Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited

October 2008 2008/3 Currier Included in this issue: Carter Rome Andriessen Boston joins B&H Porto La Commedia premiered Paris

Dublin birthday Leipzig in Amsterdam American composer

Zürich Basel

Edinburgh Sebastian Currier has

Berlin New York signed with Boosey &

celebrations Essen London Hawkes to publish all Vienna Hannover future works and the Jerusalem Lisbon majority of his existing Madrid

Florence The musical world is Turin catalogue. A small

Tokyo number of works will Sydney Helsinki celebrating the 100th Budapest Geneva

Brussels Rotterdam continue to be birthday of , Barcelona represented by Carl the senior statesman of Fischer Music and American composition. European American Music.

Birmingham Amsterdam San Francisco Düsseldorf

Lucerne Photo: Leah Reid Stockholm Tanglewood Washington Sebastian Currier (b.1959) was raised in Providence, Rhode Adams This summer brought a major retrospective Island, within a family of talented musicians. Latest operas on DVD of Elliott Carter’s music at the Tanglewood He received degrees from the Juilliard School and CD; new book Music Center, programmed in honour of his and Manhattan School of Music and went on centenary by . This was the to teach at the Juilliard School from 1992- first time for the TMC Festival of 1998 and at Columbia University from 1999- Contemporary Music to devote itself to a 2007. Currier received the prestigious single composer, and probably the first time Grawemeyer Award in 2007 for his chamber ever a composer has attended his own work Static. centenary feature. Currier’s orchestral works have been The New York Times applauded the performed by such as the San “fantastic” standards of performance Francisco Symphony, the National achieved by a new generation of young Symphony (Washington), and the players and acknowledged the historic Frankfurt Radio Orchestra. His music has nature of the event, describing a “standing also been championed by violinist Anne- ovation from an audience that yelled and Sophie Mutter, who commissioned and whooped and held up cellphones to take premiered his and piece photos as Carter walked to center stage for Aftersong and has commissioned a new the first of three curtain calls”. Blogs Photo: Hilary Scott violin . Currier’s was Van der Aa Elliott Carter is led onto the stage by Oliver Knussen at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary showcased in 2005 by members of the discussed enthusiastic reactions from new Music in July. Interview about his new converts to the composer’s music as well as Berlin Philharmonic and the following year Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei, Orchestra (4 Dec) and takes the work to Book of Disquiet from dedicated ‘Carterheads’. brought the premiere there of Broken which according to the Los Angeles Times’s New York as part of a two-day Carter event Minuets performed by harpist Marie-Pierre 47 of Carter’s works were programmed over critic “gets my vote as the Great American at Carnegie Hall (11-12 Dec). Langlamet and the Oriol Ensemble. a five day period, ranging from orchestral to Symphony”. In Europe the Finnish premieres of Three chamber, from a film of Carter’s opera What Currier is currently composing a piece for Illusions and Symphonia are hosted in Next? to live discussions with performers panoramic video, electronics, and string “Time clearly is on Helsinki (10/11 Dec), while in London Pierre and the composer. Sadly James Levine was quartet in collaboration with the Ying Los Angeles Times Boulez conducts a birthday concert by the incapacitated and could not conduct as Carter’s side” Quartet, video artist Pawel Wojtasik, and Ensemble Intercontemporain at the planned, so the baton was passed between the Massachusetts Museum of Miraculously, Carter is still actively Southbank Centre (11 Dec) and Oliver Oliver Knussen, Stefan Asbury, Ryan Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA). A DVD of composing: his new Concerto was Knussen leads an all-Carter programme by Wigglesworth and Shi-Yeon Sung. his 2005 multimedia work Nightmaze, premiered last month at the International the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the based on the text of Thomas Bolt, is in Works commissioned for the event included Jerusalem Chamber Festival with soloist Barbican (16 Dec) including the premiere of production for release on Bridge Records. Sound Fields for string orchestra and the Emanuel Pahud and conductor Daniel Wind Rose – a piece whose wind scoring Looking ahead, his Group Dynamics for witty Mad Regales for six voices, setting Barenboim, and a new , complements the string instrumentation of wind ensemble will receive its premiere on texts by poet John Ashbery who witnessed , forms the centrepiece of Sound Fields. 13 November 2008. the premiere alongside the composer. The Rorem American events around the 100th birthday feature ended with the Boston Symphony Visit www.carter100.com and let us know For further information visit Our Town travels to itself on 11 December. James Levine Orchestra giving a complete Carter conducts the world premiere with Barenboim your centenary plans by emailing www.boosey.com/currier and New York programme, culminating in his as pianist and the Boston Symphony [email protected] www.sebastiancurrier.com

New at boosey.com Audio-visual centre Gruber Busking premiere HK Gruber’s new work for virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger is scheduled to travel around Europe in coming seasons, following its successful first performances in Amsterdam and Essen in May. Busking takes the form of a three movement concerto in which Hardenberger moves progressively from E· trumpet, via flugelhorn, to C trumpet, exploring both contemporary soundworlds and popular music idioms. Whereas Gruber’s earlier concerto Aerial – which Hardenberger has performed 45

times – was scored for full symphony Photo: Sven Lorenz orchestra, Busking features only a string HK Gruber congratulates Håkan Hardenberger after the performance of Busking at the Essen orchestra accompanying the trumpet, Philharmonie. accordion and banjo as concertante players. The solo line-up draws parallels with Chamber Orchestra, and during his Picasso’s painting Three Musicians, exclusivity period Hardenberger has further depicting bohemian music-making with performances planned in Sweden, Finland, carnivalesque overtones. In musical terms Austria, the UK and USA in 2009/10. Gruber’s soloists function as modern “Star trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger brought the equivalents of a baroque trumpet coupled entire spectrum of his virtuosity to bear, playing Watch videos, clips and trailers from View new CDs and DVDs with links to with organ or harpsichord continuo, perhaps on the separate mouthpiece, and getting the Birtwistle’s Minotaur to the latest jazz releases purchase as heard on the streets of New Orleans. various to twang and squawk using mutes. A performance piece with pulsating drive, from Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D’Rivera Discover what’s hot by viewing most Busking was jointly commissioned by the visited clips which was great fun for the audience. Much Listen to 3000 audioclips across the Philharmonie Essen, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, applause and cheers in the well-attended Boosey & Hawkes catalogue Visit www.boosey.com/av Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Saint Paul Philharmonie in Essen.” Neue Ruhr Zeitung and percussion – and there is an electronic element with pre-recorded samples, processed sounds of the Van der Aa ensemble, plus the songs and speech. Adams What other projects do you have in the coming The Book of months? news There are a number of performances of Mask: in London by members of the Philharmonia Orchestra on 6 October and in Vilnius by the Ensemble Modern update Disquiet on 26 October. I’ve also completed a new song cycle, Spaces of Blank, written for the wonderful Opera cycle launched in NY Michel van der Aa’s new music mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and the Royal A full cycle of Adams’s operas will be performed in theatre work, The Book of Disquiet, Concertgebouw Orchestra to premiere next March, New York across the 2008-2010 seasons with with further performances planned by Radio France participation from The Metropolitan Opera, The is premiered in Linz in January, and the NDR Orchestra. I looked for texts that would Juilliard School, Carnegie Hall, the Orchestra of St. starring Klaus Maria Brandauer suit Christianne’s dark brown voice and theatrical Luke’s and . The cycle opens with Photo: Marco Borggreve presence, and selected poems by Emily Dickinson, Adams’s Metropolitan Opera debut: Penny Anne Carson and Rozalie Hirs. They all describe Woolcock’s new staging of Doctor Atomic conducted The Book of Disquiet is based on texts by the abstract, drawing upon entries found in the book to anxiety by making an analogy with a space or by Alan Gilbert (opening 13 October), a co-production Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). How create a more dreamlike mise-en-scène. So the video building, and during the piece we follow the mezzo as with English National Opera in London (opening 25 did you discover his writings? switches between imagery that literally extends the she moves through these virtual spaces. There are February). The Juilliard School’s FOCUS! Festival I’d read a few of his poems but it was Airan Berg, one physical events on stage, and more surreal scenes dark sections with very edgy orchestral outbursts, but continues the cycle with Adams conducting The of the artistic directors of Linz09, who suggested that make us delve deeper into the mind of the also some engaging moments of real intimacy. Death of Klinghoffer (31 January). basing a theatre piece on Pessoa and I was excited protagonist. to learn that the actor Klaus Maria Brandauer would Doctor Atomic DVD be interested in such a project. Then I started reading The fracturing of time and personality can give more of Pessoa’s writings and homed in on what I Pessoa’s works a dark colour. How did you vary this Van der Aa Opus Arte has just The Book of Disquiet (2008) 75’ think is his masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, a in the theatre? released a DVD of Doctor Music theatre for actor, ensemble and video collection of fragmentary texts, diary entries and I also found texts with a distinctive, ironic brand of Atomic in the original Peter projections autobiographical anecdotes only published 50 years humour, for instance when he talks about unhappily Sellars production, filmed after the poet’s death. married women including “all who are married and Libretto by the composer on texts by at the Holland Festival in some who are single”. He is also very playful with Fernando Pessoa (E) Amsterdam last year Were you attracted to Pessoa’s technique of writing language, having worked as a translator, so I’ve used Commissioned by Linz 2009 (Capital of Culture), (OA 0998 D). Gerald Finley through a series of alter-egos? This has links with these elements to lighten the philosophical tone. To ZaterdagMatinee Amsterdam and Bruckner sings the title role of your interests in masks and the multiple break up the spoken text I’ve set some poems by Orchester Linz J Robert Oppenheimer, representation of characters. Pessoa for the vocalist Ana Moura, who sings them 2/3/4 January 2009 joined by Jessica Rivera, Eric Owens, the Yes, Pessoa often casts himself in a series of distinct on the video where she appears as the female double Klaus Maria Brandauer/Bruckner Orchester Linz/ Netherlands Opera Chorus characters, ‘heteronyms’ as he calls them, both male of the bookkeeper, the enigmatic herdswoman with Dennis Russell Davies and female. I was intrigued by the idea that the sum the ox. and the Netherlands of these doubles could provide a total representation Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lawrence of the poet. This gave me the scope for the video What form did your collaboration with Klaus Maria Renes. Set in the New Mexico desert in 1945, element of the piece: the actor on stage represents Brandauer take? Doctor Atomic explores the human and scientific the central character of The Book of Disquiet, the We met a number of times in the early days to Chen dilemmas faced by the nuclear physicists employed Lisbon bookkeeper Bernardo Soares, but he is also discuss the project and Klaus watched the films of to create and test the first atom bomb. seen on the video as himself and as a series of alter- One and After Life to get a feel for my work. at the Olympics A Flowering Tree CD egos acted by three men and one woman. The Collaborating with musicians holds no fears for him, The music of Chinese composer drama is his coming to terms with his identity. having performed A Survivor from Warsaw and Qigang Chen, who signed a new John Adams’s most Egmont with conductors like Karajan and Bernstein. publishing agreement with Boosey & recent stagework, How did you transform Pessoa’s fragments into a Once he’d seen how I incorporate film elements into Hawkes earlier this year, reached new A Flowering Tree, was theatrical shape? my music theatre pieces he became excited about audiences in August when it was released last month on The Book of Disquiet was assembled from loose working with video projections. The next stage was to telecast worldwide from the Opening CD by Nonesuch, with sheets of paper, found in a box trunk on Pessoa’s make a recording of him reading the text, so that I Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing the London Symphony death. I had to narrow the texts down through a could model the music and rhythmic structures to Olympics. As Director of Music for the ceremony at Orchestra and Schola process of selection in order to create a piece that match his inflections. During the composition phase the Olympic stadium, Chen’s task was to devise the Cantorum Caracas could exist in ‘real’ time in the theatre. The task he kept his distance and gave me the space to go my entire music programme for the event, commission conducted by the wasn’t as hard as I feared because a series of own way. It was totally inspiring working with Klaus other composers to create new music, and write composer (7559-799- recurring themes emerged, allowing me to group the on the video, watching his sheer professionalism in music himself for many sections of the ceremony. 651). The opera blends elements drawn from fragments by subject matter, for instance isolation, the face of what I demanded of him. Chen collaborated with celebrated stage director and Mozart’s The Magic Flute with a magical folk tale from love or dreams. auteur Zhang Yi-Mou, following their work together on Southern India, describing a young couple How do speech and music interact in the work? the ballet Raise the Red Lantern, which has been undergoing rituals and trials to discover the George Steiner has described The Book of Disquiet In many sections the spoken text is rhythmically toured internationally by the National Ballet of China. transfiguring power of love. as a “haunting mosaic of dreams”. How have you notated so that synchronisation can be achieved, Following the world premiere in Vienna in 2006 in the created this dreamworld in visual terms? while in others KIaus is paired with instrumental Chen, along with other composers, submitted a song production by Peter Sellars, A Flowering Tree has There are realistic scenes with the alter-egos of soloists whose playing interacts with his free speech. as a contender for the official theme song for the travelled to San Francisco, Berlin, London, Bernardo Soares but also scenes that are much more The ensemble consists of 15 players - wind, strings Olympics. Its final selection was kept a closely guarded secret in the lead up to the opening Amsterdam and Chicago. The full Sellars staging will ceremony, being omitted from all of the rehearsals in be seen at Lincoln Center in New York next summer the Bird’s Nest stadium. Chen’s song, entitled You with further presentations this season in Tokyo and and Me, was performed at the end of the ceremony Los Angeles. The Perth International Arts Festival Reich Double Sextet tours on 8 August by British soprano Sarah Brightman and presents a new production next March directed by the popular Chinese male vocalist Liu Huan, to an Patrick Nolan. Steve Reich’s latest work, Rosas tours Reich danceworks estimated audience of 100,000 in the stadium, and Double Sextet, is toured to Following performances at the Edinburgh Festival, in several billion worldwide watching on TV. Hallelujah Junction book Australia and Europe this Gothenburg, Hamburg and Sadlers Wells in London, October brings the autumn by its commissioners the Steve Reich Evening travels on with the Ictus With the completion of his Olympic labours, Quigang much-anticipated eighth blackbird, including ensemble to Dijon (7/8 October), Aix-en-Provence Chen returns to his regular activities as a classical release of Adams’s performances at the (10/11 October), the BAM Next Wave festival (22-25 composer. His plans include a work for piano and memoirs, Hallelujah Melbourne Festival October), at the Kaaitheater in Brussels (15-22 orchestra, a second ballet, a new orchestral work for Junction: Composing (16 October), Liverpool City November) and in Caen (11 December). the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and a feature at an American Life, of Culture (21 November), For full details visit www.rosas.be Shanghai EXPO in 2010. published by Farrar, and at De Doelen in Straus, & Giroux in Rotterdam (23 November). America (978-0-374-

Photo: Wonge Bergmann Michael Corder’s new choreography of Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) for Birmingham Royal Ballet The 22-minute work has two which appears at Sadlers Wells in London (31 October – 1 November). Birmingham's four-year Stravinsky celebration, 28115-1) and Faber & performance options, either as a live sextet of flute, IgorFest, reaches its conclusion next June with a fireworks finale. Faber in Europe (978- , violin, , vibraphone and piano playing 0-571-23115-7). Both against a pre-recorded sextet on tape, or as an an autobiography and ensemble of 12 instrumentalists. The result is “…the a fascinating journey kind of explosion of fractured rhythms that never through the musical ceases to amaze the ear” (Los Angeles Times). landscape of Adams’s Double Sextet is exclusive to eighth blackbird until life and times, the new March 2010. book travels from his early New Hampshire days to “Six musicians are playing a duet with recorded versions of California, and charts his development as a composer themselves. It is like looking into an electronic mirror. The over the past 40 years. mirror refracts the rapid, driving beat of piano and marimba; Nonesuch celebrates the book’s publication this it adds a reflected gleam to long-held chords of strings and month with a companion 2-CD set under the same winds. The players, live and recorded, create layer upon title, providing a musical sequence through a selection layer of sound, a rich mille-feuille of music.” Washington Post of Adams recordings, from Harmonielehre to The “…intricate rhythmic counterpoint and thickening harmonies Dharma at Big Sur (7559 798 921). displace the repetitive opening figure. Parts of the score are almost episodic, with distinct shifts of mood set apart by New percussive full stops. In one fleeting passage a lyrical violin- cello duet over a hazy accompaniment sounded like a lightly January brings the world premiere of John Adams’s distorted glimpse into a 19th-century European ballroom. new string quartet written for the St Lawrence String That didn’t last long: Mr. Reich’s insistent rhythms quickly Quartet. The work is the composer’s first full-length returned, restoring the work to its contemporary moorings.” work for the medium since John’s Book of Alleged The New York Times Dances in 1994. Following the premiere at The Reich’s music is also travelling widely with the Rosas Juilliard School in New York on 29 January, as part of dance company, who are performing a Steve Reich a Californian feature at the 2009 FOCUS! Festival, Evening on both sides of the Atlantic with performances are programmed around North danceworks choreographed by Anne Teresa De America, with the quartet planning to tour the work to

Keersmaeker. Photo: Bill Cooper Europe in 2010. Andriessen La Commedia Rouse Emerging Louis Andriessen’s La Commedia, his highly individual “Hell is replaced by something that Andriessen has moulded operatic distillation of Dante’s epic journey through into a musical playground full of reminiscences, references Concerto for and quotes. In his depiction of a serpent he even competes composers heaven and hell, was premiered at the Holland Festival in June. Hal Hartley’s film provided haunting with the musical tone-painting of Richard Strauss. The musical rendering of Paradise is sublime; the music is at Orchestra Boosey & Hawkes in New York has launched a new counterpoint to Andriessen’s score in Amsterdam’s times just as over-illuminated as the accompanying film sponsorship initiative for young America-based ‘circus’ venue, the Royal Carré Theatre, with Reinbert images: minuscule, isolated tufts of sound… With this work, Christopher Rouse is known not composers, providing publishing, promotion and de Leeuw as conductor and ringmaster. Vocal leads Andriessen outdoes his earlier large-scale compositions, De only for his masterful orchestral career support to help nurture the next generation of were taken by soprano Claron McFadden, chanteuse Materie (1989) and the Trilogy of the Last Day (1997) – scores but also for adding creative talent. The first three ‘Emerging Composers’ Cristina Zavalloni and singing actor Jeroen Willems as reflections on spirit, matter and death, that now, with La exciting new concerti to the under the new programme all demonstrate how Beatrice, Dante and Lucifer, with Netherlands Opera Commedia, reach into the hereafter. It makes you wonder symphonic repertoire. As a traditional skills are being combined with new styles of what’s next.” De Volksrant forces, actors on film, and musicians of the Asko and combination of these two composition, reaching across artistic disciplines. Schoenberg Ensembles, summoning up the joys, strands, his new Concerto for Oscar Bettison (b.1975) sorrows and follies of humanity. “… the distillation of a Orchestra was much The music of Oscar Bettison, with “An ‘opera’ by Louis Andriessen is never a traditional work. lifetime’s creativity.” Sunday Times anticipated. Marin Alsop Classical ingredients like a clear-cut plot or the psychological its repeating rhythmic cycles and

Photo: Christian Steiner conducted the premiere at the development of the characters give way to a more abstract “Andriessen’s music is often forceful and driving, which is his Cabrillo Festival on 1 August, industrial sonorities, explores the approach: a web of ideas and associations. […] La characteristic style, especially in the first two scenes… But revealing a work that delivered all the expected boundaries of pitch and noise, Commedia is bursting with details, allusions and quotes, and these just hinted at the humour, the ingratiating jazziness, virtuosity but intriguingly eschewed the traditional classical and rock, convention and at times brilliantly combines contrasting musical ideas. Here, the terrible fury and, in the end, the ravishing grace of the three-movement form. Instead Rouse divides the invention. Bettison was born in the the banal sounds cheekier than ever, and the lofty lacerates later scenes… The opera, which is dedicated to [his wife’s] concerto into two halves, the first alternating through UK and studied at the Royal your soul.” De Standaard memory, is what happened when the hippest, sassiest, College of Music, Guildhall School most savvy major composer we have dealt with the most five brief sections — fast, slow, fast, slow, fast — “There is nothing ethereal about this opera. Its questing while the second half consists of a slow and a fast of Music and Drama and Royal Conservatory in The vigour is of a materialist, Brechtian, Godardian kind. It meaningful moment of his life and left nothing out. La Commedia is an opera that should be seen again, and it will section, “each meant to represent a sort of ‘full Hague. He won the Lloyds Bank/BBC Young relishes the mixture of media, musical quotations and Composer of the Year in 1994 and the Royal parody, intellectual subtexts and ironic commentary while be.” Los Angeles Times blossoming’ of the related ideas from their counterparts earlier on… with the final allegro building Philiharmonic Society Prize in 1997 and is currently remaining spunkily itself — a brilliant, new-fangled circus. Andriessen’s The Hague Hacking, a new double Whether rhythmically driven in his minimalist manner, to a frenzied, almost hysterical, climax”. based in the USA where he is completing a PhD at piano concerto for the Labeque Sisters Princeton. He has written works for the London harmonically block-like with a Stravinskian bite, flaring up like “It’s a boisterous, exhilarating concoction, in which fiercely a big band or essaying startling textures, such as those commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is Sinfonietta, BBC, New London Orchestra and the premiered under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen at patterned rhythmic explosions alternate with lyrical interludes Eliza Miller Dance Company. produced by the lowest woodwinds dancing together, headed by the strings, and as the title suggests, it’s a Andriessen’s score is a holiday of inventiveness... It was the Walt Disney Concert Hall on 16 January. Further performances are planned in the Netherlands and the display piece for the orchestra members, who dispatched it Visit www.boosey.com/bettison expertly conducted by his lifelong supporter Reinbert de superbly under Alsop’s taut, fluid leadership.” Leeuw.” Sunday Times UK in 2009 during Andriessen’s 70th birthday year. San Francisco Chronicle Anna Clyne (b.1980) Louis Andriessen's La Commedia at its premiere in Amsterdam, staged by Hal Hartley. “Among seven new orchestral works heard during the first weekend of the Cabrillo Festival, one stood head and Anna Clyne’s music combines shoulders above the rest. Christopher Rouse’s Concerto for resonant soundscapes with Orchestra, composed with dazzling virtuosity, gave Marin propelling textures that weave, Alsop’s musicians a showpiece of fierce demands and morph and collide in dramatic breathtaking execution… Chattering brass, intoning winds, explosions. Equally adept at creating punctuating and pounding percussion and eerie strings acoustic and electro-acoustic music, traded their material kaleidoscopically, often at high speed… Clyne has collaborated with cutting- The work is an orchestral masterpiece and deserves edge choreographers, film-makers ongoing exposure.” Metro Active, Silicon Valley and visual artists as well as musicians, and has been The Concerto for Orchestra travels to Rouse’s home performed internationally. Born in London, she studied town on 21 November when Alsop conducts the at Edinburgh University and the Manhattan School of work with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The Music and is now resident in Brooklyn. Works have composer’s 60th birthday season also includes been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestral performances by the Los Angeles and Carnegie Hall and performed by the American Philharmonic and Saint Louis Symphony (Der Composers Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. A gerettete Alberich), Dallas Symphony Orchestra new work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic New (Symphony No. 2), Singapore Symphony Orchestra Music Group will be premiered in the Green Umbrella ( Concerto), the New York Philharmonic series on 7 April 2009. and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (), and the Visit www.boosey.com/clyne Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Friandises). These lead up to the premiere of Rouse’s new Concerto on 5 February with Basil Reeves and the Minnesota Du Yun (b.1977)

Photo: Netherlands Opera/Hans van den Bogaard Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. In addition to composing notated music for concert halls, Du Yun writes for experimental theatre and dance and performs at avant-garde Jenkins venues on the amplified/processed Birtwistle Tree of Strings Chinese zither (zheng), piano, Following its first performances at the Witten Stageworks by Birtwistle are receiving Italian laptop, and with her own voice. Her Te Deum approach to music is ultimately

Photo: Mitch Jenkins and Aldeburgh Festivals, ’s and German premieres this autumn, with visceral: corporeality stripped-down from spirituality. Following the premiere of Karl Jenkins’s Stabat Mater new Tree of Strings is being toured this The Last Supper featured at the Settembre autumn by the Arditti Quartet to Parma, the Musica festival in Turin and Milan last month Born in China, Du Yun studied at the Shanghai in March, Liverpool also plays host to the launch of the Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory and Harvard composer’s new Te Deum on 30 November at Venice Biennale, Wien Modern and the and The Io Passion staged by the Berliner Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Kammeroper at the Konzerthaus (7-16 University, and is now based in . Her Philharmonic Hall. The 15-minute canticle setting, works have been performed internationally by Bang scored for chorus and a small orchestra of two The title is taken from a poem on ‘music’ by November). Birtwistle is currently working on a the Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean and the double-bill of music theatre works for two voices On a Can All-Stars, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne trumpets, strings and five percussionists, was (Canada), Nueva Musíca (Mexico), Netherlands Radio commissioned by the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union for quartet explores memories – both personal Photo: Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL and ensemble for premiere next summer. and cultural – from Birtwistle’s time on the island of Chamber Orchestra and the Shanghai Symphony the city’s 2008 European Capital of Culture Year, and Orchestra. will be premiered under the baton of the composer. Raasay in the 1970s: “…on a lonely island off the west coast of Scotland to which Visit www.boosey.com/duyun The Liverpool concert also includes the first he had withdrawn to compose, he discovered, probably performances of Sacred Songs, a new seven- Bernstein because of earlier prohibitions, that no musical tradition had movement choral suite drawn from Jenkins’s most survived… Birtwistle doesn’t attempt a reconstruction of popular works including The Armed Man, something as it might have been, rather… [he dedicates] 90th celebrations new music from the spirit of the present to the Rautavaara and Stabat Mater. The composer’s preferred scoring New York salutes Leonard for the accompaniment of Sacred Songs is flute, cor de-musicalised land. The four members of the Arditti Quartet Bernstein this autumn with anglais, horn, strings and organ, though alternatives are sent on a voyage of discovery with great independence, at 80 they discover sound spaces, isolated movements, which a major city-wide for organ and strings, and for organ only are also diverge then again converge, and all leads to a densely- celebration, Bernstein: The available. A new vocal score of Sacred Songs will be composed, concentrated form.” Neue Musikzeitung Best of All Possible Worlds, released to tie in with the first performance and Te presented by Carnegie Hall Deum will be published in early 2009. “… a half hour of the art of the and the New York Concert celebrations in Finland Stabat Mater continues to travel widely, and can string quartet at its finest and Philharmonic. The series around the birthday on 9 October currently be heard on an eight-venue UK tour greatest.”Neue Musikzeitung commemorates the 90th conducted by the composer and John Gibbons, anniversary of his birth and 7 October running through to 15 November. The work’s US “Beginning with barely audible, otherworldly flutings and the 50th anniversary of his appointment as music Sibelius Academy, Helsinki premiere is scheduled for Lincoln Center in New York tremolandos, and sounds produced with the stick of the director of the orchestra. Festivities run until 13 bow, the work offers itself as an antenna picking up an Lost Landscapes (Finnish premiere) on 19 January and the German premiere takes place December and take in a host of leading orchestras Kaija Saarikettu, vln island’s subtlest signals. The level soon rises to fortissimo, and conductors, with performances including his in Augsburg on 29 March. . but the sense of rarefied evocation prevails. The writing is three symphonies, the extraordinary Mass, and 8/9 October Though Jenkins has recently attracted most unmistakably Birtwistle’s, the latest, most supple selections from his music for film, ballet and stage. Finlandia Hall, Helsinki international attention for his choral music, his development of an idiom that says so much with pulsing, Tapestry of Life (Finnish premiere) orchestral music comes to the fore in the latest block-like ostinato accompaniments and the dramatic Other 90th highlights this month reflect Bernstein’s contrast of strict group rhythm and untethered solo Helsinki Philharmonic/Olli Mustonen release from EMI, which gathers together four of his interests in education - concerts by Chetham’s Music excursions.” Sunday Times (50999-5002352-3). Quirk was written for a School in Manchester and London (7-24 October) – 9/10 October concertante group of flute, keyboard and percussion “There is an elemental beauty in the music that evokes and in crossing international barriers, with events in Concert Hall, Turku enveloping mists and infinite skies, yet the sometimes Beijing (11 October) and Singapore (17 October). Angel of Dusk / Angel of Light (Symphony No.7) soloists from the London Symphony Orchestra, who austere nature belies its richness of metaphor. While the Mikko Multamäki, db/Turku Philharmonic/Petri Sakari give the Welsh premiere of the work in Swansea on 4 apparently instigates, it is the cello whose dark, Bernstein’s Jewish roots are traced in a performance October. The other works on the disc are the new baritone utterances most characterise the incisive writing of his third symphony as part of a Kaddish 30 October Sarikiz, Over the Stone for harp and Commemorative Concert at the Barbican in London and condition the emerging patterns. At the same time, it is Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki orchestra and the Corelli arrangement La Folia for impossible to ignore the theatricality of the setting: four on 28 October: John Axelrod conducts the Lucerne Angels and Visitations / Book of Visions / Opera Arias marimba and strings - all attractive fare for the empty chairs and music stands transcribe an arc well Festival Orchestra and Samuel Pisar narrates his own

Finnish National Opera Orchestra/Mikko Franck Photo: Ondine Records choreographers who are increasingly setting Jenkins’s beyond the confines of the quartet’s tight semi-circle.” version of the text, as heard on the recent Nimbus music for dance. The Guardian recording (NI 5807). Dean CD portrait RecordingsNew PublicationsNew A new CD released by BIS (CD- that Simon Rattle commissioned to 1696) focuses on Brett Dean’s twin accompany Holst’s The Planets. It all Louis Andriessen The Orchestral Cellist creative roles, as “a formidable and makes an excellent showcase of De Staat edited by Mats Lidström musical player as well as an Dean’s range as a composer.” Netherlands Wind Ensemble Cello score impressive composer” (The The Guardian NBE Live NBE022 979-0-060-11920-0 £15.99 Guardian). The central work is “…imaginative reflection touching on Harrison Birtwistle The latest release in the Orchestral the darkness of Berg, Shostakovich Player series is an indispensable Dean’s Viola Concerto with the The Minotaur resource for cellists preparing for Sydney Symphony Orchestra and late Beethoven, contrasted with Stephen Langridge, director/John Tomlinson/ auditions. More than just a collection conducted by Simone Young and energy vexed to nightmare by the Christine Rice/Johan Reuter/Royal Opera Covent of difficult passages for the aspiring the composer playing the virtuosic modern world. A fine recording of a Garden/Antonio Pappano orchestral pro, these extracts from composer who continues to grow in the classical, romantic and twentieth- solo part. Dean has already stature.” Sydney Morning Herald Opus Arte DVD OA1000D century concert repertoire, with tips performed the concerto 17 times Elliott Carter from Mats Lidström, reveal the tricks Brett Dean’s Songs of Joy were of the trade. on four continents since its Violin Concerto/ premiered on 2 October with premiere in 2005. Three Occasions for Orchestra 15 Recital Songs Simon Rattle conducting the Royal Liverpool “The Viola Concerto is one of Dean’s most successful Ole Böhn/London Sinfonietta/ Vocal scores with CD Philharmonic Orchestra and baritone Peter Coleman- orchestral works, an asymmetrical, three-movement Oliver Knussen high voice 979-0-051-93403-4 £14.99 Wright. The work sets texts by Amanda Holden and structure that pivots about a dark, central scherzo. Intimate EMI Classics 206 6292 low voice 979-0-051-93404-1 £14.99 Decisions, from 1996, is a wonderfully virtuosic solo piece relates to Dean’s operatic adaptation of Peter Carey’s Detlev Glanert A collection of British and American songs, ideal for recital that only someone with a deep knowledge of the viola Bliss, to be unveiled in Sydney in 2010. Lars Vogt and programmes, including music by Argento, Britten, Copland, Finzi, could have composed. Twelve Angry Men, composed for the Ensemble Wien-Berlin are touring Dean’s Theatrum Bestiarum Rorem and Vaughan Williams. the 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, is an instrumental Polysomnography for piano and wind quintet to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Markus Stenz drama inspired by Sidney Lumet’s famous film, while the UK, Belgium, Germany and Austria this month, RCO Live 08003 miniature tone poem Komarov’s Fall was one of the pieces following its premiere at the Lucerne Festival. The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex, from Pavel Haas Gloriana String Quartets Nos.1 & 3 arr. for high voice and guitar by Julian Bream Vocal score 979-0-060-11929-3 £3.99 Supraphon SU3922-2 Selections from the Britten Rorem Karl Jenkins Beggar’s Opera Quirk/La Folia/Over the Stone/Sarikiz Vocal score Pears on DVD Our Town in NY Marit Bisengaliev/Catrin Finch/Neil Percy/ 979-0-051-93399-0 £14.99 London Symphony Orchestra/ 12 Selected Folksong Decca has released historic DVDs Karl Jenkins Arrangements of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes EMI Classics 500 2352 Vocal scores with CD and Billy Budd with Peter Pears in Magnus Lindberg high voice the roles he created, as part of a Complete Piano Music 979-0-051-93405-8 £15.99 Britten-Pears DVD Collection. Ralph van Raat medium/low voice Peter Grimes was filmed in colour Naxos 8.570542 979-0-051-93406-5 £15.99 for a 1969 BBC TV production by Brian Large, conducted by the James MacMillan Photo: BBC composer, capturing Pears’ last The Confession of Isobel Gowdie Hiawatha performance as the haunted fisherman (074 3261). London Philiharmonic Orchestra/Marin Alsop Collected Edition, Supp. Vol.6 The Billy Budd dates from three years earlier, LPO 0035 Full score 979-0-060-11963-7 £15.99 produced for TV by Basil Coleman and conducted by Charles Mackerras, with Pears as a definitive Captain Photo: The Juilliard School/Peter Schaaf Collected Songs Vere (074 3256). high voice Ned Rorem’s recent opera Our Town, based on the 979-0-051-93400-3 £19.99 “[Pears’] patrician features, with the high forehead and Thornton Wilder classic, reached New York in April medium/low voice aquiline nose, so perfectly suits Edward Fairfax Vere that when Ed Berkeley’s production was staged at The New 979-0-051-93398-3 £19.99 this, of all his roles, is the one with which he is most Juilliard School conducted by Anne Manson. With its inseparably identified. The film production moves from the economical casting and chamber orchestra scoring Books Benjamin Lees old man in his study to the Captain of the Indomitable aboard ship and back again, freely and movingly… Our Town is proving popular with smaller opera Benjamin Britten String Quartet No.3 companies, at conservatoires, and with a wide range Letters from a Life Vol.4 (1952-57) Study score 979-0-051- “But if Budd is to be strongly recommended, Grimes has to of audiences, having received over 30 performances 21291-0 be urged, passionately: intensely moving, beyond edited by Philip Reed, Mervyn Cooke and expectations even though those were high… The set built at in ten theatres to date. Donald Mitchell Parts 979-0-051-10526-7 the Maltings and filmed under difficulties becomes the “Few composers take on a classic drama and come out Boydell Press 978-1-84383-382-6 James MacMillan Borough; it becomes our world as surely as it was the world artistically alive... As a Midwestern-born American, Rorem hardback 784 pp £45.00 The Blacksmith for that narrow-minded community. Monolithic as a force, understands the setting of Thornton Wilder’s great drama Elliott Carter Irish folksong arranged for the chorus are all individuals and part of a marvellously Our Town. As an exceptionally intellectual man, he voice and clarinet individuated cast.” Gramophone understands Wilder’s philosophical foundations. And as one A Centennial Portrait in Letters and of the great art-song composers today, he has conserved his Documents Vocal score Pears can also be heard as Albert Herring on a operatic writing for what he feels will work. With a play 90 edited by Felix Meyer and 979-0-060-11884-5 £5.99 recording of the English Opera Group at the Theatre percent Wilder, and mainly structural changes by America’s Anne C. Shreffler From Ayrshire Royal in Copenhagen in 1949, with the composer in favorite opera librettist, poet J.D. McClatchey, Rorem has Boydell Press for violin and piano or the pit, recently issued on CD by Nimbus (NI 5824/6). written a drama which is poignant, emotional, sometimes 978-1-84383-404-5 orchestra This is a historic document of the work only two years funny, but never far from Wilder’s original study of life, death, hardback 380 pp £25.00 Violin part and piano score after its premiere with eleven members of the original remembrance and the meaning of existence itself.” Robin Holloway 979-0-060-12037-4 £7.99 cast and surprisingly good sound quality. Concertonet.com “Wilder’s play and, happily, Mr. Rorem’s setting of it are Essays and Diversions Vol.2 O for children’s or female choir, trumpet and organ Continuum Books 978-0-8264-9728-4 (or strings) The Britten Centenary is in 2013. To discuss your sweet-tempered without being sugar-coated. Death and the unhappinesses it leaves behind are as much topics as life hardback 304 pp £40.00 Choral score with trumpet part advance plans, contact the Promotion Department by and its small pleasures. Mr. Rorem’s music builds on favorite 979-0-060-12023-7 £2.99 email on [email protected] hymns and sings with a familiar tunefulness subjected to Serge Prokofieff touches of acid… Mr. Rorem’s vocal style could possibly be Diaries Vol.2: Behind the Mask Astor Piazzolla described as one continuous horizontal flow, but I like to (1915-22) El Viaje think of it as a series of closely connected, self-sufficient translated by Anthony Phillips 15 tangos and pieces, arias.” New York Times Faber & Faber 978-0-571-22630-6 in print for the first time hardback 784 pp £25.00 Piano score Ferguson “Throughout the opera, he calls on various American 979-0-060-11962-0 £6.99 traditions. Act 1 has what I might term a barbershop trio. These books are on sale from Vuelvo al sur Along the way, he quotes Handel’s Largo and www.boosey.com/shop Centenary Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, to enjoyable effect. The Ten pieces arr. for guitar by scene at the soda fountain, where the young couple, George Anders Miolin Howard Ferguson, whose centenary Photo: Crispin Eurich and Emily, confess their love, is marvelously tender. Later, Guitar score falls this month, is remembered as a composer of their declarations in church are both intimate and stirring… a 979-0-060-11764-0 £6.99 successful evening, especially for Ned Rorem, from whom Shostakovich great craftsmanship – the evidence is clear in his Play Piazzolla masterly Octet – as a pianist of distinction, as teacher music still streams.” New York Sun New Collected Works The latest releases in the Shostakovich New 13 Tangos in easy guitar arrangements and musicologist, and as a close associate of Gerald Rorem’s 11 Songs for Susan, written for Susan Collected Works from DSCH include stageworks Guitar score 979-0-060-11971-2 £6.99 Finzi, Myra Hess and Yfrah Neaman. This summer Graham and commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber and music for voice and orchestra. Henry Purcell arr. Britten brought a number of high level performances of Orchestra, are premiered at Carnegie Hall in May The Purcell Collection Ferguson’s music, with his visionary Amore Langueo 2009. The set combines newly composed songs with Vol.32: Tahiti Trot / Jazz Suites 1 & 2 Full score 979-0-060-11990-3 £46.00 high voice 979-0-051-93376-1 £22.99 for soloists, chorus and orchestra at the Three Choirs new orchestrations of Rorem vocal favourites. Festival and the Ulster Orchestra featuring his works Vol.53: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk medium/low voice 979-0-051-93377-8 £22.99 in Belfast and at the BBC Proms, and the Japanese Vocal score 979-0-060-11171-6 £85.00 This new edition collects over 40 of Britten’s realisations of Purcell’s vocal music, including songs and duets from Harmonia Sacra, premiere of his Four Diversions on Ulster Airs Vol.54: Hypothetically Murdered / The Great Lightning Orpheus Britannicus, The Queen’s Epicedium, Dido and Aeneas and conducted by Takuo Yuasa. Full score 979-0-060-11991-0 £108.00 The Fairy Queen. Vol.61: The Golden Age Autumn events include a special celebration of Piano score 979-0-060-11168-6 £24.99 Ned Rorem Ferguson’s close collaboration with Myra Hess at the 50 Collected Songs Vol.63: The Bolt high voice National Gallery in London, curating a series of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited Piano score 979-0-060-11170-9 £29.99 memorable daily chamber concerts to lift spirits during Aldwych House, 979-0-051-93395-2 £15.99 71-91 Aldwych, Vol.64: The Limpid Stream I medium/low voice World War II. On 25 November the annual Myra Hess Full score 979-0-060-11992-7 £130.00 day includes Ferguson’s Partita for two at a London WC2B 4HN 979-0-051-93396-9 £15.99 lunchtime concert and an afternoon discussion Telephone: +44 (0)20 7054 7200 Vol.65: The Limpid Stream Piano score 979-0-060-11169-3 £24.99 Mark-Anthony Turnage focuses on their work together. Mark Bebbington has Promotion email: [email protected] Hire email: [email protected] Vol.66: Moscow-Cheryomushki Three Night Carols recorded the composer’s Piano Concerto for future for mixed voices and keyboard Website: www.boosey.com/composers Full score 979-0-060-11993-4 £149.00 release on the Somm label, and on 12 December The Choral score 979-0-060- Dream of the Rood, Ferguson’s other large-scale David Allenby Editor David J Plumb ARCA PPSTD Designer Vol.87: Fables and Romances 11916-3 £4.95 choral classic, is performed at Hull University. Printed in England Full score 979-0-060-11994-1 £32.00