen goes against the 20^th century trend of re-structuring the string quartet. String Quartet No. 1 is classically structured in four movements and follows the tempi of 18^th century quartets: the third movement is a slow Grave, whilst the fourth is Impetuoso, con passione e molto rubato and brought to a “firey” end. Melodies are alternated between different instruments as in classical quartets and there are thematic elements too. However, the quartet remains very firmly contemporary with a free use of tempo and harmony. The first movement contains the direction quasi senza tempo – “almost without tempo” – and includes a minimally accompanied viola cadenza, whilst only the second movement includes no changes in tempo.

Olli Mustonen is a postmodern composer building a bridge over Western classical music from baroque to minimalism, from late romanticism to the new spirituality of the 21st century. Music can capture the secret of life. - Susanna Välimäki

This year’s Lofoten Festival has a programmatic focus on Mustonen. In addition to the premiere of his String Quartet, performances of Nonet No. 2, his Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet will be performed over 11-12 July, with the composer at the piano.

• Olli Mustonen - Profile


• String Quartet No. 1 - Workdetails


• Lofoten Festival 

 

Photo: Engegård Quartet

Conlon Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano comprises of over 50 individual works which make up the majority of his compositional output. On 8 July, Ensemble Modern gives the Brazilian premiere of Study No. 7 in an arrangement for chamber orchestra (arr. Mikhashoff) with conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni at the Auditório Claudio Santoro in Campos do Jordão.



Born in 1912 in Arkansas, USA, Nancarrow began his career writing chamber music, but with performers often expressing their displeasure at the complexity of his pieces and Nancarrow often disliking their interpretations of his work, he needed to move away from this genre . In the 1940s, Nancarrow moved to a genre of composition without performers, choosing to write nearly all his works for player piano from this point. He bought the instrument (which he modified) and a machine for punching the piano rolls, and simply named his pieces “Study”, numbering each one. Some earlier works contain jazz or tango elements, whilst the later pieces are canonic.  All are rhythmically complex, often with mathematical processes and calculations being used to create the notes punched into the piano rolls.

Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano: Rhythmic complexity

Living in Mexico in the 1980s, Nancarrow received a surge in popularity by working with György Ligeti. Newly fascinated by the connection of mathematical precision to musical expressivity, the possibility of making the Studies for Player Piano playable by real musicians arose. Many pianists are now able to perform the studies, and numerous arrangements are available for different instrumentations.

Study No. 7 is, at six minutes, one of the longer and more complex early studies. Based on the interaction of two different tempi, the piece constantly grows in density and speed and relies on being played incredibly accurately.

I just write pieces of music. It just happens that a lot of them are unplayable. I don't have any obsession of making things unplayable. A few of my pieces could be played quite easily – a few! – Conlon Nancarrow

Ensemble Modern give one further performance of Study No. 7 as part of their Brazil tour in São Paulo on 10 July.

• Conlon Nancarrow - Profile


• Ensemble Modern

 

Photo: © Otfried Nies (Conlon Nancarrow)

Nearly 30 years after its premiere, Mark-Anthony Turnage's first opera Greek remains a vital, resonant work with new productions mounted each year. From 26 June, Bayerische Staatsoper present the work with conductor Oksana Lyniv and director Wolfgang Nägele. A further production follows in August at this year's Edinburgh International Festival.



Commissioned for the Munich Biennale in 1988, Greek immediately established Turnage's international reputation. With libretto from Steven Berkoff's 1980 play of the same name, the opera transports the Oedipus myth to the violent, run-down, problem ridden East End of London of that era. The story focuses on Eddy who, by a grim turn of events, fulfils a prophecy to kill his father and marry his mother.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's adaptation for just four singers and 19 players surges with raw power and a bold tenderness. In two 45-minute acts, Turnage conveys an apocalyptic, divided Britain by drawing from a vast array of contrasting music traditions. By including Jazz, hip-hop and even football chants, Turnage not only reflects on the opera’s setting of a diverse society but also makes a strong statement on classical music and class.

I'd always had a problem with classical music being a minority thing. But while I was uncomfortable with only a certain amount of people from a certain class listening to this music, I didn't become political about it until I met Henze… in my early 20s I became very anti-Thatcher and anti-Conservative which was reflected in Greek. - Mark-Anthony Turnage

Greek receives performances on 26 & 27 June and 3 & 4 July at Postpalast Munich. On 5 & 6 August, Edinburgh International Festival presents Greek in its opening weekend in a co-production by Opera Ventures and Scottish Opera conducted by Stuart Stratford and directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins. Scottish Opera will bring the production to Glasgow Theatre Royal on 2 & 3 January 2018.

• Mark-Anthony Turnage - Profile


• Greek - Workdetails


• Bayerische Staatsoper 

 

Photo: © Wolfgang Hilse (Komische Oper Berlin: Production 2002)

Aribert Reimann is ubiquitous this year in Berlin, where the city's three major opera houses will each stage a new production of one of his works. Medea is currently running at the Komische Oper, and his new music theatre triptych, L’Invisible, will premiere this autumn at the Deutshe Oper. To complete the trio, Die Gespenstersonate (“The Ghost Sonata”) opens this month on 25 June at the Staatsoper im Schillertheater, with director Otto Katzameier and conductor Michael Wendeberg as part of the INFEKTION! Festival of New Music.



As with his first opera Ein Traumspiel, Reimann based Die Gespenstersonate on a play by August Strindberg. The student Arkenholz, who has the ability to see ghosts, is brought to the Colonel's house by director Hummel who has persuaded him to take a job there and promised to introduce him to the Colonel's daughter. All meet for a 'ghosts' supper' where the residents' entanglements and dark secrets are slowly exposed. The colonel is a fraud: neither noble nor a soldier. His wife, who has lived in a built-in cupboard for twenty years as a 'mummy', once had an affair with Hummel - the real father of the Colonel's daughter. Hummel is accused of killing a milkmaid, and the mummy orders him to hang himself. The Colonel's daughter dies, unable to bear the reality she is confronted with. Arkenholz remains alone and incapable of escaping the circle of crime and punishment.

Aribert Reimann’s Die Gespenstersonate: An illusion smashed

The inhabitants of the house purport to be high society and Arkenholz must request entry, but within the house the people are trapped in their mirages, condemned to live the same routine forever. Only director Hummel breaks with tradition by inviting Arkenholz to the ghosts’ supper, and he dies in the process.

Musically, Hummel is portrayed as strong, accompanied by low instruments such as the double bass, bassoon or bass clarinet and often attempting to direct the story’s focus towards himself. In contrast, the mummy is weak, her voice brittle and her sentences interrupted. It is only when she accuses Hummel that her sound becomes forceful. The colonel is depicted with a trumpet, relating to his supposed military background. The flute represents the young girl’s fragility as she is caught in a web of lies and carried away into the ghost world.

In every opera, every person should have their own way of singing; everyone has their own psychological profile, their own way of expressing themselves. This has to be created in the structural development of the vocal line, as well as in the musical setting  that surrounds the person concerned. - Aribert Reimann

Die Gespenstersonate will run from 25 June until 9 July at the Staatsoper im Schillertheater.

• Aribert Reimann - Profile


• Die Gespenstersonate - Workdetails 


• Staatsoper im Schiller Theater Berlin

 

Photo: © Wolfgang Runkel (Oper Frankfurt)

Andrew Norman’s new opera, A Trip to the Moon, brings together professional musicians and community choirs. Part of the Berlin Philharmonic’s  Vocal Heroes project and the London Symphony Orchestra’s LSO Discovery music education and community programme, it provides a chance for young people and adults to sing in a high profile classical music event. The opera receives its world premiere at the Philharmonie Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic on 17 June, followed by its UK premiere at London’s Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra.  Both performances are conducted by Sir Simon Rattle with chorus direction by Simon Halsey.



Norman took inspiration from Georges Méliès’ influential 1902 silent film “A Trip to the Moon”, a work regarded as the first science fiction film. The figure of George Méliès himself appears in Norman’s opera as a documentarian, one of the main characters. The story of space travel appeals to both children and adults and revolves around themes of cultural exchange, fear, danger and friendship.

The plot follows a group of scientists who travel to the moon in a rocket. The rocket is damaged upon landing, and must be fixed before the group can return to Earth. Whilst exploring, they meet the moon people, but their cautious approach is spoilt when one of the moon children disappears and the scientists are under suspicion. All is resolved in the end when the scientists are able to banish the moon monster responsible, and in return, the moon people help to repair the rocket.

Norman’s A Trip to the Moon: Communication with obstacles

Even without the silence of Méliès’ film, A Trip to the Moon has its own lingual problems. Both parties have to find new ways of communicating: the moon people sing in moonish, a language made up of only vowels, whereas the scientists don’t sing, only speak. George the documentarian imitates the singing and gains the trust of the princess Eoa, creating the potential for conversation. Music plays another important role for the moon people: each child has their own note of a scale, and if one note fails to ring out, a child is missing. The music both illustrates the characters’ differences in culture and builds a bridge between them, helping the audience to follow the story.

As it turns out, inventing a language is a lot of work! But I’m excited by the potential to combine syllables with pitch and movement to create a new gestural world. The goal was to put the audience in the position of the ‘other’, who must figure out what is going on without the help of a common language. – Andrew Norman

Norman also combines different worlds on stage: the piece uses professional and student players, and calls for adult, youth and children’s choirs. For the world premiere, the Berlin  Philharmonic will be supported by young instrumentalists, and professional soloists supported by people of all ages from the Vocal Heroes choirs.

After performances on 17 and 18 June at the Philharmonie Berlin, A Trip to the Moon will be performed at the Barbican on 9 July by the London Symphony Orchestra, the LSO Discovery Choirs and the LSO Community Choir. On 2 and 3 March 2018 the opera will have its US premiere in Los Angeles, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its choirs at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

• Andrew Norman - Profile


• A Trip to the Moon - Workdetails


• Berliner Philharmoniker

 

Illustration: Doro Huber

Stefan Heucke’s Deutsche Messe (“German Mass”) receives its world premiere on 10 June at St Stephan’s Church in Mainz, Germany. Steven Sloane conducts the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Berlin Radio Choir with soloists Juliane Banse (soprano), Birgit Remmert (alto), Tilman Lichdi (tenor) and Michael Nagy (bass). The Mass was commissioned by the DSO Berlin and is a setting of a new German translation by Norbert Lammert, a German politician, whose translation of the “Pater noster” Heucke set in 2010.



The Deutsche Messe is a missa solemnis written for four soloists, choir and orchestra and comprises the five core texts of the catholic mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Additionally, Heucke’s Pater noster is included as the penultimate movement, adapted for a larger orchestration. Whilst composing the work Heucke studied Mass settings from Machaut through to Beethoven, as well as more modern works. The result was a Mass which relates both to his aspirations as a modern day composer and to major Masses of the past.

Heucke’s Deutsche Messe: Reformation relations

The premiere of Deutsche Messe appropriately takes place this year because of its links to Martin Luther, the key figure of the Reformation, for which 2017 is the 500^th anniversary. By adapting and translating the bible into German, Luther made its contents accessible for the masses, rather than just for those who understood Latin. Although his translation of the Mass contains significant changes to the original, whereas Lammert translated all the Ordinary texts, there is still a parallel between the two.

But in spite of this, Heucke’s Deutsche Messe is not limited to the occasion of the Reformation. The cooperation of the Catholic Lammert and Protestant Heucke signifies union between the different denominations. Alongside this, Lammert’s choice of words is modern in accordance with Heucke’s contemporary tonal language. However, tradition still flows into the work through allusions of Gregorian chant and Lutheran chorales.

I intend to follow up the flow of ancient Gregorian hymns into Protestant church music and thereby create a work of synthesis, which includes the sung music of the believers in the church as well as the tradition of medieval vocal polyphony, classical-romantic symphonic choirs, twelve-tone technique and everything that follows from this. – Stefan Heucke

Further performances of the Deutsche Messe take place on 11 and 12 June at the Steintor-Varieté in Halle and the Konzerthaus Berlin.

• Stefan Heucke - Profile


• Deutsche Messe - Workdetails


• Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin


• Rundfunkchor Berlin

 

Photo: © Jonas Holthaus (Rundfunkchor Berlin)

On 3 June Jörg Widmann’s opera Babylon will receive its first performance since its premiere production in Munich. The concert performance will be part of the 2017 Holland Festival and will take place at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Choir, Netherlands Chamber Choir all under the baton of Markus Stenz.



Widmann had long hoped to compose an opera based on the myths connected with the ancient city and the libretto for Babylon was written by German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk who worked closely with the composer. The opera consists of seven scenes which tell a story of love, destruction, death and salvation: the tale of Babylon is not rewritten, but rather shown in a new light. The biblical description of Babylonians as immoral is deliberately rejected.

The plot centres on the Tammu, Inanna and Tammu’s soul which deserts him after being seduced by Inanna, a priestess in the Temple of free love. Tammu dreams of the Babylonian flood from the river Euphrates (who appears as a character) and to appease the Gods, a human sacrifice must be offered. The Babylonians choose Tammu, who is executed at the height of a wild New Year’s celebration at the Tower of Babel.

Both filled with sadness, Tammu’s soul and Inanna merge and Inanna rescues Tammu’s body from Hades and the underworld. In a reinterpretation of the Greek myth in which Orpheus cannot turn back to look at Eurydice in order to save her, Inanna must not lose sight of Tammu when leaving the underworld to ensure his survival. In the end, the Babylonians and the Gods make a new agreement: to rebuild the system of heaven and earth and restructure human life into a seven-day week.

Widmann’s Babylon: Between chaos and order

The concept of Babylon is directly linked to the mythological Tower of Babel, whereby humanity was punished by being linguistically confounded, thus leading to the multitude of languages being spoken instead of just one.

This idea appears only fleetingly in the libretto, but even in a concert performance it is apparent through the music. The number seven, with its association with Babylon, is used by Widmann constantly: notably in the number of scenes and their lengths, which decrease gradually until the final scene is seven minutes long. Hence the opera is constructed like a Ziggurat temple; with every scene, another smaller level of the tower is added. The number is also mentioned in the seven planets, a septet of monkeys, and finally the seven-day week.

Alongside the form and order in Babylon is endless chaos, expressed by Widmann with the use of a large orchestra and choir. There is great musical diversity, with elements of early music through to cabaret, sometimes incorporated simultaneously.

The tower is built in the music, and the linguistic confusion doesn’t take place in the libretto, but in the music. To form a stringent single entity of these disparate elements is what I committed myself to and it has torn me apart again and again, because principally it is an impossible task. – Jörg Widmann

In keeping with the theme, the Concertgebouw has programmed performances on 14, 15 and 16 March 2018 of Widmann’s Babylon-Suite for orchestra.

• Jörg Widmann – Profile


• Babylon – Workdetails


• Concertgebouw Amsterdam

 

Photo: © Wilfried Hösl (Munich production)

For the 500th anniversary of the year that priest and scholar Martin Luther made his new theses public there is no shortage of performances commemorating the Protestant Reformation. On 26 May, the Staatskapelle Weimar and Chor des Deutschen Nationaltheaters will perform Krzysztof Penderecki’s Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott at the Nationaltheater Weimar under the baton of Kirill Karabits. The title translates as “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and is based on Luther’s hymn of the same name.

Composed in 2010 for mixed choir, brass, percussion and string orchestra, Penderecki’s Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott is a relatively short work that was written to mark the 1200th anniversary of the city Cieszyn in Poland, Penderecki’s native country. There is a tradition of composers setting Luther’s text and in the past Mendelssohn, Reger and Handel have all written works based on the hymn. One of the best known adaptations is J.S. Bach’s chorale cantata BWV 80, a work which Penderecki quotes in the final chord.

The orchestration of the work is carefully considered with no woodwind; instead the brass instruments are the focus of the piece and open the work. Initially the music is solemn but as more brass followed by percussion join, the music develops a strong, romantic and celebratory character, highlighting the festivity of the anniversary for which it was composed. Finally the strings and choir are added to start the hymn.

“I have spent decades searching for and discovering new sounds. At the same time, I have closely studied the forms, styles and harmonies of past eras. I have continued to adhere to both principles … my current creative output is a synthesis.” - Krzysztof Penderecki

Further performances take place at the Nationaltheater Weimar on 4 and 30 June.

• Krzysztof Penderecki - Profile


• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott - Workdetails


• Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar

 

Photo: © Marek Beblot (Krzysztof Penderecki)