Berlin Phil/Petrenko set the tone in new music
OrchestrasThe orchestra has just rolled out its contribution to Bavaria’s Musica Viva series.
No orchestra in the UK or US would do anything nearly so dangerous.
IANNIS XENAKIS [1922-2001]
Jonchaies [1977]
MÁRTON ILLÉS [*1975]
Lég-szín-tér [2023]
KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN [1905-1963]
Gesangsszene für Bariton und Orchester [1963] -Christian Gerhaher
GYÖRGY KURTÁG [*1926]
Stele [1994]
You might want to look at what some of the BBC orchestras do, especially the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra….
That’s an awesome program actually. Stele is a masterpiece and I’m looking forward to listen to the rest.
==No orchestra in the UK would…
Well in its heyday, BBC SO could have programmed an event like this every week. But it’s a sorry middle-of-the-road band these days. All praise to BPO for doing such a thing
Music in the UK has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. The proms themselves are a rotation of which BBC group gets which standard fare piece, and yet we keep buying into this trash! Frankly, I think we’ve earned it at this point, nobody wants new music anymore.
Will he get a full house.
Let’s hope they don’t drink on that night, aye!!
Already has.
You have to get hyper-modernistic every now and again to claim that you are not a living museum bogged down in Wiener Klassik and Deutsche Romantik.
If you want to check out which orchestra consistently plays the most contemporary music, check out the BBCSO. Not forgetting 6 premieres at this year’s Proms, during its Barbican season, it will typically programme at least one British or world premiere in every concert, described by one London music critic, as having “supreme virtuosity in new music”.
Same fabulous programme, live from Berlin on the Digital Concert Hall, September 16, 6pm (UK time).
Ivan Volkov would do similar if the BBC Scottish were invited….and we did have Kurtag Endgame at the Proms with a UK orchestra….
Hartmann, Xenakis, Kurtag are hardly “new” music…they are already classics
When was the last time any of these pieces were played?
Hartmann gets fairly consistent play in Germany; Kurtag’s music is played quite often; as for the Illes work, since it was written earlier this year, I’d hazard a guess that 2023 is the date of its most recent performance.
Jonchaies certainly does not get many performances but this year has been played, as far as I am aware, two times. In May by the RAI Symphony Orchestra (that concert was livestreamed) and in August by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. It’s a brutal and exciting piece and I really think it should have the same effect as The Rite of Spring.
Dangerous?
Do the musicians use weapons? Sarin? Polonium?
Fortunately Hartmann and Giraudoux warn us: . It is the end of the world, the saddest of all.
Thank the lord it’s not another Beethoven cycle
Following in the footsteps of Abbado…
Xenakis and Hartmann don’t really qualify as new music anymore.
And there are most certainly American orchestras who would do a program entirely of 20th- and 21st-century American composers, especially for a contemporary music festival. (The San Francisco Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic are the most obvious candidates.)
They could, but will they?
They do — also the Nashville and Louisville Symphonies.
It’s truly a shame that so many orchestras nowadays are so unwilling to take creative chances in programming works by more contemporary composers but perhaps they are just reflecting the prejudices of their audience’s taste for safe, traditional, familiar music. I hope Berlin Phil/ Petrenko are successful in this endeavor — they’re taking a calculated risk!
Careful what you wish for, we may see a Conlon Nancarrow focus at the next Proms…..
Hearing Nancarrow would be a delight, actually.
“so dangerous”
Because they are all European white straight cis-males, whose music has upended the patriarchy and brought revolutionary change to the political economic order of the EU?
Ooooohhhh….
I’m ready to give it a go!!
Did Petrenko not get the memo?
All programming should now adhere to DIE quotas.
Many many thanks to bp and petrenko. Music to listen to not sleep !!! More please. !!!