Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited

February 2007 2007/1 Adams Dean violin letters Included in this issue: Brett Dean’s new violin Brahms and Clara Chin concerto for Frank-Peter Schumann, while the Interview about Alice in Zimmermann, titled The second is a prayer-like Wonderland opera for A Flowering Tree Lost Art of Letter Writing, slow movement drawing Munich receives seven upon van Gogh’s reliance performances over the on nature as a point of coming months. Co- stability. An intermezzo is blooms in Vienna commissioned by the prefaced by a Hugo Wolf The latest operatic collaboration between John Adams Cologne Philharmonie letter detailing his mental and the Royal Stockholm affliction, while the final and Peter Sellars received a high profile premiere at Philharmonic, the concerto movement is a headlong Vienna’s New Crowned Hope festival in November. receives its premiere by the moto perpetuo rush Royal Concertgebouw towards catastrophe, Orchestra conducted by inspired by the Jerilderie Martyn Brabbins, first as Letter of Australian

guests in Cologne Photo: © Noosa Weekender bushranger Ned Kelly. (8 March) and then in The third movement relates to one of Dean’s Amsterdam (9 March). Two German new Wolf-Lieder for soprano and ensemble, orchestras immediately feature the concerto descibed by The Guardian as “a vivid in Munich and Berlin: the Munich portrait of crumbling sanity”. Premiered last Bernstein Philharmonic conducted by Jonathan Nott month by Valdine Anderson and the New Candide to travel from (14-17 March) and the Deutsches Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Paris to Milan and London Symphonie-Orchester under Manfred Honeck conducted by Sakari Oramo, the song-cycle (13/14 April). The Swedish and US premieres reflects on Wolf’s skills as a Lieder are planned for the 2007/08 season. composer, as heard in the Spanish The impetus for the new concerto came Songbook, and sets texts describing his from Dean’s observation “that we are increasing madness, estrangement from genuinely losing touch with the tactile society and final, tragic incarceration. element of written communication” 2006 was Dean’s most active concert year particularly with our “heavy reliance on to date. Highlights included the German, electronic stimuli… Sure, we stay in touch Australian and US premieres of his Viola arguably more than ever, via telephone, Concerto with the composer as soloist, the email and messaging, but that too has premiere and EMI recording of Komorov’s undoubtedly changed the nature of Fall within Simon Rattle’s asteroid series communicating”. expanding Holst’s Planets suite, and Photo: © Ruth Walz The concerto examines The Lost Art of performances of Pastoral Symphony in Premiere production of A Flowering Tree in Vienna Letter Writing through four 19th century Melbourne, Perth, Seoul, Los Angeles and Glanert The New Crowned Hope series, planned by influences in his score, between gospel tone and examples, “ranging from private love-letter to Miami. Markus Stenz conducts the Caligula opera acclaimed in Peter Sellars, celebrated the creativity of salsa rhythm, between ecstatically shimmering public manifesto” with the violin playing “the European premiere of Moments of Bliss, the Frankfurt and Cologne Mozart with – perhaps refreshingly in the sound tableaux and cool minimalist twitches, alternate roles of both author and a recipient orchestral suite drawn from Dean’s 250th anniversary year – scarcely a note of between cantilenas and aggressive repetitive of letters”. The opening movement explores forthcoming opera, at the Cologne Triennale patterns.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that composer’s music. Its pan-cultural the impassioned secret romance between on 20 May. focus found full expression in Adams’s “The score is opulent, dreamlike, fiercely lyrical, at modern retelling of an Indian folktale, times shadowy and strange – unlike anything that combining narrative and poetry in English the fifty-nine-year-old composer has written… translation with choruses in Spanish written Despite the happy ending, this little tale is actually for the voices of the Schola Cantorum of quite dark: Kumudha’s failed transformation evokes all the wrecked natural beauty that the Jazz sampler Caracas. march of human progress has left in its wake. The Following the launch of a new jazz initiative at Along with the New Crowned Hope festival, point is driven home in the opera’s last minutes, Boosey & Hawkes last summer, a CD A Flowering Tree was co-commissioned by when Kumudha’s final transformation occurs… sampler has been released, drawing on the San Francisco Symphony, Barbican Centre This is a hard-won triumph, from which not all Second Floor Music catalogue and tracks by shadows have been banished.” The New Yorker (London), Lincoln Center for the Performing B&H’s first new signings, Chick Corea and Arts (New York), and the Berliner “…some of the most ravishingly beautiful David Benoit. Jazz genres on the disc Philharmoniker who gave semi-staged passages of music that Adams has yet include Early Blues and Big Band Swing, composed… [He] continues to develop and Reich performances in December under the baton Latin & World, Spirited Vocals and Lush of Simon Rattle. The new work travels surprise — something of a late-flowering tree Ballads, Classic Bebop & Straight Ahead, Reviews of Daniel Variations himself.” Daily Telegraph in London and New York onwards with semi-staged performances in and Contemporary/Modern Groove. San Francisco (1-3 March) and at the Doctor Atomic receives its European The CD is available to promoters, broadcasters Barbican Centre (10-12 August), and a full- premiere in Peter Sellars’ production at the and choreographers on request from staging at Lincoln Center (2009) – all Holland Festival on 10 June. [email protected]. conducted by John Adams. Further performances are planned in Amsterdam and Chicago. Helen Wallace’s new book commercial reality to tells the inside story of create one of the world’s Anniversaries “An expertly crafted mirage Boosey & Hawkes over 75 great music publishers. years since the 1930 of sound, pulsating with Helen Wallace, who has merger of two rival music rhythmic and harmonic worked as a music critic companies. Rather than 11 December 2008 on The Times and as vitality.” Financial Times waging a price war, Leslie Elliott editor of BBC Music Boosey and Ralph Hawkes Magazine, has researched Carter “An impoverished Indian girl transforms herself joined forces and Centenary of birth the history of Boosey & into a tree so that she can sell her blossoms at expanded their business Photo: Meredith Heuer Hawkes, drawing upon the prince’s palace. The prince falls in love with from its London base to archival correspondence her and they marry, but a jealous sister strips the build a worldwide tree of its branches, consigning the girl to the with composers – much 28 August 2009 operation. netherworld. The prince tries to find his beloved available for the first time – Bohuslav by becoming a beggar. Eventually he recognises Signing Bartók and and oral history interviews her voice, she returns to human form and they are Martinu˚ Strauss and investing in with employees, past and 50th Anniversary of death united. talented young composers present. The book is Photo: B&H “Fanciful? Naive? No more so than The Magic like Britten and Copland, aimed at the general Flute, another love story about transformation, trial the company fully came of reader with an interest in by fire and the redemptive power of music. Those 22 November 2013 age with the acquisition of Serge music or cultural history, and its lively tone, Benjamin themes resound through A Flowering Tree… This is Adams at his most shimmering and seductive, Koussevitzky’s Russian catalogue with its accompanied by over 150 illustrations, Britten above all in the syncopated choruses and masterpieces by Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff brings this behind-the-scenes story of a Centenary of birth

‘magical’ instrumental effects…” and Prokofieff. Close friendships developed, music publisher to vivid life. Photo: Angus McBean Financial Times such as Ernst Roth’s with Strauss and The new volume, due for publication in April, “Who could be more suitable than John Adams Stravinsky in their final decades, while the relationship with Britten was rent asunder by will be available from bookshops or at For a full list of forthcoming anniversaries for a Sellars art project that can, in one breath, www.boosey.com/shop reconcile humanity as well as political, cultural and rival factions. Through boom years and please visit aesthetic opposites? … Adams knows how to unexpected financial threats, artistic Paperback, 256 pages, £12.99 www.boosey.com/anniversaries mediate between the most heterogeneous foresight has been balanced with ISBN 978-0-85162-514-0 Ter Schiphorst destroy anew Chin Iris ter Schiphorst, who signed a publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes last year, is continuing her series of works exploring themes of Alice in Wonderland psychological disturbance. Her Zerstören [Destroy] for Unsuk Chin discusses her first ensemble was premiered at the opera, opening at the Munich Witten Days for New Chamber Opera Festival on 30 June. Photo: Susanne Müller Music by the Asko Ensemble under Hans Leenders, followed by a performance in Amsterdam. Ter Schiphorst explains the impetus of the work as a need to understand our How did you discover Lewis Carroll’s Alice books? “psychosomatic reaction to the current affairs I discovered Carroll’s books in South Korea, as an situation and the impression of an increase in adult rather than as a child, before I moved to irrational brutality and archaic ‘passions’.” Europe. My interest was piqued when I read so much about them, especially in books about science. “One of the most impressive pieces of the festival was Iris Most notably it was through Douglas Hofstadter’s ter Schiphorst’s Zerstören which transforms the global volume, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden omnipresence of violence into multifarious reactions in Braid: A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines sound, creating an ‘internal film’ that captivates with an unfathomable thrill.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in the spirit of Lewis Carroll, in which Alice played such a prominent role, that I became curious. “Zerstören, with its layers of sounds, its agitated sequences, its psychologically resonant vibrations and attacking noise, What makes Alice in Wonderland a universal story, is a reaction to reality – a kind of self-defence in music.” with ongoing relevance? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung It is amazing that people – regardless of age, A new orchestral work on the same theme, education, profession or nationality – are so fascinated Zerstören II, commissioned by the Philharmonie by it. I guess it’s because the book has so many Südwestfalen, receives its first performances in layers - it can captivate experts and laymen, children How did you work with David Henry Hwang on What is the musical equivalent to ‘nonsense’ in the Siegen and Lippstadt on 23 and 25 February and adults as well. That is also an artistic ideal for me. reducing the text of the book? text, and does it have to be carefully controlled conducted by Russell Harris. Ter Schiphorst’s much We have used the sequence of the book quite through notation? admired orchestral ballad Hundert Komma Null, has Your opera emphasises the dreamworld of faithfully – apart from the opening and closing scenes For me, using free aleatoric approaches to describe been performed by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Wonderland. Why is this? – though it became necessary to create a couple of the nonsense is not an option, as it could become the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Already, when I read Alice for the first time, I was additional texts. Of course it was quite a challenge to too exaggerated. On the other hand, I also try to BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. fascinated and wholly amazed because I recognized fit Alice into an operatic evening, so I’ve been very avoid providing rigid interpretations of the book – much of what I had seen in my own dreams. happy to work with David Henry Hwang, who is a whether psychoanalytical or otherwise. Let the story However, I was never fully satisfied with the fantastic playwright and librettist. He has the amazing and its dialogues speak for themselves. Susan beginning and the end – they were so much more ability to write texts which have instant appeal but Sontag rightly deplored how “the effusion of conventional than the rest of Alice, which is totally are also profound. interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. surreal. I wondered if Carroll had perhaps made this To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete… in order Has creating your first opera raised practical to set up a shadow world of meanings.” Rather, concession to public taste, as otherwise the book performance issues, so that the vocal and orchestral would have been too daring for its time? I wanted the I am interested in the effortless and unconscious writing is simpler? way in which Lewis Carroll expresses deep dreamworld to be the reality in my opera. So, I Every genre has its own aura, so to speak. When decided to replace the beginning and the end - with philosophical questions. Alice is not solely a matter writing an opera I have to write in a very different way of dreams – it is also about a clash between the their references to everyday life - with two than if writing a more abstract piece for a specialized dream scenes. different ways in which we communicate and contemporary ensemble. I think in this opera the experience reality. music is much more direct and immediate than in my other pieces. However, I wouldn’t call it necessarily simpler. A foretaste to its style is given in Chin Alice in Wonderland (2005-07) snags&Snarls for soprano and orchestra, which is a Cherubini kind of sketch for the opera. Libretto by David Henry Hwang and Unsuk Chin after Lewis Carroll (E) How does your soundworld characterise the Achim Freyer Director critical edition whimsical humour of the story? Kent Nagano Conductor The first opera in the new Cherubini critical edition, I play with musical meanings through references to Lo sposo di tre e marito di nessuna, has just been different styles and the parodistic musical underlining Sally Matthews Alice released on CD for the first time, recorded at its of the different characters. Deciding on voice parts is Piia Komsi Cat 2005 revival at the Martina Franca Festival (Dynamic an instinctive process which is difficult to analyze. Dietrich Henschel Mad Hatter CDS 503/1-2). The opera (whose title translates as Reading the text I already had vivid aural images - Andrew Watts White Rabbit/March Hare

Betrothed to three, and married to none) dates from ie how to depict the characters - in my mind, and it Dame Gwyneth Jones Queen Photo: © Eric Richmond/ArenaPAL Luigi Cherubini’s early Italian years, when his operas became clear that one character should be a non- 30 June 2007 (world premiere) combined elements of Neapolitan opera buffa and singing role, being represented only through an 4/7 July commedia dell’arte, experimenting with form and instrument. Overall, the musical mode I am searching 15/17/20/23 November orchestration. for is black humour. Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich Photo: courtesy of Ideale Audience Glanert Caligula takes the stage Detlev Glanert’s new opera, Caligula, has won Ashley Holland as Caligula in the premiere of Detlev “We knew about Glanert’s skill as a composer. The way in exceptional acclaim in Frankfurt and Cologne, Glanert's opera in Frankfurt which Henze’s pupil handles the orchestra is another confirming his position as “one of the most example of his virtuosity. In order to show the inner outstanding contemporary writers of opera” (Sunday conflict of the title character through musical means, there are no violas in Glanert’s score, thus creating a gap in the Telegraph). The co-production by Christian Pade was middle range. The music of Caligula is marked by tender conducted in both cities by Markus Stenz, with textures of sound, fierce eruptions, threatening rhythmic Ashley Holland in the title role, “utterly compelling throbbing, instrumental whispers, supple analogies using through all his character’s violent mood-swings” quotations and a broad range of vocal expression.” (Financial Times). Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “This set deserves a warm welcome… First performed in Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s libretto, based on Camus’s “The premiere was a great success and received 1783, three years before Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, this enthusiastic cheers. There were two reasons for this playful, charming score foreshadows much of the rhythmic play, portrays the Roman emperor not purely as a madman but, more disturbingly, as a rational human success, provided by Treichel and Glanert: both the music vitality of the later masterpiece’s score… The storyline and the libretto have an outstanding clarity and density. points a little further ahead, however, to some of the being, sadistically experimenting with his courtiers. One can clearly follow the delicate dramatic structure, cynicism about human amatory impulses depicted in Così The parallels with the dictators of recent history are while the music not only includes strong effects and fan tutte… An opera well worth reviving, both for its inherent unmistakeable: Caligula’s final words at his murder extremes but also traces the verbal development of an musical quality and the insights it provides to a rich era of are “I am still alive”. absurd exertion of power to a degree that ideally matches Opera Today operatic history.” the text.” Frankfurter Rundschau The Cherubini critical edition is being published under the Simrock imprint, concentrating initially on “An effervescent, colourful “Caligula has all the passion and intensity of true opera … The two hours of music, spread over four acts interrupted performing materials while scores for sale are in musical drama which will by a single intermission, have a polish and sense of order - preparation. Supervised by chief editor Helen Geyer, even when abrasive - that reflect the composer’s fondness attract many stagings.” Scherzo the series was made possible thanks to the new- for Mahler and Ravel. Vocal lines are flattering to the found public access to numerous manuscripts, once voices… An absorbing work and a welcome addition to the belonging to the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer “Glanert stands apart from most of today’s composers in body of new operas.” Herald Tribune Kulturbesitz in Berlin, but now kept in the Biblioteca being able to write operas that are challenging yet singable, Jagellonska in Cracow. As well as exploring the structured with a feeling for theatre and driven by Glanert’s future stage projects include Nijinsky’s composer’s early Italian operas, the edition will also fascinating scores in which every note seems to count… Diary, for pairs of singers, actors and dancers with feature definitive versions of his later Paris His rigorous music evokes all the decadence and neurosis ensemble, commissioned by the Aachen Theater, masterpieces. A new edition of Medea, prepared by of the plot, drawn not from any of the story’s more and a full-evening opera for Gelsenkirchen, Heiko Cullmann, will be unveiled for a production at famously sensational sources but from Albert Camus’s The Wooden Ship, based on the novel by Hans the Theater an der Wien in March 2008. existential version… an opera that deserves wide currency.” Henny Jahnn.

Sunday Telegraph Photo: © Monika Rittershaus Valtinoni Pinocchio opera Bernstein American Candide

Left: Pinocchio, the talented puppet in the Komische Oper production in Berlin

wooden puppet … experiences, in the truest sense of the word, utterly beautiful adventures… The individual, short scenes enable even smaller children to get involved in the story… The staging never aims for a cheap laugh and avoids sentimentality… Cheerful, totally free of false pathos…” Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

“The production was an immediate success with the audience (10 minutes of cheers, applause and stamping of feet at the end)… In his gentle music Valtinoni follows a little the great masters of musical fairy tales: there is much of Maurice Ravel in the sparkling piano introduction played against the pizzicato strings and in the brass solos, both sad and beautiful. This music, however, is simpler and more direct, slightly leaning towards Puccini and Bernstein…” Photo: © Monika Rittershaus Berliner Zeitung Pierangelo Valtinoni’s Pinocchio, burattino di talento enjoyed a remarkable German premiere in November at the Komische Oper in Berlin. This magical new version of the Pinocchio story delighted adults and children alike in the colourful production by Jetske Andriessen Mijnssen. First staged in Vicenza in 2001, the one-

act hour-long opera sets a libretto by Paolo Madron Vermeer Pictures Photo: Théâtre du Chatelet/Marie-Noëlle Robert to a score that skilfully combines professional and A new orchestral suite, arranged Leonard Bernstein’s Candide received a controversial Above: Candide in Robert Carsen’s new production amateur perfomers. The work is ideal both for by Clark Rundell from Louis yet popular new staging at the Théâtre du Châtelet in at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris children’s opera programmes and for pre-Christmas Andriessen’s opera Writing to Paris in December, celebrating the 50th anniversary entertainments. Vermeer, was given its UK of the work’s premiere in 1956. Director Robert leaders, the new production was rich in satirical premiere in November by the Carsen took a decidedly ironic view of post-1950s humour while, as The New York Times noted, in the “A story of fables and animals Royal Liverpool Philharmonic America as “the best of all possible worlds” which auto-da-fé scene “Carsen does what Hellman and Orchestra under Rundell’s comes to life…” Märkische Allgemeine ruffled some international feathers but was a hit with Bernstein had imagined, recreating the House Un- baton. With so few orchestral audiences. The co-production travels on to the American Activities Committee and casting the “The Italian composer retells the famous classical story by works in Andriessen’s Teatro alla Scala in Milan in June, and to English chorus as Klu Klux Klan torch carriers”. Carlo Collodi in an entirely fresh fashion, with 57 child actors catalogue, Vermeer Pictures National Opera in London in 2008. The production Photo: Francesca Patella “What carries the story remains Bernstein’s immensely lively and five adult roles. Framed by a velvety blue stage, the signals a major addition to the was screened on BBC TV on New Year’s Eve as music. Packed with waltzes, gavottes, polkas and rumbas, repertoire as well as providing a taster for the full part of a Bernstein feature over the holiday season. with lyrical arias and droll patter songs, the score is a bridge opera. The four-movement suite, lasting 30 minutes, between opera and musical comedy.” New York Times builds a composite of the opera’s domestic scenes In Paris the spoken text was delivered, appropriately, in Delft, where the three women in Vermeer’s life in French, the language of the Voltaire original, while Plans are underway for events celebrating Bernstein’s write letters to the absent artist. the music was sung in English. With Candide’s 90th birthday on 25 August 2008. If you would like to upbringing in ‘West-Failure’ clearly sited at the White be featured in our web calendar please email “Andriessen has called the opera his ‘delicate, feminine House and cameo appearances by current political [email protected]. daughter’, and it is true that, in the suite dubbed Vermeer Pictures, there is little sign of the punchy, splintery neo- primitivism that is his signature style. Instead the music is mostly lyrical, and the presence of cimbalom, two pianos and two amplified guitars reinforces the bewitching radiance of the harmony… [Yet] there is still a bracing, the English medieval poem Piers Plowman, written confrontational tone beneath the surface. Like his musical by William Langland in the late 14th century, and Holloway promises, like its predecessors, to be a showcase for godfather Stravinsky, Andriessen renounces as much as he embraces, and it is this tendency that gives power and Holloway’s skills as a master-orchestrator. focus to his time-travelling journeys between late Fourth Concerto Renaissance and jazz.” Daily Telegraph After a mysterious, portentous prologue, The Fair Robin Holloway’s Fourth Field Full of Folk is an exuberant scherzo-rondo with Andriessen’s new string quartet, miserere, for the references to popular and sacred music whirling in Schoenberg Quartet receives its first performances in Concerto for Orchestra, his third commission from the San and out in an Ivesian manner. A dance sequence of Utrecht, The Hague and Amsterdam on 16, 21 and the Seven Deadly Sins is followed by a movement 25 April. He is continuing work on his opera, Fransisco Symphony Orchestra, receives its world premiere on depicting Piers’ metaphorical “ploughing of the earth’s Commedia, based on Dante’s great poetic journey surface, digging in the dung and debris, sowing the through inferno, purgatory and paradise, scheduled 1 February conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Both good seed that will eventuate in an abundant for premiere by the Netherlands Opera at the Holland harvest”. A second mirroring dance sequence of the Festival in June 2008. orchestra and conductor have forged close associations with Seven Virtues is followed by an epilogue in which the

Photo: Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL Holloway, giving notable mystic summons leads to Piers’ apotheosis, as his Andriessen manuscripts to Basel worldly labour is completed. The Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel has acquired performances of his Clarissa Sequence, Third Louis Andriessen’s musical archive. The new Concerto for Orchestra, Viola Concerto and his Holloway’s loving elaboration of Bach, Gilded collection fits readily into the Sacher Foundation’s orchestration of Debussy’s En blanc et noir, which Goldbergs, provided the music for Nacho Duato’s holdings as they already include the posthumous they toured around the USA in 2004. most recent dancework for the Compañia Nacional Above: A scene from Kenneth Branagh’s new film papers of Andriessen’s teacher Luciano Berio and Holloway’s Concertos for Orchestra are central de Danza de Madrid, premiered last autumn. His of The Magic Flute, due for release later this year. the estate of Igor Stravinsky, on whom Andriessen works within his output, with the second and third Fourth Idyll, commissioned by the City of London Stephen Fry’s specially-commissioned English and Elmer Schönberger co-wrote a highly acclaimed recorded for NMC by the BBC Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia, Vasteras Sinfonietta and Hong Kong version of the libretto will be available from B&H for book in the 1980s, The Apollonian Clockwork, (Gramophone Contemporary Record of the Year in Sinfonietta, receives its first performance conducted performance by opera companies from the reprinted in English last year by Amsterdam 1994) and London Symphony Orchestra respectively. by Richard Hickox in November, with performances 2008/09 season. University Press. The new Fourth Concerto (2002-06) is inspired by in Sweden and Hong Kong following in 2008. Midori plays Centenary Classics Rautavaara Strauss Stravinsky In November, Midori unveiled Rautavaara’s Lost Landscapes, which he composed for her in 2005. After the premiere at the Herkulessaal in Munich, she 2009 2011 took the work on a German tour with pianist Robert Elektra Petrushka McDonald, and over the coming months introduces Premiere: 25 January 1909 Premiere: 13 June 1911 the work in the USA in recital programmes Hofoper, Dresden Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris (4-18 March) followed by a concert at Lincoln Center in New York (24 April). Image: Robin Adler 2011 2013 Sketch: Elizabeth Valdez Each of the four movements of Lost Landscapes is Der Rosenkavalier The Rite of Spring an image of a place of personal significance for the Premiere: 26 January 1911 Premiere: 29 May 1913 composer during his ‘wanderer-years’ as a student in Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Hofoper, Dresden Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris the late 1950s: Tanglewood, Ascona in Switzerland, Vienna and New York City. As the composer Recollections of New York student years are also 2012 describes them, “all these ‘landscapes’ are full of central to his recent orchestra score Manhattan Ariadne auf Naxos memories and atmospheres, visual as well as auditory Trilogy, which Osmo Vänska conducts in Minnesota - they are musical life-themes for me”. on 22 March. The work is due for future release on (original version: Molière’s play Le Bourgeois Ondine as part of the label’s ongoing Rautavaara Gentilhomme with incidental music by Strauss, “The Lost Landscapes, four sensitive memories, are followed by Strauss’s one act opera) narrative pieces… Rautavaara loves diversity and mixtures of series. Recent releases include a collection of all manner of different epochs of musical history and styles. orchestral songs with baritone Gabriel Suovanen Premiere: 25 October 1912 Midori, with the ‘impact’ of her petite yet energetic body and (ODE 1085-2) and a two-disc anthology featuring Hoftheater, Stuttgart her profound musicality, unfolded this flowing, gently elegiac favourites such as Cantus Arcticus and Angels and Photo: Birmingham Royal Ballet/Steve Hanson music.” Süddeutsche Zeitung Visitations (ODE 1079-2). Detlev Glanert Pas de Quatre (String Quartet No.2) Reich Daniel Variations New M-2025-3190-7 Score and parts £19.99 the biblical Book of Daniel, is dark and disturbed, Publications traced through the fierce patterns of pianos and York Höller vibraphones. It’s not the Reich we know. Harrison Birtwistle Lied Scan for flute M-2025-3184-6 “But the contrasting aura is celebratory. The freewheeling M-060-11901-9 string quartet drawn from the Steve Reich Ensemble draws Cello and piano score £7.99 Flute score £8.99 on Pearl’s love of the jazz violin, while the singers from Synergy Vocals call out the journalist’s name with a Benjamin Britten Robin Holloway crystalline openness. The ideological clash between the two Complete Folksong Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis moods is inspiring: the vocal canons flicker between ghostly Arrangements (Winchester Service) alarm and triumphant affirmation, while the alternating High voice M-060-11760-2 Choral score £4.99 textures of strings and vibes give the whole piece a turbulent M-051-93374-7 sweep. It’s much, much more than a memorial.” The Times Vocal score £19.99 Karl Jenkins Gaudete Daniel Variations was co-commissioned by Barbican Medium/low voice M-051-93375-4 M-060-11928-6 Centre, Carnegie Hall, Daniel Pearl Foundation, Cité Choral score £1.99 de la Musique Paris and Casa da Musica Porto. Vocal score £19.99 Following its premiere in London, the work travelled to Aaron Copland Jacques Offenbach Photo: © Wonge Bergmann New York where an expansive Reich celebration Old American Songs Les Voix mystérieuses brought together three rival promoters: Lincoln (choral suite) for high voice and piano (OEK) “Reich’s friends. Reich’s colleagues. And Reich’s Center, Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Academy of M-051-47698-5 M-2025-3067-2 adoring fans. They were all there for the final flourish Music. Recent months have seen Daniel Variations SAB and piano £1.50 Vocal score £12.50 of the composer’s 70th birthday party. As was the toured by Steve Reich & Musicians to Portugal and M-051-47699-2 Sergei Rachmaninoff composer himself… ready to receive the bravos for France, the German premiere presented by Ensemble SA and piano £1.50 his newest work, Daniel Variations.” So wrote The Modern in Munich, and the first US West Coast Etudes-Tableaux Times of the world premiere within the Barbican’s performance by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Brett Dean (complete) Practical Urtext Edition 11-event Reich celebration in October, noting that “Daniel Variations [is] a haunting work that circles around Short Stories for string “those bravos were deserved. In confronting the orchestra (Russian Music alternating ideas of celebration and discord, the latter Publishing) murder of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish-American represented literally by the bitter harmonic interval of a M-2025-3189-1 journalist killed horrifically by Islamic extremists in second, which nags away somewhere in the score, even Full score £10.99 M-3520-3101-2 2002, Reich faced a dramatic challenge with no when the music attains the quintessentially Reichian Piano score £19.99 Frederick Delius model in his work to date. And the first music we qualities of hypnotic rapture.” The Guardian Sixteen songs with piano hear in the Variations, set to a discomforting line from “In the most recent pieces Reich has consolidated four Collected Edition vol.18b decades of invention. Neon-lit textures have given way to M-060-11875-3 Vocal score £9.99 dense, dusky landscapes, with tender lyrical passages at the heart of each piece. It’s as if Reich were finally letting Florida Suite himself look back in time, perhaps even indulging a secret Collected Edition vol.20 Romantic urge. Yet, in the tribute to Daniel Pearl, there is M-060-11893-7 Full score (rev. ed. 2006) £24.99 New also a new influx of coiled power: fleets of pianos and percussion tap out telegraphic patterns, warning of the next Recordings big crash.” The New Yorker Below: John Neumeier’s new full-evening ballet “Quote... Leonard Bernstein Parzifal – Episodes and Echoes at the Hamburg Reich is currently working on Music for 12 Musicians, The Dybbuk/Fancy Free Carter commissioned by the American ensemble Eighth Ballet, set to music by Adams and Wagner, including Harmonielehre, The Wound-Dresser, Christian Zeal Nashville Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Mogrelia In The Distances of Sleep (world premiere) Blackbird for premiere in spring 2008. Naxos 8.559280 15 October, New York and Activity, El Dorado, Short Ride in a Fast Machine Michelle DeYoung/Met Ensemble/James Levine and The Chairman Dances Trouble in Tahiti Orchestre de Picardie/Pascal Verrot “Mr Carter’s music keeps the listener busy. The vocal lines Calliope CAL9391 are by and large in long, unbroken phrases and the instrumental music around them seethes. There are the snare drums and sharp percussive detonations so familiar Elliott Carter to his music, the rippling mallet percussion and the short A Labyrinth of Time bursts of winds and strings. Stevens’s reflections have an film by Frank Scheffer outdoor setting, and you can almost hear the insects buzz Juxtapositions DVD 9DS17 and the birds chirp.” New York Times HK Gruber Lindberg Frankenstein!!/ Violin Concerto (European premiere) Dancing in the Dark/ 5 October, Orebro Charivari Lisa Batiashvili/ BBC Philharmonic/HK Gruber Swedish Chamber Orchestra/ Chandos Records Thomas Dausgard CHAN 10404 “Magnus Lindberg’s new Violin Zeitstimmung/Rough Music/ Concerto has just received standing Photo: Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL Charivari ovations at its European premiere… Fiery and flinty of HK Gruber/Martin Grubinger/ temperament, and sternly logical of intellect, he has Tonküstler Orchestra/ written a complex showpiece that scorches its way on to the platform… That Lindberg logic drives the work Kristjan Järvi beneath its intricacy and its fantasy: it’s held together BIS 1681 tightly by transformations of the simplest material. And, as it grows and expands, the music becomes charged with a HK Gruber Sibelius-like sense of radiating light and excited Exposed Throat affirmation.” The Times Robin Holloway Trumpet Sonata MacMillan Håkan Hardenberger Sun-Dogs (world premiere) BIS 1281 6 August, Bloomington Indiana University Contemporary Vocal Photo: Hamburg Ballet/Holger Badekow Jacques Offenbach Ensemble/Carmen Téllez Cello Concerto (Concerto “The music itself was a revelation: a mesmeric blending of Militaire) (premiere recording)/ traditional and contemporary elements… a choral array of Les Fées du Rhin Overture/ chanting and whispering, of shouting and speaking, of Ballet & Grande Valse whistling and controlling disparate lines so that they Britten Double Gloriana Jérôme Pernoo/ wondrously merged… The co-creator of Sun-Dogs was Les Musiciens du Louvre/ British poet Michael Symmons Roberts who addresses Two alternative views of Britten’s Whereas Lloyd’s version has Marc Minkowski theological and mythical symbolisms. Dogs, beggars, suns opera Gloriana have recently proved controversial for its cutting Deutsche Grammophon 4776403 and stars turn into metaphors… The whole settled upon been released on DVD. Phyllida of a number of scenes, the full the ears like magic…” Indiana Herald-Times Lloyd’s film, based around her opera is also now available thanks Ned Rorem acclaimed Opera North staging, to Arthaus’s reissue of the classic Turnage Double Concerto/After Reading Shakespeare is the more radical, exploring the 1984 English National Opera Jaime Laredo/Sharon Robinson/ Ceres (US premiere) split between the monarch’s production by Colin Graham 4 January, Boston IRIS Orchestra/Michael Stern public and private life through (Arthaus Musik 102 097) with Naxos 8.559316 Boston Symphony scenes set both onstage and Sarah Walker in the title role: Orchestra/Robert Spano backstage. Josephine Barstow “Under Mark Elder the score is “Turnage chose to focus on the develops still further her delivered by the London company with asteroid’s massive destructive potential remarkable portrayal of matchless conviction, commitment and in the event of a possible collision with Photo: Hanya Chlala/ArenaPAL Elizabeth I, Tom Randle is the certainty of purpose… No Essex has Earth. His music wisely refrains from scene-painting the impetuous Earl of Essex, and approached Rolfe Johnson for apocalypse, but this six-minute work still succeeds in Paul Daniel conducts (Opus Arte eloquence, suppleness and charm of conjuring a mounting sense of anarchy by pitting large OA 0955 D). phrase, for complete command of swaths of music against each other. Themes appear to Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited Britten’s Dowland-meets-Mussorgsky Aldwych House, stack up in one moment, and slice across each other the “This is unquestionably among the vocalità.” Opera 71-91 Aldwych, next. In the final coda, Turnage has the cellos playing finest opera films ever made. Phyllida London WC2B 4HN beneath their bridges, creating a ghastly spectral sound, Lloyd’s Opera North staging vindicated this problematic like an icy wind heard from outer space… A fascinating and piece, but the film she also directed takes it to a new Plans are underway for a new staging of Gloriana at Telephone: +44 (0)20 7054 7200 decidedly dark curtain-raiser.” Boston Globe height of intensity… Lloyd’s camera captures the rhythm the Hamburg Staatstoper in 2009/10 as part of its Promotion email: [email protected] of the action and the changing scenes with exciting ongoing Britten cycle under the baton of Simone Hire email: [email protected] immediacy one moment, deep intimacy the next, staring Young, following the highly successful Website: www.boosey.com/composers mirror-close into Barstow’s deeply expressive features.” A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the forthcoming David Allenby Editor David J Plumb ARCA PPSTD Designer BBC Music Magazine Billy Budd opening on 25 March. …unquote” Printed in England