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The Adventures of Robin Hood, with music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, is a classic of cinematic history. In a series of “Music from the Movies” concerts beginning 9 March in Portsmouth, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performs the symphonic suite of this three-time Oscar-winning adventure film.



With 18 film scores to his name, Korngold was one of the most sought-after film music composers of all time. He perfected the genre of symphonic film music over the course of his career as house composer at Warner Brothers Studios. His soundtracks have received five Oscar nominations and two wins: in 1936 for Anthony Adverse and in 1938 for The Adventures of Robin Hood. Korngold began a new Hollywood era, where music represented or intensified events and emotions within films, rather than accompanying them. This was heightened by his use of the Wagnerian Leitmotif technique to distinguish characters or themes.

Korngold’s The Adventures of Robin Hood: A Viennese in Hollywood

When he began writing this soundtrack, Korngold was an established composer in Hollywood, already known for works such as Captain Blood. But The Adventures of Robin Hood was a far bigger project, having a tremendous budget of two million dollars, larger than any previous motion picture. Having no script to work with, Korngold researched Robin Hood in the Viennese libraries and incorporated his earlier symphonic overture (Sursum Corda!) into his score.

Since 2015, Schott Music has exclusively distributed the “Erich Wolfgang Korngold – Warner Chappell Library”. Here you can find the scores of The Adventures of Robin Hood and more cinema classics including Captain Blood, The Prince and the Pauper and The Sea Hawk.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s “Heroes & Legends: More music from the Movies” continues in Bristol (10 March), Poole (11 March) and Brighton (22 April). The Hofer Symphoniker play Korngold’s The Sea Hawk on 16 March in Germany.

• Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Profile


• The Adventures of Robin Hood - Workdetails


• Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra


• Hofer Symphoniker

 

Photo: Warner Bros. / Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF e.V., Wiesbaden

On 27 February Ryan Wigglesworth’s first opera The Winter’s Tale will receive its world premiere on the main stage at English National Opera. The production is directed by the acclaimed Shakespearean actor Rory Kinnear and features an exceptional cast that includes Iain Paterson, Sophie Bevan and Leigh Melrose. Ryan Wigglesworth himself will conduct.



Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale is a compelling new interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy-turned-romance. In a jealous rage, King Leontes imprisons his wife Hermione after believing her newborn daughter to be the result of infidelity. Leontes orders the baby to be sent away to a desolate shore, and is left completely alone. This seeming tragedy turns to remorse, love and reconciliation through the passage of time. The play perfectly suits an operatic adaptation, as Wigglesworth describes:

I began by creating something very skeletal and then fleshed it out when I started composing. From there I could see more clearly what was needed… With this play, the remarkable thing is the dramatic pillars, the trial of Hermione; the storm; the passing of the sixteen years and of course the final scene, are incredibly strong and big-boned in a way that opera requires. - Ryan Wigglesworth

The Winter’s Tale runs at English National Opera from 27 February until 14 March.

• Ryan Wigglesworth - Profile


• The Winter's Tale - Workdetails


• English National Opera

 

Photo: ENO

Bust: Jess Riva Cooper

On 19 February, Opéra de Monte-Carlo will present the Paris version of Wagner’s Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg with Argentinean tenor José Cura in the lead role, conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann and directed by Jean-Louis Grinda.

The so-called Paris version of Tannhäuser originates from the 1861 Paris performance, which differs in both libretto and score from the opera’s 1845 Dresden premiere. Charles Nuitter translated the opera’s libretto, in close collaboration with Wagner. Musically, Wagner adapted his work to follow the conventions of Parisian opera, but the Paris version was also influenced by Wagner’s compositional development: by this time he had written Tristan und Isolde. The Parisian premiere was not an immediate success, but nevertheless increased Wagner’s popularity in France and to this day is viewed as equal to the Dresden original. Wagner said of the Paris version:

I will therefore write a completely new and more highly developed music for the first scene (call it a ballet) and undertake significant alterations and nominal extensions to Venus whilst retaining the best motifs: for this purpose I have composed new poetic verses for the end of the scene. – Richard Wagner

The determining conflict between excessive and chaste love is most distinct in the Paris version of Tannhäuser. The new opening scene is an extended orgiastic bacchanale contrasting dramatically with the displays of innocent love in the opera. A further addition in the Paris version is the duet at the end of the Venusberg scene, which is clearly related to Tristan und Isolde in its harmonic shape and instrumentation.

Wagner's Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg: Three versions at a glance

As part of the Richard Wagner Complete Edition, editors Egon Voss, Peter Jost and Reinhard Strohm have dedicated more than thirty years to producing a comprehensive guide to the genesis of Tannhäuser. Based on this edition, Schott Music has published a score, orchestral parts and a piano reduction. These allow comparison between the Dresden and Paris versions, as well as the 1875 Vienna version. Wagner never gave the work a definitive form, leaving the opportunity to combine the different versions in performance.

Evening conversation with Richard concludes with the Shepherd’s song and Pilgrim’s chorus from Tannhäuser. He says he still owes the world Tannhäuser. – diary entry of Cosima Wagner

Tannhäuser und der Sängerkreig auf Wartburg will run from 19 - 28 February at Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

• Richard Wagner - Profile


• Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg - Workdetails


• Wagner "Performance Materials and Versions" - Brochure


• Opéra Monte-Carlo

Photo: Alain Hanel

This month the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle will present György Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre in a semi-staged production directed by Peter Sellars. Earlier this year the same production was presented by the London Symphony Orchestra also conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.



The fictional dukedom of Breughelland, the opera’s original setting, is replaced in Sellars’ new production by modern-day Europe and it is from here that the protagonist, Nekrotzar (the Grand Macabre himself), a sinister figure with an unshakable sense of mission decides to declare doomsday, spreading fear and terror everywhere. Unfortunately for Nekrotzar, he becomes so inebriated after drinking with the people he meets that his plans fall flat. After a fabricated End of the World, the intoxicated population first imagine themselves to be in heaven, only later to realise that they are still alive. Nekrotzar dies alone from grief having failed his mission.

https://youtu.be/X9NMdfajdwI

Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre: Doomsday in a drunken stupor

Musically, Ligeti takes inspiration from a wide variety of popular and classical music, alluding to it and contorting it rather than quoting directly. Thus, the audience recognises an assortment of references including Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Beethoven’s Eroica and Pink Floyd. Ligeti himself called Le Grand Macabre an “anti-anti-opera” as a way of describing its elements of tradition opera in a time of avant-garde music theatre.

Michael Meschke’s libretto is drawn from the play La Balade du Grand Macabre by Michel de Ghelderode. The resulting absurdness and coarse language emerges as a wayward, dark humour that carries the opera forward:

My opera is a kind of black farce, a ridiculous piece, humorous but utterly tragic at the same time […]. At the centre of the play stands the fear of dying, the impossibility to change fate and the actions and efforts undertaken in vain to escape death. One of the strategies used to avoid this destiny is the attempt to ridicule death. – György Ligeti

Le Grand Macabre will be performed in Berlin from the 17 – 19 February and later as part of the orchestra’s Ruhr Residency in Dortmund and Essen where they will perform more orchestral works by Ligeti.

• György Ligeti - Profile


• Le Grand Macabre - Details


• Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 

Photo: Tristram Kenton (Performance of the London Symphony Orchestra)

This week, Gerald Barry’s Humiliated and Insulted receives its world premiere in Dublin on 10 February. This bold new work for chorus and orchestra will be performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Philharmonic Choir with conductor Hans Graf.



Humiliated and Insulted is one of the highlights of Barry's tenure as RTÉ Composer-in-Residence (2015-18), following performances of a number of works including the Irish premiere of his Piano Concerto in 2015, and newly commissioned works Midday for octet and a revised String Quartet No. 1.

Originally composed for piano, Humiliated and Insulted has been reworked here into a large-scale, highly charged expression of anguish, devotion and despair. The original piano part has been expanded to fill the orchestra, while a new melody has been added for the chorus.

Humiliated and Insulted: A Church Chorale

Barry has likened Humiliated and Insulted to a church chorale, but this is a chorale with a difference: The chorus here sing the words "Humiliated and Insulted" repeatedly, maintaining a bold fortissimo from start to finish as the music propels forward. The words are taken from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s passionate novel:

I was always amused by the title. Typically extreme of Dostoevsky, it’s not enough to be humiliated, you have to be insulted as well. The novel was published in 1861 and loved by Oscar Wilde. There is a forensic, clean violence in Dostoevsky which appeals to me. - Gerald Barry

Humiliated and Insulted will be given its Scottish premiere on 5 May in Edinburgh by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus, who co-commissioned the piece. Further performances of Barry's music will be given at the Dublin New Music Festival on 2-4 March, including the Irish premiere of his new opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground conducted by Thomas Adès.

• Gerald Barry - Profile


• Humiliated and Insulted - Details


• RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra

This year marks the 120th anniversary of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who would have celebrated his birthday in May. In honour of this occasion, Korngold’s opera Das Wunder der Heliane (The miracle of Heliane) will be performed this week in concert by the Volksoper Wien with conductor Jac van Steen.



The opera tells the story of a tyrannical ruler who prohibits his people any happiness, until one day when a stranger appears and excites the population by spreading a message of peace. But before any rebellion can ensue, the stranger is captured and sentenced to death. Heliane, the ruler’s wife, comes to comfort the prisoner and the two share a mutual attraction. Heliane prays for the stranger. When the ruler returns to the prison cell, he discovers Heliane there too. The ruler accuses her of adultery and places her on trial, where death sentences await them both. The stranger is brought in to testify against Heliane but instead of doing so he kills himself. Ruthlessly, the ruler decides that only a judgment from God can save Heliane from death. If she manages to resurrect the stranger and thus prove her innocence, Heliane's death sentence shall be overturned. A miracle happens and the stranger is brought back to life. The ruler remains alone in a world of joylessness, and Heliane and the stranger reunite in death.

Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane: Blessed are the loving

Korngold wrote Das Wunder der Heliane after a long creative break, later declaring it to be his greatest work. By composing music that completely moved him, Korngold has created an expansive and colourful orchestral pallet. The work is characterized by Korngold's typically Viennese-lyric melodicism and has influenced the music of Richard Strauss.

By no means am I opposed to the harmonic enrichments which we owe, for example, to Schönberg, but I similarly do not renounce the eminently expressive possibilities of "old music." My credo is: the idea. How, in the long run, could the most artificial construction, the most exact musical formula triumph over the primal power of the idea? – Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Das Wunder der Heliane was performed in concert in Vienna on 28 January, and there will be two more performances on 2 and 5 February at the Volksoper Wien. The opera will be performed in concert in Freiburg, Germany in July, and again this autumn in Antwerp.

• Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Profile


• Das Wunder der Heliane - Details


• Volksoper Wien

 

Photo: Hans-Jürgen Brehm-Seufert, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern 2010

On 27 January, the Hungarian premiere of Peter Eötvös’ opera, Love and Other Demons, will take place at the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. The 2008 world premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival was directed by Silviu Purcãrete, who also directs here, and Eötvös himself will conduct. The opera bases its libretto on and takes its title from Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Del amor y otros demonios.



Love and Other Demons takes place in Colombia during the 18th Century and tells the story of the 12-year-old Sierva Maria, who is bitten by a rabid dog. Although no symptoms of disease appear, in a city dominated by superstition and religious delusion Sierva Maria still gains a reputation of being possessed. Imprisoned in the Convent of St. Clare by her father, it is decided that Cayetano Delaura, the bishop’s exorcist, will expel the demon. However, Delaura himself is soon possessed too, by the "wildest of all demons" - an overwhelming love for Sierva Maria.

A notable feature of Love and Other Demons is the consistent use of multilingualism. Eötvös and his librettist, Kornél Hamvai, have given the different levels of narration and action in the story their own characteristic language: English is the official language and everyday language of the nobles, Latin is the language of church rites, Spanish is used by Delaura whenever his conversations with Sierva Maria are more personal, and Yoruba is the secret language of the slaves. Eötvös’ music also makes use of different musical languages and styles.

Peter Eötvös' Love and Other Demons: Making the visible audible through musical theatre

In the opera, the orchestra is divided into two halves, creating a dialogue between the orchestra with the singers. This enables the players to project sound around the performance space and, in doing so, "paint" the atmosphere of the opera across the length of the stage. The singers’ lines sometimes develop from these orchestral soundscapes and often, the orchestra subtly takes notes sung by the singers and brings them into their own parts. This spatial moving of the music between the singers and orchestra intensifies the resulting dialogue.

My music is music for theatre – it is not accompaniment but theatre in itself – Peter Eötvös

The Hungarian State Opera production of Love and Other Demons will run until 27 May.

• Peter Eötvös - Profile


• Love and Other Demons - Details


• Hungarian State Opera

 

Photo: Paul Leclaire, Oper Köln 2010

To mark the 500^th anniversary of The Reformation, the German National Youth Ballet will be presenting the new work “Summit Meetings – Reformation” choreographed by Zhang Disha.  The music includes Enjott Schneider’s symphonic poem Ein feste Burg (A mighty fortress) and will be performed by the German National Youth Orchestra conducted by Alexander Shelley.



Ein feste Burg (2010) is based on the hymn of the same name by Martin Luther. It is unclear as to whether Luther wrote the melody as well as the text, but it is undoubtedly the song that embodies Protestantism like no other. In Schneider's composition, a stark opening gradually evolves to establish a cantus firmus. In turn, increasingly stormy music begins to interweave with counter-themes leading to a battle hymn historically connected to Luther’s original. Bringing the work to its conclusion, innocent birdsong is heard in a peaceful epilogue.

 Enjott Schneider’s "Ein feste Burg" – a battle hymn?

31 October 2017 will mark the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of his theses. In 1517, Luther was believed to have posted his 95 theses to the doors of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. By doing so, Luther pointed out the flaws in the Church, which at the time he felt concerned itself the sale of indulgences and was distancing itself from the Word of God.

Throughout the course of history the hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A mighty fortress is our God) has played an important role in times of crises: during the First World War it was printed and distributed on postcards and evangelical expellees sang it in the Second World War when they were granted refuge in a Catholic church. The song became a self-portrait of Germany, in which faith in God would overcome all suffering, something that Schneider reflects with the epilogue of his composition:

The creation of God, which we increasingly treat with contempt, destroy, pollute and devastate, is the true place of a deep faith and the appearance of God, and  belongs equally to all whether Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim. – Enjott Schneider

The reformation project will be the National Youth Orchestra and National Youth Ballet second collaboration marking the Reformation. Both organisations embark on a tour of Germany this week performing in Berlin (16.01.), Dresden (18.01.), Marburg (19.01.), Ludwigsburg (20.01.) and Schweinfurt (21.01.).

• Enjott Schneider - Profile


• Ein feste Burg - Details


• National Youth Orchestra


• National Youth Ballet

 

Photo: Silvano Ballone

On 13 January 2017, Jörg Widmann’s new oratorio ARCHE will receive its premiere, marking the opening of the new Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg. Soprano Marlis Petersen and baritone Thomas E. Bauer will perform alongside the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano, with the combined choral forces of the Staatsopernchor, the choir of the AUDI Jugendakademie and the Hamburger Alsterspatzen.



ARCHE centres on mankind’s pleas to an indifferent god, vulnerably revealing all their wishes, fears and hopes for a better world. Widmann selected a variety of texts from different centuries, including from poets Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Schiller, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Bible. Scored for two soloists, three choirs, organ and orchestra, the music is similarly varied, ranging from intimate tonal passages to complex choral textures that make full use of the work's impressive forces.

Jörg Widmanns ARCHE – Let There be Sound!

ARCHE begins with the first act “Fiat Lux/ Es werde Licht” (“Let there be Light”), in which two child narrators chronicle, with factual innocence and at times ironic alienation, the act of creation. In the second act “Die Sintflut” (“The Flood”) vast cascading masses of sound evoke the power of the flood, rendering the violence of its destruction almost physically perceptible. This is followed by a gentler third act “Liebe” (“Love”), but even before the praise of love has faded away a double murder of jealously is reported – a reminder that mankind is not even capable of protecting the precious resource of love from evil. An apocalypse ensues in the fourth act, wherein Widmann sets “Dies Irae” alongside with Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, exploring life, death and hope for salvation; appealing for divine intervention. The “Dona eis requiem” changes in the last act to “Dona nobis pacem”, but the children’s choir demands that man assumes the responsibility for his survival himself, and only then will peace be possible with a loving God.

The Elbphilharmonie’s location overlooking the water, and its architecture reminiscent of ships and sails, inspired Widmann:

It is an ‘ark of culture’, where we as humans may find refuge with our happiness but also our suffering, especially in this very turbulent time. It is a refuge in a politically stormy sea, where art takes place, and where music takes place. I think it is fantastic that it was built; it also contains something sacred. – Widmann

During the three-week festival of events for the opening of the hall, another of Widmann’s works, Sonatina facile, will be premiered by Mitsuko Uchida on 18 January.

• Jörg Widmann - Profile


• ARCHE - Details


• Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

 

 

Photos:
- Elbphilharmonie Hamburg: Maxim Schulz, 2016.
- Jörg Widmann (right) and Kent Nagano: Hannes Rathjen, 2016.

On 17 & 18 December, Bohuslav Martinů’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1 will be performed by Alban Gerhardt and the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich conducted by Krysztof Urbański at the Musikverein Vienna. They will repeat the performance on 19 December at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten, Austria.

Martinů's first Cello Concerto comes from the composer’s neoclassical period beginning in the late 1920s, during which Martinů began to intensely study musical works of the 17th and 18th centuries. The original version of the Cello Concerto from 1930 is scored for cello and chamber orchestra, demonstrating the influence of Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerti Grossi. In 1939 however, Martinů re-orchestrated the concerto for large orchestra, lending the work a more symphonic character. This was most effectively realised in his final revision of 1955, widely acknowledged to be the most popular version of the piece, and the one which the Tonkünstler-Orchester will perform this week.

From Concerto Grosso to Concerto Grande

Compared to other compositions from Martinů’s neoclassical period, the Cello Concerto is freer in form. A colourful Allegro movement and light-footed Finale frame the more expressive central Andante, while modern orchestration and folkloric influences characterize the concerto's refreshing tonality. The result is a very accessible work - one on which Martinů spent more time than perhaps any other.

The artist is always searching for the meaning of life - his own, and that of mankind - searching for truth. A system of uncertainty has entered our daily life - the pressures of mechanization and uniformity call for protest, and the artist has only one means of expressing this: music. – Bohuslav Martinů

A recording the 1955 version of Martinů’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1 by cellist Sol Gabetta with Krysztof Urbański conducting the Berlin Philharmonic was recently released on Sony Classical. The disc, which also features Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, would make a perfect Christmas gift for any lover of cello music.

• Bohus­lav Mar­tinů — Pro­file


• Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1 (version 1955) — Details


• Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1 (version 1930) — Details


• Ton­künst­ler Orches­ter Nie­der­ös­ter­reich