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On 2 September, the Opernhaus Hannover will present Hans Werner Henze's much-performed comic opera, Der junge Lord, for the first time in the opera house's history with director Bernd Mottl and Mark Rhode conducting the Niedersächsische Staatsorchester.



Henze and the librettist Ingeborg Bachmann shared a lifelong friendship and close artistic partnership resulting in several operas including Der Prinz von Homburg and Der Idiot. Der junge Lord was their final collaboration, commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Bachmann selected Wilhelm Hauff's fable Der Affe als Mensch (The Ape as a Man) as basis for her libretto, adding the lovers Wilhelm and Luise to the story.

Hans Werner Henze‘s Der junge Lord – Fascination and blindness

The setting is Hülsdorf-Gotha at the beginning of the 19th century. The dignitaries and citizens await the arrival of the wealthy Englishman Sir Edgar who has purchased a house in the town. They have prepared a pompous reception ceremony and are consternated when Sir Edgar’s secretary announces that his master has no interest in attending. The resentment only increases when Sir Edgar subsequently invites the artists of a travelling circus into his home; his house is daubed with xenophobic slogans during the night.

Later, the lovers Wilhem and Luise arrange a clandestine evening rendezvous but are startled by loud screams emanating from Sir Edgar’s house. Sir Edgar explains that his nephew Lord Barrat, who has just arrived from London, is in the process of learning the German language and his mistakes are being corrected with the aid of corporal punishment.

A couple of weeks later, Sir Edgar holds a reception to introduce the young Lord. The guests are captivated by his eccentric behaviour, which is imitated enthusiastically by all assembled. Only Wilhelm is disturbed by the manner in which the young lord is wooing Luise; her mother begins to plan an engagement between Luise and Lord Barrat. During the ensuing exuberant dancing, the young lord is increasingly plagued by wild convulsions. Finally, he tears off his clothes and reveals his true colours: he is the circus monkey Adam who has been dressed up as a nobleman. Sir Edgar sends him from the room, leaving behind the shocked citizens of Hülsdorf-Gotha.

In Der junge Lord, Henze closely follows the formal structure of 'opera buffa' with its typical ensembles and the virtual exclusion of arioso elements. He uses traditional musical forms such as folk songs, children’s songs, minuets and waltzes. Under the surface, though, Henze and Bachmann succeed in creating a double bluff: The illusion of light entertainment serves the purpose of emphasising their criticism of society. This can be seen in Bachmann’s use of a quote by Goethe in the libretto “In the German language you lie… That’s an important and serious business".

The main target of this piece is: the lie. It is being born out of greedy curiosity, deceived material hopes, provincial showing-off and offended vanity. – Hans Werner Henze

Performances of Der junge Lord will continue at the Opernhaus Hannover until 19 October.

• Hans Werner Henze – profile


• Der junge Lord – workdetails


• Opernhaus Hannover - premiere of Der junge Lord

Ludwig van Beethoven and Canada. What do those two have in common?

Gerald Barry’s new work for voice and orchestra, Canada, will have its world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms on 21 August.



Specially commissioned for the Proms, it will be performed by tenor Allan Clayton and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

"Some time ago I was in Toronto airport returning to Dublin. When I got through security, Canada suddenly came into my head: a setting of the Fidelio Prisoners' Chorus for voice and orchestra." Gerald Barry

Gerald Barrys Canada – A tribute to Beethoven

The text, in English, French and German, includes the lines "Speak softly! We are watched with eyes and ears" from Beethoven’s politically charged and only opera, Fidelio. Barry holds Beethoven in high regard, considering him to be the greatest composer that ever lived. Many of his own works draw on the letters and works of Beethoven.  These include Schott and Sons, Mainz for bass solo and SATB choir which uses selected texts from Beethoven’s letters to his publisher and Beethoven for bass voice and ensemble which also features excerpts from Beethoven’s personal letters to his "Immortal Beloved".

“Canada, the name and country, is both everyday and strange to me - exotically normal.” Gerald Barry

Other new works for Barry this season include an Organ Concerto for organist Thomas Trotter commissioned jointly by Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.

Beethoven would celebrate his 250. birthday in 2020. If you’re still looking for suitable musical programme, you’re invited to have a look at the recent Schott journal for inspiration.

• Gerald Barry - profile


• Canada - work details


• BBC Proms

“Aribert Reimann’s opera Lear, which is enjoying being our fifth new production in 2017, is about the corruptive force of power, about loneliness, about losing human connections - even to one’s own children”, theatre manager Markus Hinterhäuser remarks.



On 20 August, Reimann’s masterpiece will be given a new production at the Salzburger Festspiele with theatre and film director Simon Stone and Franz Welser‑Möst conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

Reimann undertook to write an operatic version of Shakespeare’s tragedy at the repeated suggestion (since 1968) of baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Although fascinated by the story, it would take Reimann four years to begin work on the opera. He approached Claus H. Henneberg to write the libretto, having successfully worked with him in the past, most notably on the opera Melusine.
Reimann recognises three musical inspirations for Lear: Anton von Webern, who taught him precision, Alban Berg, whose expressivity he took as an example, and the rhythmic music of India. In order to create these complex sounds, the composer requested an 83 piece orchestra, 48 of which were to be strings.

Aribert Reimann’s Lear: A parable mirroring our time

In this piece I discovered more and more what seemed to me as a parable of our time. All those things that happened then could happen any time.– Aribert Reimann

King Lear wishes to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters by giving the one who loves him most the biggest share. The youngest daughter, Cordelia, who doesn’t express her love for her father in words, is banished from the kingdom and leaves to marry the king of France. The loyal Earl of Kent, who disapproves of Lear’s decision, is also exiled. The two older daughters share the inheritance with their husbands but it is soon revealed that their proclamations of love were an exercise in greed. A series of tragic events gradually reveals their true character to Lear, who in the final scene, insane and abandoned, crouches over Cordelia’s body and follows her into the afterworld.

„The audience is magnetized by the orchestra for two hours: with clusters of varying intensities and quarter note dissonances, whirling soundscapes punctuated by explosions of brass, constantly changing rhythms, and lyrical solo voices. All of these techniques are employed in the development of protagonists, expressions, situations – never as just an exercise in composition.“ (Wolfgang Schreiber)

Performances of Lear continue at Salzburger Festspiele until 29 August.

• Aribert Reimann - Profile


• Lear - work details


• Salzburger Festspiele - Lear

The success of his Rhapsody in Blue led the New York Symphony Society to commission a piano concerto from the young George Gershwin.

As Ferde Grofé had done the orchestration for Rhapsody, Concerto in F was Gershwin’s first attempt at orchestrating. Aware of his inexperience in this area, he hired an orchestra for the last phase of the compositional process in order to experiment with different orchestral sounds and textures.


Gershwin himself was the piano soloist at the world premiere of the concerto at Carnegie Hall New York in December 1925. The piece established Gershwin as one of the most important American composers of the 20^th century.

George Gershwin‘s Concerto in F: American Jazz cloaked in a classical garment

Originally entitled New York Concerto, Gershwin eventually changed the title to the more generic Concerto in F for piano and orchestra, reflecting his conscious desire to write absolute music, as opposed to the program music he had previously written. The piece is structured as a traditional concerto in three movements: slow – fast – slow.

Gershwin created his own American musical style with his Concerto, mixing jazz, Broadway songs, dance rhythms and late romantic harmonies. The syncopated Charleston rhythm is present in the first movement (Allegro alla breve), from which the solo piano emerges with the first theme. These two ideas are connected in the second movement (Adagio – Andante con moto) in the piano solo-cadenza. This movement is often described as a “Blues-Nocturne” because of its stylistic features. The third movement is heavily influenced by jazz, with Gershwin describing it as an “orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.”

Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident... I went out to show them that there was plenty more where that came from. I made up my mind to compose a piece of “absolute” music. The Rhapsody, as its title implied, was a blues impression. The Concerto would be unrelated to any program. – George Gershwin

A performance of Gershwin’s Concerto in F by the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach and soloist Tzimon Barto at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg will be given on 14 August.  Though this concert is now sold out, a public rehearsal of the program which includes Ravel’s La valse and Daphnis et Chloé, can be heard  in the ACO Thormannhalle Rendsburg on 13 August.

• George Gershwin - Profile


• Concerto in F - workdetails and score


• Concert in the Elbphilharmonie


• Public rehearsal

Nearly 80 years after its world premiere, Carl Orff’s opera fairy tale Der Mond (The Moon) is arriving in Taiwan for the first time.  A staged performance of the work will be presented by the Taipei Symphony Orchestra on August 4.


Orff, who wrote both music and libretto for this single act opera, was inspired by the Grimm brothers’ fairytale of the same title. His choice of a young boy as the narrator led him to describe the Der Mond as “kleines Welttheater” “small world theatre”.

The work delves into a universe split between heaven, earth and the underworld, all overseen by St Peter. The earth is split into two countries, each a mirror image of the other.

Carl Orff's Der Mond: a parable on the order of the cosmos

At the start of the opera, the moon enlightens one side of the earth. The other remains completely dark. One night, four boys from a village on the dark side discover the moon is tied to a tree.  Without hesitating, they steal it to enlighten their own village.

Years later, as each of them dies, a quarter of the moon is buried with them and sent to the underworld. Eventually, the moon becomes whole again and its light fills the underworld, waking up the dead who continue to live once again.

Alarmed by this chaos in the underworld, St Peter arrives to set things in order. Instead, he gets swept up in the underground revelry until he comes to his senses and takes the moon back to the sky where it shines over the whole world.

The music is modeled on themes from the Orff-Schulwerk (Music for Children) and in scenes in the underworld listeners will be reminded of “In Taberna” from Carmina Burana. The villagers have an array of lively dance music and popular song orchestrated for full romantic orchestra with a large percussion section.

I took this tale, which I found in the ‘Kinder- und Hausmärchen’ ‘Childrens’ and Home fairy tales’, collected and published by Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, as a model for the piece. It is a thoughtful parable of the futility of people trying to destroy the world order, as well as a parable of the security that this order is meant to create for them. – Carl Orff

Performances of Der Mond continue with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra until 6 August 2017.  For European Carl Orff fans, The Munich Puppetry will present Carmina Burana with puppets on 12 August. Further performances of Carl Orff’s works can be found on his profile on our website.

• Carl Orff - profile


• Der Mond - workdetails und online score

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)