sábado, 29 de septiembre de 2007

Especial Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is a prominent member of a group of Finnish composers and performers who are now, in mid-career, making a worldwide impact. Born in Helsinki in 1952, she studied at the Sibelius Academy there with the pioneering modernist Paavo Heininen and, with Magnus Lindberg and others, she founded the progressive ‘Ears Open’ group. She continued her studies in Freiburg with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber, at the Darmstadt summer courses, and, from 1982, at the IRCAM research institute in Paris – the city which has been her home ever since.

At IRCAM, Saariaho developed techniques of computer-assisted composition and acquired fluency in working on tape and with live electronics. This experience influenced her approach to writing for orchestra, with its emphasis on the shaping of dense masses of sound in slow transformations. Significantly, her first orchestral piece, Verblendungen (1984), involves a gradual exchange of roles and character between orchestra and tape. And even the titles of her next, linked, pair of orchestral works, Du Cristal (1989) and …à la Fumée (1990) – the latter with solo alto flute and cello, and both with live electronics – suggest their preoccupation with colour and texture.

Through IRCAM, Saariaho became allied with the French ‘spectralist’ composers, whose techniques are based on computer analysis of the sound-spectrum of individual notes on different instruments. This analytical approach led her to the regular use of harmonies resting on long-held bass notes, microtonal intervals, and a precisely detailed continuum of sound extending from pure tone to unpitched noise – all features of one of her most frequently performed works, Graal théâtre for violin and orchestra or ensemble (1994/97).

In recent years Saariaho has turned to opera, with outstanding success. L’Amour de loin, with a libretto by Amin Maalouf based on an early biography of the twelfth-century troubadour Jaufré Rudel, received widespread acclaim in its premiere production directed by Peter Sellars at the 2000 Salzburg Festival, and won the composer a prestigious Grawemeyer Award. Adriana Mater, on an original libretto by Maalouf, mixing gritty present-day reality and dreams, followed, again directed by Sellars, at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in March 2006.

Around the operas there have been other vocal works, notably the ravishing Château de l’âme (1996), Oltra mar (1999), and the song-cycle Quatre instants (2002). And the evening-long La Passion de Simone, portraying the life and death of the philosopher Simone Weil, will form part of Sellars’s international festival ‘New Crowned Hope’ in 2006/07.

The experience of writing for voices has led to some simplification of Saariaho’s language, with a new vein of modally oriented melody accompanied by more regular repeating patterns. This change of direction has been carried over into orchestral works including Aile du songe for flute and chamber orchestra (2001) and the stunning Orion for large orchestra (2002) – with a new cello concerto to come for the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February 2007.

In the profusion of large and small works which Saariaho has produced in recent years, two features which have marked her whole career continue to stand out. One is a close and productive association with individual artists – not least Amin Maalouf and Peter Sellars, as well as the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, the flautist Camilla Hoitenga, the cellist Anssi Karttunen, the soprano Dawn Upshaw and, more recently, the pianist Emmanuel Ax. The other is a concern, shown equally in her choice of subject matter and texts and in the profusion of expression marks in her scores, to make her music not a working-out of abstract processes but an urgent communication from composer to listener of ideas, images and emotions.

Anthony Burton, 2006


Work Information

Kaija Saariaho : Verblendungen

commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company

Work Notes

tape realised in the GRM's digital studio (Paris) and the Finnish Radio's Experimental Studio

Publisher

Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Helsinki

Category

Orchestra

Sub-Category

Large Orchestra

Year Composed

1984

Duration

14 Minutes

Orchestration

1+afl(pic).1.1.asx.1(cbn)/4111/2perc/hp.pf/str(4.4.5.3.2)/tape (see below for details)

The tape part has been worked out with GRM's digital tools for manipulating and transforming concrete sound material. The basic material for the tape consists of two violin sounds, a sforzato stroke and a pizzicato. From these two sounds I have built a quasi-string orchestra with a very wide pitch range. The timbres on the tape are very homogeneous because of this single reference spectrum.

The total plan for the use of timbre in the piece is based on the idea that the orchestra and the tape are moving in opposite directions with respect to the tone-noise axis. The piece starts with a thick orchestral tutti, which is first hidden and than shaded by the noise on the tape. During the piece the orchestral colouring is transformed into instrumental noises, which, before withering away, shade the quasi-string orchestra on the tape. The orchestra is built to have a heterogeneous nature to contrast with the even colours on the tape. In spite of their different, sometimes opposite materials, the orchestra and the tape should build a common, inseparable sound world. When composing the piece an important factor has been the relation of the surface structure and deeper musical and formal structures. In my network of connections between different parameters I am searching for intersections not only vertically and horizontally on the time axis, but also in the direction of depth, as if the sounds were organised in think layers in three dimensional perspective, starting from dry, grainy sounds in front and moving towards smooth, more resonant ones.

Dazzling, different surfaces, tissues, textures. Weights, gravity. To be blinded. Interpolations. Reflections. Death. The sum of independent worlds. Shading, refracting the colour.



Kaija Saariaho : Lichtbogen

commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture

Publisher

Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Helsinki

Category

Large Ensemble (7 or more players)

Year Composed

1986

Duration

17 Minutes

Orchestration

1(pic,afl)000/0000/perc/hp.pf/str(1.1.1.1.1)/electronics (see below for details)

The name LICHTBOGEN stems from Northern Lights which I saw in the Arctic sky when starting to work with this piece. When looking at the movements of these immense, silent lights which run over the black sky, first ideas concerning the form and language for the piece started to move in my mind. What is the dependence - and does it exist at all? - between this phenomenon of nature and my piece, I don't know.

In LICHTBOGEN I work for the first time with computer in the context of purely instrumental music. Special harmony and rhythm are worked out with two different tools in IRCAM.

For harmony I have worked with the CRIME system developed by Claudy Malherbe and Gerard Assayag: the harmonic material is created by analysing short transitions played with a violoncello, starting from artificial harmonic sound and ending to complex 'multiphonic' sounds. The analyses have been made by selecting many small windows in the different parts of the sound. From the results of the analyses I have reconstructed the transitions and made harmonic processes, which are often combined to the original playing manners of the analysed sound, so that harmony and timbral thinking stem from the same source.

For the rhythm I use a network for programmes which I have realised with Xavier Rodet in the FORMES environment. These programmes allowed me to construct interpolations and transitions for different musical parameters. The rhythmic interpolations here are created between different musical patterns by using circular lists, in which every time when repeated, values have changed, and thus modified the general character of the pattern. The calculated results have then been transcribed with approximations, which allows them to be playable to musical notation.

LICHTBOGEN is a commission of the French Ministry of Culture and is dedicated to Paul Mefano.

Kaija Saariaho

Ch‚teau de l'‚me for Soprano and Orchestra (1995)

i La liane

ii A la terre

iii La liane

iv Pour repousser l'esprit

v Les formules


Dawn Upshaw, soprano

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor


Taken from Sony Classical 60817 (2001)



Finnish music flourishes


Einojuhani Rautavaara


Kaija Saariaho & Magnus Lindberg

On the world map, Finland is a tiny country; but on the world map of contemporary music, Finland is a superpower. Thanks to Jean Sibelius, music occupies a central position in Finnish society. Over the past 30 years, Finnish music has enjoyed a unique boom. New operas, orchestral works and chamber music works are being commissioned and performed continuously.

The top names in Finnish contemporary music are also major international figures. In the 1990s, Finnish contemporary music established a powerful presence in the international music industry. The music of Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kalevi Aho is being published and recorded all the time, and their works are also being performed regularly at major centres of music around the world.

Coexistence of styles

Expressive and even Neo-Romantic stylistic trends coexist with streamlined Modernism. The vitality of Modernist ideals is evident in the work of Paavo Heininen and Jukka Tiensuu, while the symphonic tradition is continued by composers such as Aulis Sallinen, Pehr Henrik Nordgren, Jouni Kaipainen, Rautavaara and Aho.

There are also composers whose idioms transcend stylistic boundaries, such as Kimmo Hakola, who combines uncompromising Modernism with a Romantic ethos; Mikko Heiniö, whose output includes a series of piano concertos unique in Finnish music; and Juhani Nuorvala, who has imported a slightly Minimalist urban undertone to the Finnish musical scene. Intimate chamber music is also doing well in Finland alongside orchestral music (we might mention Usko Meriläinen in this context).

In addition to the established composers, Finland’s high-quality music education system is constantly bringing new names to the scene. Beginning in the 1990s, a new generation of composers has emerged, with a colourful pluralism of values and techniques. Uljas Pulkkis writes luxurious, almost Romantic music; Lotta Wennäkoski has a modern, restrained and lyrical style; Tommi Kärkkäinen, by contrast, is highly expressive. Veli-Matti Puumala and Perttu Haapanen have perhaps the tightest links to the Modernist tradition.


The Last Temptations by

Joonas Kokkonen

A land of opera

The opera boom began in the 1970s with the operas of Joonas Kokkonen and Aulis Sallinen. Since then, nearly every year has seen the emergence of a major opera by composers such as Aho, Rautavaara, Heininen, or Olli Kortekangas. Sallinen and Rautavaara have been the most prolific in this genre, and their operas have been staged in numerous productions in Europe and the USA.

The opera event of the year in 2000 was the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s first opera "L’amour de loin" at the Salzburg Music Festival. The immense publicity it received resulted in several

productions of the work, and Saariaho received the distinguished Grawemeyer Prize in recognition of her career in 2003.

The Savonlinna Opera Festival and the new Opera House of the Finnish National Opera (1993), enabling the staging of more experimental productions, have contributed to the strong position that opera occupies in Finland today. It is also significant that there are a dozen provincial opera companies in Finland outside Helsinki. The opera boom peaked in the year 2000 with at least 14 new Finnish operas receiving their world premieres.

The choral tradition is also strong in Finland. Choirs are active in commissioning and performing contemporary music, children's and youth choirs not excepted. Finland's distinguished choral composers include Erik Bergman, Rautavaara, Pekka Kostiainen, Kortekangas, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi and Juhani Komulainen.

In Finland, contemporary music is strongly represented in all aspects of musical life: music education, regular concert series, publishing, recording and festivals (e.g. the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Helsinki Festival, Musica nova Helsinki, Time of Music or the Tampere biennale). The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, Sinfonia Lahti and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra constantly perform Finnish contemporary music on their foreign tours, and our world-famous conductors are familiar with the domestic contemporary repertoire.

The Web pages of the Finnish Music Information Centre contain an extensive survey of Finnish concert music. We have produced overviews, composer catalogues, programme notes and instrument-specific listings. The News section contains the latest information on Finnish music.

Revista 26 de septiembre

Sinoidal

1. Figura 1, de Mattias Pintscher, para Cuarteto de cuerdas y acordeón. Anzelotti, acordeón; Arditti, cuarteto.

2. The Machine, Threnody ensemble.

3. Litany for the whale (3), de John Cage, para dos voces iguales sin vibrato.

4. The 1/16 note piano, Marc Kilchenmann.


Matthias Pintscher

Pese a su juventud (nació en 1971), el compositor alemán Matthias Pintscher está realizando una de las carreras más fulgurantes en el panorama de la música contemporánea. La discografía siempre es un índice del relieve que un músico va asumiendo. En el caso de Pintscher, los sellos Teldec y Kairos le dedicaron en 1999 y 2001 sendos monográficos. Aquellos compactos -que ya anunciaban a un compositor del máximo interés- se centraban mayoritariamente en el repertorio sinfónico. Ahora Winter&Winter promueve un disco dedicado íntegramente al apartado camerístico, que incluye el ciclo Figura I-V, el 4º Cuarteto de cuerda «Retrato de Gesualdo» y Dernier espace avec introspecteur.

De Figura I-V puedo decir que parece el más extraordinario ciclo terminado en los últimos diez años después de los Zayin de Paco Guerrero. Entre 1997 y 2000, Pintscher ha escrito estas cinco piezas de plantilla variable, que movilizan al cuarteto de cuerda y al acordeón. Figura I está escrita para cuarteto de cuerda y acordeón, Figura II y Figura IV para cuarteto de cuerda, Figura III para acordeón, mientras Figura V emplea el violonchelo en solitario. El compositor se ha inspirado en las esculturas de Giacometti para dar vida a un universo sonoro compuesto por trazos delgados, silencios y murmullos inasibles: un vocabulario de signos desmaterializados, fugaces intuiciones tímbricas al límite de la inconsistencia, del que sin embargo Pintscher logra obtener una extraordinaria fuerza de sugestión.

El 4º Cuarteto de cuerda (1992) tiene como punto de partida el madrigal de Gesualdo «Sospirava il mio core» -que nunca se llega a oír de forma perceptible- y lo somete a un proceso de descomposición, en donde los contrastes acusados, el valor dramático del silencio se ofrecen como un retrato virtual del compositor napolitano. El procedimiento compositivo de Pintscher sigue caminos empíricos e intuitivos, pero en esta ocasión la impresión es que tal vez los casi veinticuatro minutos de la pieza sean excesivos en relación con el tratamiento que se hace del material sonoro. Dernier espace avec introspecteur (1994), para acordeón y violonchelo, establece de nuevo un diálogo con las bellas artes -en este caso Joseph Beuys- para crear un juego sutil de volúmenes sonoros atravesados por un vena de lírica delicadeza.

Con tan solo treinta y tres años, Pintscher es un compositor hecho y derecho. Un bravo a Winter&Winter por haberse arriesgado en terrenos que no son exactamente los suyos más habituales. Sobra cualquier elogio acerca de la calidad de los intérpretes: el Cuarteto Arditti y el acordeonista Teodoro Anzellotti.

Stefano Russomanno

Born in Apulia in southern Italy, Teodoro Anzellotti grew up near Baden-Baden. He pursued his accordion studies at the Hochschulen in Karlsruhe and Trossingen and quickly achieved victories at various international competitions.

Since the 1980s he has been a regular guest at the major festivals and with leading orchestras. Teodoro Anzellotti has successfully contributed to integrating the accordion into the sphere of classical music.

This has occurred principally through his service to New Music: through his development of performing techniques he has enlarged the tone-color capabilities and sonic profile of his instrument.

More than 300 new works have been written for Teodoro Anzellotti, by composers such as George Aperghis, Brice Pauset, Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, Mauricio Kagel, Michael Jarrell, Isabel Mundry, Gerard Pesson, Matthias Pintscher, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Marco Stroppa, Jörg Widmann und Hans Zender.

Luciano Berio created for him his Sequenza XIII, which Mr. Anzellotti premiered in Rotterdam in 1995 and subsequently performed at major festivals worldwide. Since 1987 he has taught at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, and since 2002 at the Musikhochschule Freiburg im Breisgau as well.

His discography embraces a spectrum reaching from Bach and Scarlatti to Janácek and Satie to John Cage and Matthias Pintscher.


Matthias Pintscher (1971)

Figura I-V (1997-2000):

para acordeón y cuarteto de cuerdas

1. Figura I per quartetto d'archi e fisarmonica (1998)

2. Figura II Frammento per quartetto d'archi (1997)

3. Figura III per fisarmonica (2000)

4. Figura IV Passaggio per quartetto d'archi (1999)

5. Figura V Assonanza per violoncello (2000)

6. 4° Quartetto d'archi »Ritratto di Gesualdo« (1992)

7. Dernier espace avec introspecteur (1994)

Betrachtung einer Raumplastik von Joseph Beuys

para acordeón y cello

http://www.diverdi.com/tienda/detalle.aspx?id=11656



John Cage

John Cage is known for being a raucous composer, but he had a gentler side as well, and both sides are present on this marvelous recording. It begins with what is the disc's highlight, in my opinion: the remarkable "Litany for the Whale." The longest piece on this disc, it is scored for two voices, and has a call and response structure to it. The two male singers, recorded in a resonant chamber, are given five pitches to sing, one assigned to each letter in the word "whale." This is calm, spare, meditative music, unlike anything in the modern repertoire that I have heard. It is really beautiful.

Category:

Musical composition

Dated:

New York City, July 1980

Instrumentation:

Recitation and 32 responses for 2 equal voices without vibrato

Duration:

25'

Premiere and performer(s):

Dedicated to:

Choreography:

---

Published:

Edition Peters 66880 © 1981 by Henmar Press.

Reprinted in "Whales, a celebration", edited by Greg Batenby.

Manuscript:

Score (holograph, signed, in ink - 4 lv.) in New York Public Library

The text consists of the letters for the word WHALE, with a specific pitch attached to each letter of the word. A 'word' is sung in one breath by pronouncing each letter seperately and giving the same time to each letter, except the last one, which is to be sung longer than the others.

The first singer sings the recitation, the second singer sings the response. A silence follows being continued by the second recitation to be sung by the second singer as well. The first singer gives the second response etcetera.

Everything should be performed quietly and without dynamic changes.

lunes, 17 de septiembre de 2007

Glenn Gould, The Idea of North

A transcript of the prologue to The Idea of North, a sound documentary by Glenn Gould...

"This is Glenn Gould this programme is called The Idea of North. I've long been intrigued by that incredible tapestry of tundra and taiga which constitutes the arctic and sub-arctic of our country. I've read about it, written about it, and even pulled up my parka once and gone there. Yet like all but a very few Canadians I've had no real ex I've long been intrigued by that incredible tapistry of tundra and taiga which constitutes the arctic and sub-arctic of our country. I've read about it, written about it, and even pulled up my parka once and gone there. Yet like all but a very few Canadians I've had no real experience of the North. I've remained, of necessity, an outsider. And the North has remained for me, a convenient place to dream about, spin tall tales about, and, in the end, avoid.

This programme, however, brings together some remarkable people who have had a direct confrontation with that northern third of Canada, who've lived and worked there and in whose lives the North has played a very vital role. There's a geographer and anthropolgist, Jim Lotz; a sociologist, Frank Valee; a government official, Bob Phillips; and a nurse, Marianne Schroeder. There's also a fifth character and therein lies a story.

Several years ago I went North aboard a train known affectionately to Westerners as the Muskeg Express-- Winnipeg to Fort Churchill- 1,015 miles, two nights, one day, four double bedrooms, eight sections, diner and coach. And at breakfast I struck up a conversation with one W.B. McLean, or as he was known along the line and at all the hamlet sitings where his bunk car would be parked, Wally. Wally McLean is a surveyor, now retired, and within the first minutes of what proved to be a day-long conversation, he endeavored to persuade me of the metaphorical significance of his profession. He parlezed surveying into a literary tool, even as Jorge Luis Borge manipulates mirrors, and Franz Kafka badgers beetles. And as he did so I began to realize that his relation to a craft, which has as its subject, the land, enabled him to read the signs of that land, to find in the most minute measurement, a suggestion of the infinate, to encompass the universal within the particular. And so when it came time to organize this programme and to correlate the diseperate views of our four, other guests, I invited Wally McLean to be our narrator and to tell me how, in his view, one can best obtain an idea of North."

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mwatts/glenn/idea.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Solitude Trilogy: The Idea of North

"The Idea of North," the first part of the trilogy, was intended at the time to stand on its own, with the trilogy evolving with Gould's enthusiasm. It was described by Gould as a "radio documentary" and was based on the narratives of five individuals who had directly experienced the north of Canada. As producer Lorne Tulk noted, "The Idea of North"

represented both the real and imagined effects of geographical isolation, and it was the jumping-off point for Glenn's exploration of solitude via radio documentary. Glenn believed that isolation, which of course is synonymous with the North, though it needn't be, was the purveyor of the creative spirit. The idea that the North forced solitude upon anyone who ventured there was, at least in part, how Glenn described "The Idea of North" to me.

Gould himself tells how the north had fascinated him since childhood but that he had no more than a romanticized and metaphorical view of it. When he assembled "The Idea of North." Gould still considered it allegorical. But he was impressed by how those who had gone north had not returned "unscathed" and had become "philosophers." The work sought to "examine the effects of solitude and isolation upon those who have lived in the Arctic or sub-Arctic."

After a three minute introduction representing what Gould called "contrapuntal radio" -- wherein voices, like musical instruments, enter and fade in sequence -- Gould himself describes his purpose, and what follows are the narratives of the dramatis personae -- a female nurse representing the enthusiast, a cynical sociologist, a rugged prospector, a government bureaucrat, a scholarly anthropologist, and a surveyor Gould describes as a "disillusioned enthusiast." This latter figure Gould had met on his train adventure and imagined him to have led (as producer Janet Somerville puts it) "a hermit's life in northern Manitoba." This was Wally McLean.

Wally's folksy and reflective voice is punctuated by the sound of a moving train to recreate Gould's original impression, a conversation in a dining car. Wally plays the role of the hermit turned philosopher. He describes himself as a hermit by choice not by necessity who escaped urban society to the north.

Other voices, including that of a young geologist, weave in and out of the narrative without intersecting Wally but confirming and extending his perceptions. In passing, they mention Kafka, the myth of Sisyphus, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Einstein, William James. Wally speaks of nature as the last challenge, which in turn merges with human nature as the last challenge, and concludes that these challenges culminate in the challenge of going north.

http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/gould.html


Intervenciones de los diferentes personajes de The Idea of North.

1. "I was fascinated by the country as such. I flew north from Churchill to Coral Harbour on Southampton Island at the end of September. Snow had begun to fall and the country was partially covered by it ... this flat, flat country frightened me a little, because it just seemed endless ..."

Listen to the excerpt


2. "I always think of the long summer nights, when the snow had melted and the lakes were open and the geese and ducks had started to fly north. During that time the sun would set but, when there was still a last shimmer in the sky, I would walk out to one of those lakes and watch those ducks and geese just flying around peacefully or sitting on the water, and I felt that I was almost part of that country, part of that peaceful surrounding, and I wished that it would never end."

Listen to the excerpt

Copyright/Source


3. "He's sitting there, away from the madding crowd that's stampeding up and down the aisle and, actually, he's trying to sort of isolate himself because, in fact, shortly he will be isolated for a long period of time in the lonely north..."

Listen to the excerpt

Copyright/Source


4. "You know what one young fellow told me? He was taking -- I forget what he was taking -- probably philosophy. He said this was the myth of Sisyphus. Matter of fact, he lisped but I didn't, I think. And the fact is that he had quite a time with it, and here was some wretched -- who? King? was it a king? Yes, a king of Greece -- Corinth? Well, might have been Corinth, and here he was, rolling this confounded rock up to the top of this precipice, for some reason or other, and then he let gravity take over and it hit the bottom. And then he did the same thing again, no doubt with a larger rock."

("We're up against this myth, this business of having to do things for no apparent reason...")

5. Some of "the most vivid of my childhood memories ... have to do with churches ... with evening light filtered through stained-glass windows, and with ministers who concluded their benediction with the phrase, 'Lord, give us the peace that the earth cannot give.'" (Glenn Gould in the film Toronto)

6. "...these different rails [that] meet in the infinity that is our conscious hope."

Listen to the excerpt

Copyright/Source


http://www.collectionscanada.ca/glenngould/028010-305.3-e.html

Espcial Georges Aperghis

Georges Aperghis nació en Atenas, Grecia, el 23 de diciembre de 1945. Su padre Aquilles, era escultor y su madre Irene, era pintora. Ambos se encargaron de proporcionarle una formación inclinada al arte en la Grecia de la postguerra y lo educaron en un ambiente de libertad, el cual sería l0 la base de lo que años más adelante se convertiría en una carrera original e independiente de Georges como compositor.

Un autodidacta nato, Aperghis dividió sus intereses entre la pintura y la música. La segunda la descubrió a través de la radio y por lecciones ocasionales de piano que le daba un amigo de su familia. En Atenas Atenas, el sabía poco del avant garde europeo pero leía algunas partituras de la vanguardia y escuchaba algo de Schoenberg, Bartók y Stravinsky. Los primeros experimentos de musique concrete de Pierre Schaeffer y Pierre Henry le llegaron a Aperghis como una revelación. Para 1963, decide dejar la pintura y establecerse en Paris para continuar estudiando música. Ahí descubrió el mundo de la nueva música gracias a los conciertos en la Maison de la Radio.

Sus primeros trabajos; Antistixis, para 3 cuartetos de cuerdas y Anakroussis para 7 instrumentos y Bis for para dos orquestas (1968) mostraron la influencia del serialismo y de las investigaciones de Xenakis. Él mismo describió estas piezas como estudios, y dejó claro su necesidad de encontrar un lenguaje más personal y libre, Aperghis gravitó hacia los trabajos de Cagey de Mauricio Kagel y hacia el teatro, el cuál descubrió gracias a su esposa, la actriz Edith Scob.

En 1971, Aperghis compuso “La tragique histoire du nécromancien Hieronimo et de son miroir” para dos voces de mujer, cantando y hablando, lute y cello. Fue su primer acercamiento a la música teatral, en el cual demostró su fascinación por la relación entre música, palabras y escenario, la cual continúa explorando hasta la fecha.

Desde 1976, divide su tiempo entre sus 3 pasiones centrales. Después de fundar el Atelier Théâtre et Musique (ATEM), cambia completamente su acercamiento a la composición. Comienza a crear performances que usan tanto actores como músicos y basa sus trabajos en eventos cotidianos que sontransladados a un mundo poético, a veces absurdo y satírico.

Récitation 7 y Récitation 10: right part, ambas forma parte de la obra Récitations, iniciada en 1977. Aquí Aperghis ha omenzado ya a experimentar con una particular mezcla de sonidos y palabrasy hacienda esto descubrió que la logic more often than not begins to stray in such alchemy.

Los trabajos previos a Recitations, especialmente aquellos en el dominio del teatro musical y la opera - De la nature de l'eau [1974] Jacques le Fataliste [1974] e Histoires be Loup [1976] – están dotados de dobles significados y laberintos de palabras superpuestas y acciones que evaden las explicaciones racionales, opacan el qué y distraen la atención La música encuentra su fuerza conforme las palabras gradualmente pierden su significado, en esas obras y en Recitations este proceso es el que las dota de su particular belleza. La repetición automática pone a volar todos los significados y los vuelve poéticos.

En el caso de la Récitation 7 los procesos de repetición se aplican no a uno sino a dos sonidos que se alternan y a la sestructuras del discurso, cada sonido muestra diferencias brutales en el timbre. Mientras que el primero asignaen intervalos regulares, entidades rítmicas a dos notas vecinas, el Segundo construye, en frenetic bursts, una masa de de consonants chillantes e impronunciables.

Esta utilización de la repetición introduce el concepto de procesos acumulativos, los cuales se pueden observer en trabajos que habrían de venire, como Conversations [1988], Enumerations [1988] H [1992]. El tratar de hacer que frases y pequeños grupos de palabras se dobleguen ante reglas arbitrarias nos recuerda los juegos formales del lenguaje jugados por los letristas Jacques Roubaud y Georges Perec. Cuando tanto la música como las palabras son sujetas a este tratamiento, como en el caso de Récitations, una de las obras mayores de Aperghis, el resultado es una inimitable amalgama de the result is an inimitable amalgam of susceptibilidad y burlesque, sello particular del compositor.

¿Quiénes eran Jacques Roubaud y Georges Perec? Pues ambos pertenecían al grupo Oulipo "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", nombre que puede ser traducido como “taller de literature potencial”. Era un grupo de escritores y matemáticos, principalmente francoparlantes que buscaba crear palabras usando constrained writing techniques. Fue fundado en el 60 por Raymond Queneau y François Le Lionnais. Entre sus miembros estaban Georges Perec e Italo Calvino, y poetas como Oskar Pastior y Jacques Roubaud, también matemático.

El grupo definía a la 'littérature potentielle' como “la búsqueda de nuevas estructuras y patrones que pudieran ser usados por escritores en cualquier modo que estos los disfruten”.

Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine" which he used in the construction of Life: A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new techniques, often based on mathematical problems such as the Knight's Tour of the chess-board and permutations.

La investigación formal sobre la perpetua recomposición de notas idénticas y sus kindred syllables alcanza la perfección en Récitation 1 - <>. Grupos iniciales vrecen o decaem, a veces al principio, a veces al final. The relentless, whirling proceso reiterativo en donde sonidos sencillos se repiten a s´ñi mismos eventualmente abre camino a oscilaciones moderadas de dos notas, de manera similar al arrullo de un recién nacido, transformaciones cómicas de timbre y elocución se obtienen poniendo resonadores enfrente de la boca del cantante.

Récitation 9: el tranquilo uttering, en reversa, de una oración intangible es absorbido por material sonoro heterogéneo: susurros.Sprechgesang, rhythmic speech, 'chesty', chromaticism (<>), expiration / inspiration.

Con estas dos Recitaciones terminamos de revisar una de las obras más importantes de Aperghis, para a continación escuchar Graffitis, una obra para percusionista compuesta en 1980. Al respecto de esta obra, apareció un epílogo en un programa en el que se leía: "La fisionomía de la risa debería ser el mejor de los libros elementales para el conocimiento del hombre."

Retomamos el testimonio de virgomusic, colaboradora del blos 8 days in in june, pianista y compositora:

The highlight of the program, in my opinion, was Ian Ding's performance of Graffitis by Georges Aperghis. Aperghis is known for incorporating elements of acting and theatricality into his pieces. Not every classical player is also a good actor, so it's always thrilling to see someone who can pull off this kind of piece. Even though the text consisted of nonsense syllables, the dramatic expression of it was crystal clear. The piece is played entirely without mallets, though a music stand with a mallet setup is placed near the drums. During the last third or so of the piece, the player repeatedly approaches the mallets slowly and agonizingly, but stops short each time, instead returning to a flood of tortured spoken syllables and resuming drumming with his hands. Finally, the player picks up the mallets and takes them to the drum setup, but he is only allowed to pantomime using them, getting close to the drums but never actually hittng them. I found this very poignant and true to life – for me it conveyed the feeling of having what we want or need just within reach but still being unable to access it. It was emotionally exhausting yet satisfying at the same time.

Cerramos esta primera parte de nuestro programa especial dedicado a Aperghis con un fragmento de la obra Machinations, spectacle musical pour quatre femmes et ordinateur. La parte electrónica de la pieza fue producida en el IRCAM y se trata de una composición del año dos mil, en la cual podemos darnos cuenta de los alcances que han tenido ideas gestadas en la mente de Aperghis desde los años de Recitations.


Fundadores del Siglo XX

Playlist para el programa especial del 22 de agosto de 2007

1. Sonata I, John Cage (1951). Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Boris Berman)

2. Sonata II, John Cage (1951). Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Boris Berman)

3. Messe de pauvres, Kirie Eleison, Erik Satie. Les inspitations Insolites D'Erik Satie.

4. Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Piano).

5. Assai Lento, Bela Bartok. Sonate for 2 Pianos et Percussions Sz 110.

6. L'oiseau de Feu (Premier tableau) Carillon Féerique, Igor Stravinsky. Le sacre du printemps / L'oiseau de feu, Pierre Boulez.

El Pueblo Unido...



The people United will never be defeated! (1979). Frederic Rzewski
36 Variaciones sobre la canción de Sergio Ortega“¡El
pueblo unido jamás sera vencido!”. (Duración aprox. 56 min.)

Acerca de The people United will never be defeated!

El ciclo de variaciones de Frederic Rzewski sobre “¡El
pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” es una metáfora en
forma musical de una hora de duración. Continuando la
tradición de ciclos masivos de variaciones para
teclado solo, tales como las Variaciones Goldberg de
Bach, las Variaciones sobre un tema de Diabelli de
Beethoven y los dos libros de Variaciones sobre un
tema de Paganini de Brahms, Rzewski crea una obra de
concierto para piano solo de proporciones épicas, que
se mantiene integrada no sólo por medio del tema del
cual surgen las variaciones, sino también por la forma
en que están organizadas las variaciones, la cual
mantiene al ciclo dentro de una arquitectura y
narrativa específica.

A través del uso de la forma de variación, Rzewski
genera una imagen auditiva de “El pueblo unido”.
Individuales dentro de toda su diversidad, las
variaciones se reúnen, sección por sección, para
formar una unidad. Las variaciones son un muestrario
de estilos: modal, tonal, atonal, a la manera de una
canción popular o en el estilo denso y disonante de
Stockhausen. Cada variación usa como base la
estructura del tema, más que la melodía.

Como en la geometría fractal, la forma más grande de
la pieza se refleja en la forma del tema y la forma de
cada una de las variaciones. La versión completa del
tema es de 36 compases, y éste es seguido por 36
variaciones. Dejando fuera la introducción de 4
compases y la coda de 8 compases que corresponden a la
frase “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido”, la melodía
del tema es de 24 compases que forman seis frases de
cuatro compases. Las variaciones son de 24 compases de
duración y las 36 variaciones se acomodan en seis
grupos de seis variaciones. En los primeros cinco
grupos, escuchamos cinco variaciones, cada una con un
estilo diferente o con un perfil rítmico, armónico o
pianístico distinto, que son seguidas por una sexta
variación que combina elementos de las cinco
variaciones previas: cuatro compases en el estilo de
la primera variación, cuatro compases extraídos de la
segunda, cuatro de la tercera,etc., concluyendo con
una cadencia o coda de cuatro compases.

Rzewski no permite que su imaginación quede atrapada
en la rigidez de este esquema. Al llegar a la
Variación 13, el compositor introduce una pequeña
cadenza que se transforma en la canción revolucionaria
italiana “Bandiera Rossa”. En la Variación 19, el
tempo se acelera dramáticamente y el cuarto grupo de
variaciones se convierte en un único gesto en forma de
Toccata. La variación que cierra este grupo se
convierte en una fantasía muy libre, más que en una
reconstrucción exacta de los elementos previos, que
utiliza el material musical que se acaba de escuchar.
En el quinto grupo de variaciones, la forma de 24
compases se desvanece casi por completo y Rzewski
introduce otra cita musical (La canción de Hans
Eislers “Solidaritätslied” forma la base de la
Variación 26) y después las cadenzas extendidas (la
primera en el estilo minimalista temprano de Philip
Glass) en la Variación 27.

De la misma manera, el sexto grupo de variaciones
reexpone a los cinco grupos previos: la Variación 31
(la primera del grupo) comienza con cuatro compases en
el estilo de la Variación 1, seguida de cuatro
compases en el estilo de la Variación 7 (la primera
del segundo grupo), cuatro compases de la 13, etc.. La
Variación 32 recoge elementos de las segundas
variaciones de cada grupo (2, 8, 14, 20 y 26) y así
sucesivamente.
Finalmente llegamos a la Variación 36 –la sexta
variación del sexto grupo―la cual, combinando
elementos de las cinco variaciones previas, se
convierte en una variación gigantesca que unifica el
rango entero de material musical escuchado en los
últimos tres cuartos de hora.

El pueblo... unido.

Texto: Stephen Drury
Traducción: Mauricio Ramos Viterbo

*

El pianista STEPHEN DRURY, nombrado el Músico del Año
en 1989 por el Boston Globe, se ha presentado
alrededor del mundo con un repertorio que se extiende
desde Bach a Liszt hasta la música de hoy. Ha sido
solista en el Centro Kennedy de Washington, D.C., en
el New York Symphony Space, de Arkansas a California y
de Hong Kong a Paris.

Un especialista en la música del siglo XX, las
versiones de Drury, desde las sonatas de Charles Ives
a obras de John Cage y György Ligeti, han recibido la
más alta consideración por parte de la crítica. Ha
aparecido en la MusikTriennale Koln en Alemania, en el
Subtropics Festival de Miami, en el Festival de Música
Nueva Norteamericana en Sacramento y en el Festival de
Música Nueva de Norteamérica en Búfalo, así como en la
Roulette y en la Knitting Factory en Nueva York. Drury
ha participado como pianista y como director en el
Festival Spoleto USA y en el Festival Angelica de
Bologna. También ha dirigido la Britten Sinfonia en
Inglaterra, el Santa Cruz New Music Works Ensemble, y
el Harvard Group for New Music. En 1992 Stephen Drury
dirigió el estreno mundial de Time Line para orquesta,
coro, banda de jazz y solistas, de George Russell. En
1988-1989 organizó un festival de un año de duración
con música de John Cage, lo que motivó una invitación
por parte del compositor para interpretar la parte
solista en 101 de Cage, estrenada con la Orquesta
Sinfónica de Boston en abril de 1989. Drury ha
comisionado obras para piano solo de John Cage, John
Zorn, Terry Riley y Chinary Ung con fondos
suministrados por Meet the Composer. En marzo de 1995
presentó por primera vez el concierto para piano
Aporias de John Zorn junto con Dennis Russell Davies
y la Orquesta Sinfónica de la Radio de Colonia. Más
tarde en esa misma temporada estrenó la obra Basic
Training para piano solo, escrita para él por Lee
Hyla.

Stephen Drury fue seleccionado por la Agencia de
Información de los Estados Unidos para su Programa de
Embajador Artístico, lo que condujo a una gira de
recitales en Europa durante 1986. Una segunda gira lo
llevó a presentarse en Pakistán, Hong Kong y Japón. Él
ha dado los primeros recitales de piano en la historia
de Julianehaab, Groenlandia y Quetta, Pakistán. En
1989 obtuvo por parte del National Endowment for the
Arts una beca como solista y conferencista para dar
recitales de música norteamericana por dos años.
Frecuentemente participa en giras con el John Zorn
Ensemble dando conciertos en Paris, Nueva York,
Londres, Madrid, Viena, Bruselas y Colonia, y ha
dirigido la música de Zorn en Bologna, Boston y San
José de Costa Rica.

En 1985, Stephen Drury fue elegido por Affiliate
Artist para el Xerox Pianists Program y participó en
residencias con las orquestas sinfónicas de San Diego,
Cedar Rapids, San Angelo, Spokane y Stamford
(Connecticut). Además ha tocado o grabado con la
American Composers Orchestra, la Orquesta Sinfónica de
la Radio de Colonia, la Orquesta de la Radio de Viena,
la Filarmónica de Brooklyn, la Filarmónica de Boston,
la Boston Pops, las Orquestas Sinfónicas de
Springfield (Massachusetts) y Portland (Maine), y la
Sinfónica Nacional Rumana. En 1999 fue invitado por
el coreógrafo Merce Cunningham para participar con
Cunningham y con Mikhail Barishnikov como parte del
Festival del Lincoln Center. Drury ha participado en
el Alice Tully Hall de Nueva York, en Boston con la
Orquesta de Cámara de la Sinfónica de Boston, y como
solista del Boston Modern Orchestra Project, y con los
Seattle Chamber Players en Seattle y Moscú en el
Festival Internacional de Música “Imágenes de Música
Contemporánea Americana”.

Stephen Drury ha impartido clases magistrales en el
Conservatorio Tchaikovsky de Moscú, en el Mannes
Beethoven Institute, en el Conservatorio de Oberlin, y
en Japón, Rumania, Argentina, Costa Rica, Dinamarca,
y a lo largo de Estados Unidos. Ha sido jurado en los
concursos del Concert Artists Guild y en el Concours
International de Piano XXème Siècle. Drury es el
director artístico del Callithumpian Consort, además
de fundar y dirigir el Summer Institute for
Contemporary Piano Performance en el New England
Conservatory. Drury realizó estudios en el Harvard
College y en el New England Conservatory, donde obtuvo
el prestigiado Artist Diploma. Entre sus maestros se
encuentran Claudo Arrau, Patricia Zander, William
Masselos, Margaret Ott, y Theodore Lettvin. Ha grabado
música de John Cage, Elliott Carter, Charles Ives,
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Colin McPhee, John Zorn y
Frederic Rzewski, así como obras de Liszt y Beethoven,
para Mode, New Albion, Catalyst, Tzadik, MusicMasters
y Neuma. Es profesor del New England Conservatory en
Boston.


Espcial Helmut Lachenmann #2

Heather O Donnell, pianista, dice que: One characteristic of his music is a continuous occupation with what Wolfgang Rihm calls a "grinding away of the familiar".He transcends any mannerist "newness" that several other composers of avant-guard music fell prey to- as Lachenmann calls it, "a coquettish pseudo-radicalism" intended merely to shock, tickle, or scandalize concert audiences.

Metáfora de los sonidos empleados por Lachenmann. Such use of normally discarded sonic material can be compared to someone wandering through a scrap yard to salvage objects that, with closer observation, radiate beauty, a kind of beauty, though, that may not be in keeping with conventional notions.

Lachenmann takes these forgotten or neglected sounds and arranges them in such a way as to shine a new perspective on them, liberating them from their previous status as unwanted sonic residue. This process should not only be understood as a metaphorical act of salvation. Lachenmann's music also emanates a sensous and aesthetic enjoyment of and fascination with sound in-and-of itself, as well as playful and burlesquely humorous sides.

Serynade

Lachenmann's Serynade, with its 30-minute length, is to date his most extensive work for solo piano written for his wife, the pianist Yukiko Sugawara. The "Y" in the title is a reference to her first name. It is a piece that challenges one very basic tenant in piano physics - that a tone produced from a piano cannot be altered or manipulated after the attack, as it always immediately enters into a process of decay. Lachenmann uses the extensive resonance capabilities of the piano to affect the tones after they have been struck, making a large part of the music "inbetween the tones", so to speak. He does this by using silently depressed keys that open the strings for responsive resonance, or by unconventional usage of the pedals. One can imagine two planes of perception in this piece: on the one hand, the stark reality of the forceful block chords, the pounded clusters and angular figurations - pronounced acts of instrumental sound production; and on the other, the "ghost resonances" emerging from these attacks, producing an alternate world of lingering memory, hidden references, fragile lightness, and ethereal beauty.

Lachenmann: “A composer is not a missionary. A composer is not a prophet. A composer is not John the Baptist, who made critiques to the people saying, ‘You are all sinners.’ This political aspect is an illusion. If I thought music was a higher message, then I think I must give some sort of political message, of freedom, of liberty. My teacher was Luigi Nono, a communist. He always had the hope of touching people and changing their consciousness. I think art does such things, but the composer who wants to manipulate the spirit or conscience of another will always fail. It is not possible....”.

Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (1979-80), as its title implies, alludes to the German national anthem, attributed to Franz Joseph Haydn

Most recently, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Chamber-Scale Composition (2004, for III. Streichquartett, 'Grido').


Intérieur I has been described by the composer as a breakthrough piece, perhaps his unofficial Opus One. Scored for a solo percussionist performing in a horseshoe-shaped setup, the piece is a direct result of Lachenmann’s fruitful contact with Caskel and Ranta in Cologne a few years earlier. Its emphasis on primarily unpitched instruments, including various cymbals, gongs and metallic objects, marked the earliest phase of Lachenmann’s experiments in bringing the production of sound, even its supposedly ugly attributes, to the surface. It is not a mature work, but still noteworthy.


Música electrónica

He said that he had rejected electronic music 35 years ago: “A loudspeaker is a totally sterile instrument. Even the most exciting sounds are no longer exciting when projected through a loudspeaker. There is no danger in it anymore.... With electronics, there is not ambivalence. There is no history there....

Bach

“Each fugue or invention of Johann Sebastian Bach was not done to make the world better, but it did make the world better...because it was one of the documents of totally concentrated, totally free human spirit. Not more, not less.”

Intro a Pression

La lectura de sus nueve páginas, resulta clarificadora en extremo del proceso de producción de cada sonido, que comprende técnicas variadísimas, resultado de la aplicación de la energía en diversos grados sobre las cuerdas, la caja del instrumento, el puente, el cordal, el mástil, el propio arco, etc. La palma de la mano, las yemas de los dedos, las uñas, etc., se activan en unas acciones precisamente indicadas en las dos secciones en las que Lachenmann divide cada línea de la partitura, ampliamente anotada con textos que explican cada acción, así como con dibujos y algunas secciones de escritura “convencional”.

El propio Lachenmann, en el prefacio de la edición escrita, indica que ésta debe ser tocada, a ser posible, “de corazón”.

La medición de la duración de los silencios es compleja, como suele suceder en esta obra, de exigentes acciones instrumentales, que marca hasta duraciones concretas para determinados pasajes, como se observa en la tercera línea de la cuarta página de la partitura, en el momento en que se atacan sucesivamente las cuatro cuerdas bajo el puente en fff lunga possibile con una presión al límite del arco durante “60 segundos. Las dinámicas son también complejas en su manejo y, como sugiere Lachenmann, se amplifica el violonchelo al máximo.

  1. Serynade,1997-98, revised 2000 *. Lachenmann Piano Music. Marino Formenti
  2. Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied, amplified string quartet, large orchestra (74 players), 1979-80 * Berlin German Symphony Orchestra. Dirigida por Olaf Henzold; Arditti.
  3. Intérieur I, percusión, 1965-66 Johannes Beer,
  4. Notturno (Musik für Julia), cello, small orchestra (2 flutes [any one + piccolo], trumpet, harp, timpani, 3 percussion, 19 strings), 1966-68, revised 1990 Performed by Wien Klangforum with Andreas Lindenbaum. Conducted by Hans Zende.
  5. Pression, cello, 1969-70. Michael Bach



Espcial Helmut Lachenmann #1


Lachenmann obliga al escucha a confrontar y cuestionar sus expectativas y respuestas en torno a la música. Esto para extender los poderes de la percepción. Esto está lejos del nihilismo, o de una vision de la música como un simulacro de una sociedad alienada y fragmentada.

Lachenmann se inserta en una generación de alemanes que desconfían de las convenciones del pasado, vinculándolas al genocidio. Esta generación ha sido influida por el pensamiento de Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Marcuse y Habermas.

Lachenmann estudió serialismo con Stockhausen. Luego Nono tuvo un impacto decisivo en Lachenmann. Su percepción sobre la relación entre la revolución social y la musical; su vision de la responsabilidad social del artista llegaron a lo más profundo de Lachenmann. Las ideas de Nono de usar en su música fragmentos de cartas y audios de personajes y hechos de resistencia social como marchas o discursos politicos, fue tomada por Lachenmann en una visión más fundamental: las connotaciones políticas de la música abstracta, de las combinaciones del sonido.


Del creador.

Esto aprendí entre los mortales como la más grande maravilla

Que no existían ni la tierra ni el cielo

Que no había un árbol ni una montaña

Tampoco estrellas, y el sol no brillaba

Ni la luna brillaba, ni existía el glorioso mar

Cuando no había nada, ni fines ni limites

Sólo existía el Dios Todopoderoso

De todos los seres el de mayor gracia

Buenos espíritus, y Dios es sagrado


Dios todopoderoso, creador del cielo y la tierra y quien has dado tanto a los Buenos hombres, en tu gracia otórgame la Buena voluntad, sabiduría y fuerza para resistir demonios, evitar el mal y hacer tu voluntad.



Texto usado por Lachenmann para Consolation II (text from the Wessobrunner Gebet [9th century German prayer (modern German translation)]), 16 mixed voices, 1968. Hans Zender, Ensemble Aisthesis, and Schola Heidelberg

Sobre la belleza según Lachenmann

"LACHENMANN: Yes. Tonality was something that wasn't rejected, but had to be overcome. We have to find new antennae in ourselves, to listen more, and this is a wonderful adventure of discovery. For me, my music has as much beauty as any conventional music, maybe more. Beauty is a precious idea. I want to liberate this term from the standardized categories. I'll give you a little example. I used to teach children, and I presented them the music of Stockhausen, etc. They said that it wasn't beautiful, they didn't like it. I asked them what they liked, what they thought was beautiful, and they first hesitantly named some pop music. The next week, I went there and brought two pictures with me. One was an attractive photograph of the movie star Sophia Loren. The other was a drawing by Albrecht Dürer, who had drawn a picture of his mother: very old, with a long nose, and bitter looking face. She had a hard life, and her face was full of wrinkles. I showed the two pictures and asked "Who is more beautiful?" They were totally confused, and then came the wonderful answer I'll never forget - it was the highlight of my life. A girl said "I think the ugly one is more beautiful". This is the dialectical way. Looking at this picture, one feels the precise observation of her son. Not to make it more beautiful, not idealized, just showing it. It was full of intensity. To me, as important as beauty is the word intensity. I search for this in music."

“Beauty as the rejection of habit”, a maxim that has long been valid for the composer, Helmut Lachenmann

De la musica negativa.

(término musica negativa, en el sentido peyorativo en el que lo usó Hans Werner Henze para criticar la música de Lachenmann)

"I'm allergic to the idea that my music is rejection. Did Schoenberg reject tonality because he made atonal music? No. He was going with what he had learned from tradition. The whole direction of occidental music is going on from tradition by provocation. Provoking humankind to new experiences. This is human, this is beautiful, this is serene, and it requires the participation of the listener in this adventure. Provocation in this sense is not a negative thing. Society's laziness creates these polemical situations. I've had such scandals because of these thoughts, where people were angry because, on the one hand they love music, and this was a music they couldn't follow, they were lost, and on the other hand, they preferred a comfortable way of thinking about music. Maybe they need such comfort, because they are full of fear in everyday life, there are so many catastrophes. Going to an opera or concert hall, they don't want to be confused. But I think in that situation, you shouldn't have fear of being confused. You should be glad to be confused. It's the most active way to live. Confusion is to discover oneself in a new way. This is my dialectic of provocation and beauty, and music as a great and wonderful adventure. I like to speak of music in positive terms. I was so happy when you asked me if it's not music, what is it then. This is a question we should cultivate. I wait for pieces that bring me to this existential question."

Sobre la ópera La niña de los cerillos.

"It is a piece of amazing power, all originating from unlikely text sources, including the classic Andersen fairy tale, some of Nietzsche’s most famous poetry, a text about the volcano Stromboli by Leonardo da Vinci, and a prison letter from Gudrun Ensslin, Lachenmann’s childhood friend. These combine to make a compelling statement about the world today, a pointed but oblique criticism of a world which cares not enough for its people. The protagonist’s suffering is constantly felt throughout the piece, but never is it a detriment or nuisance; quite on the contrary, the listener is drawn into her struggle for life against the elements. The enormous orchestral forces, including more than 100 players, further create this eerily familiar yet frightening world. It is a work difficult to produce because of the music’s inherent theatricality, but a piece chilling even in one’s living room. The addition of the Japanese shô mouth organ, famous for its lament-like, sustained tone, creates a further level of drama and fright in this score."


Playlist del miercoles 8 y domingo 12 de agosto del 2007:

  1. Allegro sostenuto. clarinet (+ bass clarinet), cello, piano, 1986-88, revised 1989 Bernhard Wambach, David Smeyers, Michael Bach (hasta el 6:23)
  2. Consolation II (text from the Wessobrunner Gebet [9th century German prayer (modern German translation)]), 16 mixed voices, 1968 (also incorporated into Les Consolations); Les Consolations (texts by Hans Christian Andersen [translation from the Drömersche Verlangsanstalt], Ernst Toller, the Wessobrunner Gebet), 16 mixed voices, large orchestra (76 players), 6 tapes, 1977-78. Hans Zender, Ensemble Aisthesis, and Schola Heidelberg
  3. Ein kinderspiel (7 small pieces), 1980. Bernhard Wambach
  4. Staub für Orchester (1985-87) Südwestfunk Baden-Baden
  5. Ópera. La niña de los cerillos. Chorale prelude ''O du fröliche'' (Joyous night) Recorded 5-8 July 2001. Staatsoper Stuttgart, Lothar