The long-awaited world première of Paul Patterson’s Spider’s Web takes place today, 25 May 2013, in Kufstein. Bernhard Sieberer conducts the Cappella Istropolitana, Gwyneth Wentink plays harp.

Paul Patterson: Spider’s Web
for harp and string orchestra | 12’
world prem. 25/5/2013, Stadtsaal Kufstein, Austria; Gwyneth Wentink, hp; Cappella Istropolitana, cond. Bernhard Sieberer

103 years after its world première, the hr-Sinfonieorchester and Paavo Järvi will perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 – frequently called the Symphony of a Thousand – on 24 and 25 May at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. The choirs will consist of the EuropaChorAkademie, the Tschechischer Philharmonischer Chor Brünn and the Limburger Domsingknaben.

arte live web and the Hessischer Rundfunk will broadcast the concert as a live stream on Saturday, 25 May at 20:00 (CET/CEST).

Tonight Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain will be performed as a part of a composer’s portrait dedicated to Haas at the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele. Jonathan Stockhammer conducts the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart.

You can watch an interview with Sir Simon Rattle, in which the conductor identifies in vain as “one of the only already acknowledged masterpieces of the 21st century”, here:

The concert will be broadcast by SWR 2 on 16 June 2013, listen live.

Georg Friedrich Haas: in vain
for 24 instruments | 70’
2 1 2 1 - 2 0 2 0 - perc(2), hp, acc, pno, sax, vln(3), vla(2), vc(2), cb
23/5/2013, Schwetzingen; Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, cond. Jonathan Stockhammer

ECM Records released a new CD this week: Morton Feldman’s Violin and Orchestra, performed by Carolin Widmann and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Emilio Pomàrico.

Andrew Clements of The Guardian writes that “[t]his performance is perfectly judged: Carolin Widmann is a fabulously assured and poetic soloist, taking minute care over the smallest, apparently most insignificant details, and Emilio Pomarico ensures that the orchestral playing is equally refined and scrupulous. It's a beautiful, haunting disc.”

Buy the CD

Read the full review

The world première of Luke Bedford’s new ensemble work Renewal, which was commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, takes place today, on 22 May under Sian Edwards. Furthermore, Bedford’s Wonderful No-Headed Nightingale for 10 players will receive its UK première in the same concert.

Bedford, whom Andrew Burke, chief executive of the London Sinfonietta, described as “one of the best British composers of his generation” has written that “Renewal is about creating something new from the rubble of each previous section. Though the material of any given part might appear stable, it always collapses. The piece is a celebration of renewal and regrowth: written in the full knowledge of its impermanence.”

The London Sinfonietta released an introductory video about Bedford on YouTube which you can watch here:

Renewal (2012/2013)
for 12 players | 22’
1 1 1 0 - 1 0 1 0 - perc, hp, str
Wonderful No-Headed Nightingale (2012)
for 10 players | 8’
22/5/2013, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London; London Sinfonietta, cond. Sian Edwards

Here’s a short video from the Scottish Television channel stv Glasgow featuring composer David Fennessy and conductor/curator Ilan Volkov. Enjoy.

The world première of David Fennessy’s Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon), which opened the second Tectonics Festival in Glasgow on 11 May 2013 (the first took place in Iceland in March 2012), was a great success. Ilan Volkov conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

We also took a photo of the panel discussion with David Fennessy, Hildur Gudnadóttir, Alvin Lucier, Ilan Volkov and Fiona Talkington in the Candleriggs Bar.

If you didn’t manage to attend the two-day festival, here is a short introductory video of Volkov talking about it. I’d say that the festival’s mixture of genres is a great idea, and am eagerly awaiting to see who will be on the programme next year:

Another great review of Wozzeck (con. Edward Gardner), this time from The Guardian. Tim Ashley describes Carrie Cracknell’s production of Berg’s “masterpiece”. Highlighting that Cracknell’s production distances itself from a psychoanalytic or symbolic interpretation of the opera (reminding the audience of trauma caused by war and poverty - Wozzeck, played by Leigh Melrose – has just returned from Iraq or Afghanistan), Ashley describes the opera as musically astonishing, Melrose “giving the performance of a lifetime [...], a major achievement for conductor Edward Gardner [...], an outstanding achievement to which no one can remain indifferent.”

Read the full review on The Guardian.

Alban Berg: Wozzeck
Opera in 3 acts | 105’
Further performances: 18, 23 and 25 May, English National Opera, London
Leigh Melrose, Wozzeck; Sara Jakubiak, Marie; Tom Randle, The Captain; James Morris, The Doctor; Bryan Register, The Drum-Major; ENO Orchestra, cond. Edward Gardner

The marvelous Boulanger Trio and Friedrich Cerha at the Österreichisches Kulturforum Berlin [Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin].

Find our latest Newsletter here, covering Bedford, Zemlinsky and Boulez, and world and national premières by Patterson, Rihm, Halffter and Staud.

Gavin Plumley reviews Carrie Cracknell’s (you can follow her on twitter) new production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the ENO on his wonderful blog. If you haven’t seen the piece yet – in this or any other interpretation – this hopefully will work as an incentive to do so.

Some extracts (and I’ve heard similar):

Wozzeck is a relentlessly chilling opera. But in English National Opera's incisive new production, the piece shocks afresh. […] At the heart of the tale is Leigh Melrose's superb performance in the title role. […]The rest of the cast is likewise wholly committed to Cracknell and Gardner's reading. […]

and finally:

This is, quite simply, one of the best things ENO has done for years, confirming that John Berry should back innovative theatrical and operatic talent, rather than flirting with cinema.

Read the full review

Alban Berg: Wozzeck
Opera in 3 acts | 105’
Further performances: 15, 18, 23 and 25 May, English National Opera, London
Leigh Melrose, Wozzeck; Sara Jakubiak, Marie; Tom Randle, The Captain; James Morris, The Doctor; Bryan Register, The Drum-Major; ENO Orchestra, cond. Edward Gardner

Christian Lindberg and the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino perform Luciano Berio’s SOLO on 11 May in Florence during the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Zubin Mehta conducts. Berio wrote the ‘concerto’ for trombone and orchestra in 1999 for Lindberg:

“It’s not a concerto in the real sense of the word, even if the solo part is extremely, almost absurdly difficult. The orchestral element is partially generated from the trombone voice, but the development and substance of the discourses differ enormously. The trombone and orchestra occasionally share the same key note, but they do not communicate with each other. SOLO is thus less of a concerto and more of an encounter between two solitudes.” (Luciano Berio)

Luciano Berio: SOLO
for trombone and orchestra | 22’
5 1 5 1 - 4 4 3 1 - alto sax, t.sax, str(12 0 8 8 6)
11/5/2013, Florence; Christian Lindberg, tbn; Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, cond. Zubin Mehta

Tom Service’s highly recommendable contemporary composers series ended this week with “the most divisive figure of them all:” Karlheinz Stockhausen.

But what made this composer so polarizing? Service provides a link to a very entertaining YouTube-channel where we can experience the composer’s “infectious combination of charisma, blazing intellect and force of will” and points out the importance of intuition and experience in his music.

You can read the full article on Tom Service’s Blog.

Vykintas Baltakas, Emilio Pomàrico, Marcus Weiss (sax), Teodoro Anzellotti (acc) and the WDR SO Köln at the world première of Saxordionphonics on 28 April 2013 in Witten.

Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon) constitutes the first part of a trilogy of pieces I am composing based on the diaries of the German film director Werner Herzog which he kept during the troubled production of his 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo and later published as the book Conquest of the Useless. The movie itself concerns the doomed efforts of a turn of the century rubber baron to build an opera house in the middle of the Peruvian jungle and the central, iconic image from the movie of a steamship being hauled over a mountain has been somehow translated here into a gigantic glissando, starting in the depths of the orchestra and slowly climbing. I wanted this piece to have all the grandeur and over-the-top emotions of a romantic opera overture and as I began to compose, that wish became more and more literally realised with snatches of Rigoletto writhing in the undegrowth accompanied high above by the “melancholy peeping” of tree-frogs.

(David Fennessy)

The world première of David Fennessy's new orchestral work Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon) will be held on 11 May in Glasgow. Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish SO.

David Fennessy: Prologue (Silver are the tears of the moon)
for orchestra | 10’
3 3 3 3 - 4 2 3 1 - Table Guitar, timp, perc(3), pno, str(12 10 8 8 6), frog guiros
world prem. 11/5/2013, Glasgow; BBC Scottish SO, cond. Ilan Volkov