Tagged with 'Kent Nagano'

The anti-anti-opera: Le Grand Macabre by György Ligeti will celebrate its premiere on 28 June 2024 at the Munich Opera Festival at the Bavarian State Opera. The piece thus marks the end of the 2023/2024 season, which began last year on the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth. Kent Nagano will conduct the production, which will be staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Genesis – creation is the title of Toshio Hosokawa's new Violin Concerto which he wrote for violinist Veronika Eberle. As part of the International Music Festival Hamburg, the world premiere will take place on 19 May 2021, 8 pm local time (6 pm UTC), after the date had to be postponed multiple times. It will be live streamed on the YouTube channel of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, Kent Nagano is conducting.

"Veronika Eberle gave birth to a baby last November. I composed the piece as a present for
her and her baby. In the concerto, the soloist represents a human being, while the orchestra is imagined as nature and the universe surrounding him. At the beginning, the orchestra repeats wave motions suggestive of amniotic fluid, then the melodic line of the violin solo (= life) is generated from the inside of ‘cradle’, and is developing while imitating melodies inside the orchestra, then becomes independent of it, conflicts with it, however, finally finds a harmony inside the orchestra and dissolves into it." Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa
Violin Concerto
Genesis · 18’
19 May 2021 | Hamburg (D)
Elbphilharmonie
Veronika Eberle, violin
Philharmonic State Orchestera Hamburg
Kent Nagano, conductor

Commissioned by Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (SOČR) and Grafenegg Festival

• Toshio Hosokawa – composer profile


• Live Stream on YouTube


• Website of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg

 

On 14 July, Penderecki’s seminal work St Luke-Passion will be performed as part of the Festival de Lauaudière in Quebec, Canada. Kent Nagano will conduct The Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Chor Filharmonii Krakowskiej, joined by soprano Sarah Wegener, baritone Lucas Meachem and bass Matthew Rose.

Commissioned by the Westdeutschen Rundfunk Orchestra, St Luke-Passion was premiered on 30 March 1966 at Münster Cathedral, Germany, under its full title Passio Et Mors Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam.The text of St Luke-Passion is in Latin and primarily drawn from the Gospel of Luke, with additions from the Gospel of John, Lamentations of Jeremiah and Psalms of David. In depicting the suffering and death of Christ, the work is also intended as an expression of the tragedy of World War II. Several of Penderecki’s compositions are similarly dedicated to victims of suffering, such as Threnody (1960) for the victims of Hiroshima and his piano concerto Resurrection (2002) for those lost in the 9/11 attacks.

Krzysztof Penderecki –St. Luke Passion:  An homage to Bach

Penderecki was strongly influenced by the music of J.S. Bach’s Passions, and pays homage to the great composer by using the B-A-C-H motif throughout his composition. Additionally, the two falling second intervals of this motif become a representation of pain. However, unlike the emotionally driven language of Bach, Penderecki’s musical expression could be described as more intellectual.  For example, in the dramatic section “Jesus before Pilate”, tone clusters are used beside extracts of his own Stabat Mater composed in 1962, seamlessly combining twelve-tone serialism with Gregorian chant.

Such an effortless combination of old and new, and Penderecki’s uncompromising affirmation of tradition and faith, immediately made his St Luke Passion one of the 20th century’s enduring masterpieces. Following the premiere in 1966, one critic stated:

“Penderecki’s Passion will be one of the most important compositions for new music. The striking clarity of this revolutionary score, the logic behind the structure of the work and the haunting effect of the music go far beyond what prominent composers have offered to choral music in recent years.” – Heinz Joseph Herbort, Die Zeit, following the premiere in 1966 

Further performances include 18 July at the Sala audytoryjna, Krakow, and on 20 July St Luke-Passion will feature in the opening concert of the Salzburg Festival. In addition Penderecki’s Intermezzo for 24 solo strings can be heard performed by the Camerata Salzburg on 4 August, and as part of the final of the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award that same weekend.

• Penderecki - profile


• St. Luke Passion - work details


• Festival de Lauaudière

 

 

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.

This week, Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber will receive two performances: on 3 August by the Suffolk Youth Orchestra under Philip Shaw in Snape Maltings Concert Hall in Suffolk, United Kingdom and on 6 August at the Britt Music & Arts Festival in Oregon, USA with Teddy Abrams conducting the Britt Festival Orchestra.



In 1936, a final ban was issued by the Nazi government on performances of Paul Hindemith’s works, leading to his eventual emigration to the United States four years later. Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis was the first work he wrote in his new adopted homeland.

Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis – A Ballet’s transformation into symphony

In 1938, Hindemith composed music for the ballet Nobilissima Visione for the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine. It was on the back of this project that the idea for a new piece was formed: Massine asked Hindemith to arrange piano works by Carl Maria von Weber for a new ballet. However, the artists could not reach an agreement. Hindemith decided against Massine’s suggestion and instead composed variations on themes by Carl Maria von Weber, rewritting them in his own style - in a letter to his wife, Hindemith wrote that he had “coloured them lightly and made them sharper”. Massine rejected the result for its complexity and in the end the ballet was never completed. It wasn't until 1944 that Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis received its world premiere by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski. Virtuosity, imagination and humour characterise the work, and the Turandot-Scherzo, with its pentatonic motive and boisterous jazz fugato for winds and percussion, is especially popular with audiences.

Among all the participants in the creation, distribution, and reception of music, the individual with the keenest sense for the technique vested in a piece of music is always the performer. The impeccable technique of a masterpiece he transmits will be the most valuable stimulus for his own technique of re-creation; his performance will be carried along by the composition’s perfection; his craving for the listener’s satisfaction will most readily be crowned with success. – Paul Hindemith

Suffolk Youth Orchestra recently performed Symphonic Metamorphosis in a tour of Germany including Wittenberg, Magdeburg and Dessau. Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, USA will present the first three movements of the work (Allegro, Turandot-Scherzo and Andantino) arranged for concert band on 6 August under conductor Steve Davis.

Other notable upcoming performances of Hindemith's music include a concert on 28 August in which conductor Kent Nagano and members of Philharmisches Staatsorchester Hamburg will play Kammermusik Nr. 1 at the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival.

• Paul Hindemith - profile


• Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber