The ZKN was founded by the lawyer Florian Schmidt-Gabain and the literary scholar Thomas Strässle, who lead the ZKN as President and Vice President, and are supported by an Advisory Board consisting of Lionel V. Baldenweg, Michael Haefliger, Beatrix Ruf and Julia Voss. The ZKN is organized as an association based in Zurich, Switzerland.

On November 21, 2019, the opening conference of the ZKN will take place at the Kunsthaus Zürich. Topics include the estates of Hilma af Klint, Emil Bührle and Max Frisch. The estate of Charlie Chaplin, who composed his own film music - something that is often little known - will also be presented. Kate Guyonvarch, the director of the Chaplin Office Paris, will give a talk on the subject.

More info: www.zkn.ch

In contrast to other European countries, Great Britain almost defiantly stuck to the traditional tonal, mostly four-movement symphony even after the Second World War. Of the large number of British works in this genre, however, almost only those by Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton were able to establish themselves on the continent. The symphonies of such outstanding composers as Arnold Bax, York Bowen and Michael Tippett are hardly noticed in this country, let alone performed. The fact that one female composer - Ruth Gipps - has also achieved remarkable things in this field is likely to have escaped the attention of even most connoisseurs of British music. Chandos has now released a CD with her 2nd and 4th symphonies and two short orchestral works, which is highly commendable because it closes a real gap in the repertoire.

Ruth Gipps (1921-1999), whose music is entirely in the English tradition in terms of form, harmony and sound, is half Swiss. Her mother Hélène Johner studied as a budding pianist in Frankfurt, where she met her future husband Bryan Gipps. She came from Basel and her mother was Caroline von Weissenfluh from Meiringen. Ruth showed exceptional talent for music as a child: her first published piano piece, The Fairy ShoemakerShe began composing at the age of eight. As a young woman, she studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob, as well as oboe with Léon Goossens. She was so versatile that in 1945 she not only played in the orchestra at the premiere of her first symphony by the City of Birmingham Orchestra, of which she was then a member as oboist and cor anglais player, but also performed Alexander Glazunov's first piano concerto as a soloist. She later founded the London Repertoire Orchestra, which she conducted for decades, an ensemble designed to give young professional musicians the opportunity to get to know the symphonic repertoire. She was also an esteemed composition teacher at three music academies.

All the works on the CD are well worth hearing and are interpreted with virtuosity, color and power by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under the direction of Rumon Gamba. Gipps' music is traditional, but not at all outdated: emotional depth is combined with the joy of opulent orchestral sound, as well as an excellent knowledge of all orchestral instruments, with expressive solos entrusted to the concertmaster, oboe, cor anglais and horn in particular. The dedicatee of the 4th Symphony from 1972, Sir Arthur Bliss, wrote to the composer: "I have been studying the symphony, and the more I do the more I like it." One can only agree with this.

Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Sonata op. 36 is one of the Russian composer's most frequently performed works today. The younger generation in particular, and especially those from the Far East, study this demanding, highly virtuoso piece with passion and dedication.

This was not always the case. Especially in the German-speaking cultural area, this sonata had to fight against a bad reputation in the past. In its Handbook of piano literature Klaus Wolters stated succinctly at the time that Opus 36 had generally received almost only negative reviews. And in a later edition (1977) he no longer mentions it at all. Walter Georgii was annoyed by the "monotonous repetition of motifs". The extensive work is therefore "on the whole not very pleasing" (Piano musicAtlantis Verlag).

Rachmaninov himself was evidently not satisfied with the original conception of his Second Sonata from 1913 and subjected it to a thorough revision 18 years later. He made the piano writing somewhat more transparent and deleted a total of around 120 bars. That's more than 10 pages of music!

Whether he changed the work to his advantage as a result is a subject of constant debate. Vladimir Horowitz solved the problem in his own way and created his own mixed version of both versions with Rachmaninov's consent.

Dominik Rahmer has now published both of the composer's versions in one volume with Henle-Verlag, so that you can easily study the differences bar by bar. As usual with Henle, the music is clearly laid out and easy to read, even in the overloaded first version. The fingerings reveal the skillful practitioner and are by Marc-André Hamelin, who not only knows this repertoire very well.

You can take whatever view you like of Rachmaninov's Opus 36. As in the brilliant Piano Concerto No. 3, the composer's consistent motivic work can also be admired here. All the formal sections are developed from very few musical building blocks and artfully and logically linked together. Once in a somewhat tighter dress (version from 1931), another time in a somewhat more expansive, but perhaps more sensual version (1913).

Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor op. 36, versions 1913 and 1931, edited by Dominik Rahmer, HN 1256, € 19.50, G. Henle, Munich

The composer Christian Gottlieb Müller (1800-1863) is probably quite unknown to many musicians. Perhaps the fact that he was Richard Wagner's teacher may lend him a little more luster. And this is certainly not without good reason: the score of the 15-minute bass trombone concerto from 1832 (already printed by Breitkopf & Härtel at the time) testifies to the good craftsmanship that Müller had acquired through his intensive study of Beethoven's works. The orchestration (2 woodwinds, 2 brass, 2 trp, timp, strings), the key (E flat major), the cadenza-like beginning of the solo instrument, the virtuosity in the 3rd movement and many other features (e.g. melodic line in octaves between flute and clarinet in the 2nd movement) are reminiscent of the 5th piano concerto by his idol Ludwig van Beethoven, written around 20 years earlier.

The Concertino was long considered lost, especially the orchestral version. Only a rather flawed, handwritten piano reduction from the 1950s kept the memory of the work alive. It was not until 2004 that a complete set of orchestral parts surprisingly emerged, forming the basis for the present score. The individual parts are available as rental material, the score and a proper piano reduction are for sale. A truly pleasing alternative to Ernst Sachse's Bass Trombone Concertino - not least for orchestral auditions.

Christian Gottlieb Müller: Concertino for bass trombone and orchestra in E flat major, edited by Nick Pfefferkorn, score PB 33001, € 36.00, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2012/2018

When a work of the repertoire is published in a new edition, especially one labeled "Urtext", there are two possibilities in (only a perceived) 95 percent of all cases: Either the editorial decisions compared to previous editions have to be looked for with a magnifying glass (in which case there are usually market considerations behind the edition - and yes: there is a Musik.biz, and that is unquestionably a good thing), or there really is something new, sometimes even spectacular, to discover. This may only concern a single note or an accidental (from Beethoven to Berg), but sometimes there are entire passages that were once lost in the haste of production or in the maelstrom of tradition.

In this respect, the present new edition of Dvořák's String Serenade also arouses curiosity: in addition to the usual minor corrections and additions, it features new bars: There are 34 in the scherzo and as many as 79 in the finale. They can be found in the autograph, but were not included in the printed score published by Bote & Bock in 1879. Admittedly, they were included in the 1955 volume of the complete edition (albeit in the appendix, and were thus once again lost in IMSLP, a repeated gravis defectus). Robin Tait has made a virtue of this necessity and chosen the autograph as the main source for the new edition, thus also integrating the passages that fell by the wayside during printing into the main text (and yet, as a concession to modern practice, has provided them with a vide-note). This means that it can now be freely explored, although Dvořák himself, as a recognized master, never later demanded a new edition. I used the recording with the Orchestre d'Auvergne under Roberto Forés Veses - and yes, the editors at the time may (?!) have made a good decision. But the discussion is open.

Antonín Dvořák: Serenade in E major op. 22 for string orchestra, edited by Robin Tait, score, BA 10423, € 22.95, Bärenreiter, Prague 

The twelve fun one-minute pieces by Don't Feed the AnimalsOuverüre, ten animal pictures and epilogue for children's orchestra, are suitable as interludes for a performed story. The scampering hedgehog, which pauses shyly at fermatas, the frog's croaking in rubbing small seconds, busy quavers for the ants, trills and tremolo glissandi for the busy bees, the swan hovering in alternating three-quarter and four-four time, the four squirrels scampering in pizzicato leaps and sixteenth-note scales ... It's all cleverly conceived, well distributed among the parts and - with a certain amount of rehearsal - easy to play.

The 14 canons and 6 string trios that Egon Sassmannshaus composed for the Early start in the Steicherensemble provide a variety of keys from a B flat to two sharps. Even a minuet in A minor joins the small baroque dances.

In the Christmas booklet of the same series, 10 Baroque festive dances in simple keys - major and minor - frame 17 of the best-known German Christmas carols in deliberately simple four-part settings for the youngest string groups.

George A. Speckert: Don't Feed the Animals. 12 pieces for string orchestra, score and set of parts (1st, 2nd, 3rd violin, the latter also for viola, cello), BA 10648, € 13.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

Egon Sassmannshaus: Früher Anfang im Streicherensemble, score for violin, viola (or 2nd violin) and cello, BA 10688, € 12.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

id., Christmas, score for two violins (one piece for three violins), viola (one piece for two violas) and cello, BA 10689, € 12.95

The teacher's handbook for the new teaching aid from the publisher Helbling Wind class guide comes with the weighty volume of more than 450 densely printed pages. The textbook impresses with a wealth of extremely varied and stimulating material. In addition to the teacher's book, it includes student booklets for all wind orchestra instruments, play-alongs and online aids that can be accessed via a code, as well as a CD-ROM with a wealth of additional material.

The Wind class guide was jointly developed by five authors, all of whom teach music at secondary school level and have experience in working with wind classes as well as in school music. The aim of the new teaching aid is to combine the playing practice that dominates wind band classes today with the content of school music lessons (music theory, ear training, creating and inventing music). The teaching material is not aimed at a specific age group. It is suitable for use from intermediate level upwards. The teacher's book explains the concept, the underlying ideas and objectives as well as the methods used in the work with the classes in detail.

The teaching part begins with a preliminary course, which takes place without instruments and extends over 3 units, i.e. approx. 6 lessons. This is followed by Basics with instrumental methodology and then the lessons with the instrument, which are divided into two volumes with 23 and 18 lessons respectively (1st/2nd volume). Each lesson offers material and fully prepared lesson plans for 2 lessons.

This concept is based on 3 lessons of extended music lessons per week, divided into 2 lessons of regular music lessons with the whole class and 1 lesson of instrumental lessons in small groups. If less teaching time is available, it may be difficult to complete the two volumes within 2 school years.

In terms of content, the teaching material places great emphasis on teaching music theory. The basics are introduced thoroughly, but also in an extremely varied and playful way, with lots of suggestions for partner or group work. At the same time, the theoretical content is linked to practical playing on the instrument and used for creative tasks. Pupils are always encouraged to engage in practical activities. On average, there are one or two short pieces of music per lesson (chapter), which is rather few. In most cases, the pieces are accompanied by additional suggestions for interpretation, presentation or reflection as well as links to theory. For many pieces, additional four-part class arrangements with a 2nd part, a bass part and an upper part "for experienced players" are available on the accompanying CD-ROM, which allows for individualization of the requirements through internal differentiation.

Using specially marked toolboxes, the pupils are taught specific methods as a craft, how they can work on music independently, practise pieces or acquire musical material. The student booklets are attractively designed with colors and symbols and contain supportive and stimulating pictures and graphics. However, the pages as a whole seem rather overloaded and very text-heavy, which makes accessibility somewhat more difficult.

Wind class guide sets new standards in terms of thematic breadth, the teaching of theory and a general understanding of music, as well as in its methodical and didactic preparation.

Sommer/Ernst/Holzinger/Jandl/Scheider: Leitfaden Bläserklasse. A concept for successful teaching with wind instruments, teacher's volume 1 and 2 incl. CD-ROM and pupils' solution booklets, S7770, Fr. 84.50, Helbling, Belp et al.

Printed sheet music was once expensive. Not everyone could afford them. That's why a musician in the countryside, for example, would have bought a printed edition of the Musical sacrifice bought a copy and paid only eight groschen instead of one reichstaler. (And how much of this did the composer get in a time without Suisa and Pro Litteris?) It would have been even cheaper (about five groschen) to copy the music himself. It was worth it when you consider that a salaried musician had around eight thalers a month at his disposal for himself and his family.

Illuminating details such as these from the everyday life of musicians can always be found in this social history of Baroque music. It takes us into the lowlands of practice in an incredibly exciting way. Several authors are involved, but the two editors Peter Hersche and Siegbert Rampe have made the main contribution: to the economic situation and social order of the time, which is not easy to summarize and even less to generalize for such a heterogeneous, evolving epoch. Things were in a state of flux. So where did music take place and who performed it? What status did the musicians have and what status did their instruments have? Who built them? Who trained them? What could a musician actually afford from his salary: a little garden, a library, a maid for his wife? There are many questions.

And because it is not at all emphatically about art, but rather about the circumstances under which it is created, and especially about money, the topic is presented soberly and clearly. The focus is primarily on the conditions in German-speaking countries and is therefore somewhat blurred towards the outside world. The fact that we actually know far too little is not concealed. For a long time, musicology has hardly paid any attention to this social history. Bach was pitied when he asked for a pay rise, but the fact that this affected almost the entire musical profession was overlooked. Perhaps this is also the reason why the authors do not venture any further into anecdote or even speculation with their findings. Overall, the book is extremely informative and illustrated with many examples, but not really filled with life. This is perhaps even an advantage, because it doesn't disguise anything. It shows us the bare facts of everyday life.

Sozialgeschichte der Musik des Barock, ed. by Peter Hersche and Siegbert Rampe, (Handbuch der Musik des Barock 6), 400 p., ill., hardcover, € 108.00, Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2017, ISBN 978-3-89007-875-5

The cello literature contains several incomplete works by important composers: Mozart's only work for cello and piano, the Andantino cantabile KV 374 g (Anh. 46), remained a fragment and exists in several foreign additions, of Antonín Dvořák's early Cello Concerto in A major only the solo part and the piano reduction have survived and Othmar Schoeck left the last movement of his Cello Sonata unfinished.

An important discovery can now be added to this (incomplete) list: As part of the Bärenreiter Complete Edition of Camille Saint-Saëns' works, a previously unknown cello sonata has been published for the first time. A letter from the composer from 1919 proves that the work was performed in its entirety during the composer's lifetime. Nevertheless, only the first two of the four movements that were supposedly composed have survived, with the surviving manuscript of the second movement breaking off after 82 bars.

The conception of the sonata dates back to 1913 and Saint-Saëns seems to have struggled with the definitive writing, as he wrote in a letter to his publisher Durand in 1914: "I am working on my duo, which is only progressing with difficulty. What a difficult genre to deal with!"

As in the two sonatas op. 32 and op. 123, Saint-Saëns skillfully plays with rhythmically concise and lyrical passages. Bold harmonic changes are also reminiscent of the tonal language of the 1919 Prière op. 158 for violoncello and organ.

Saint-Saëns' cello oeuvre is given a welcome expansion by this first edition.

Camille Saint-Saëns: Sonata for violoncello and piano in D major (incomplete), first edition, edited by Denis Herlin, BA 10910, € 17.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel

Set an example is an important book, published at a time when anti-Semitism is threatening to spread again. Werner Schmitt, initiator and co-author of the book, documents the concert he organized at the Bergen-Belsen Holocaust Memorial in 2016. It was dedicated to the memory of the legendary concert tour of July 1945, which Yehudi Menuhin undertook together with the composer Benjamin Britten through northern German towns and villages. They also performed in a movie theater in the barracks of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The camp had been liberated by Allied troops on April 15 of the same year.

The concert took place in the presence of survivors of the camp. Together with Britten, Menuhin played a program that included works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Claude Debussy, but cannot be fully reconstructed due to the sources. The memorial concert with the duo Aleksey Semenenko (violin) and Inna Firsova (piano) included the Chaconne by J. S. Bach, the first movement of the Kreutzer Sonata, the Sonata by Edvard Grieg, works by Chausson, Debussy and Tchaikovsky, and even the Kaddish by Maurice Ravel was played as an encore.

The recording on two CDs is included in the book, which summarizes impressions of the historic concert tour in words and pictures, when the two great musicians played for the benefit of surviving victims. The authors, Werner Schmitt, cellist and long-time director of the Bern Conservatory, and Hendrick Feindt, literary historian and media scientist, have created more than just a documentation with this book: they have set an example that needs to be recognized today more than ever.

Zeichen setzen/ Taking a Stand. Yehudi Menuhin / Benjamin Britten / Bergen-Belsen 1945, edited by Werner Schmitt, 100 p., 2 CDs, Fr. 57.00, Müller & Schade, Bern 2018, ISBN 978-3-905760-19-4

César Franck composed his monumental Piano Quintet in F minor between the fall of 1878 and the summer of 1879, having not written any chamber music for 25 years. The concerts of the Société nationale de musique, founded in 1871, at which chamber music works by Gabriel Fauré, Édouard Lalo and Camille Saint-Saëns, among others, were premiered, had probably prompted Franck to return to this genre. The Piano Quintet predates the Violin Sonata in A major (1886) and the Symphony in D minor (1887/88). At the premiere on January 17, 1880, Camille Saint-Saëns sat at the piano, to whom the piece is also dedicated. After the work's cool reception, it was only performed a few more times during the composer's lifetime. It was not until the 20th century that audiences and critics recognized the true significance of César Franck's Piano Quintet.

The three movements with a performance time of around 40 minutes are linked together by leitmotifs. As a contemporary witness, this piano quintet stands for French Romantic music in its confrontation between classical form, the influence of Richard Wagner and the departure into new worlds of sound. But Franck's piano quintet is also one of the milestones of the chamber music repertoire as absolute music. With its cyclical structure and rich sound spectrum, it has the character of a symphony.

This Urtext edition, supervised by Ernst-Günter Heinemann, dispenses with technical additions in the string parts. The piano part was provided with fingerings by Klaus Schilde. Turnarounds are optimally placed in all parts, and the cello can place the last three pages without rests side by side on the music stand and play them through. The Critical Report for this edition can be found at henle.de can be viewed.

César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor for piano, two violins, viola and violoncello, edited by Ernst-Günter Heinemann, HN 1142, € 45.00, G. Henle, Munich 

It is an exciting and appealing starting point for everyone involved: the large symphony orchestra is made up of around 100 expectant amateur musicians of all ages and abilities. On the podium is none other than the renowned conductor Vladimir Jurowski. The common goal of the 90-minute encounter is to rehearse three movements from Dmitri Shostakovich's Suite for Variety Orchestra.

This unique meeting between amateur musicians and star conductors is called an "open rehearsal" and will take place as part of the Berlin Orchestra Meeting at the Landesmusikakademie Berlin at the end of May 2019. In this case, "open" not only means that the rehearsal is open to the public, but also that all interested amateur musicians who have registered to take part in the Berlin State Music Council's orchestra meeting will be admitted. The term "rehearsal" is also to be understood literally, as the orchestral work does not culminate in a concert or a competition audition as is usually the case, but stands on its own.

Vladimir Jurowski doesn't seem to mind, on the contrary. "In this day and age, where everyone only communicates with their screens, making music together is more important than ever," says the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin before the rehearsal begins. It makes no difference to him whether the music is performed by professional musicians, in amateur formations or - as is usual in the Jurowski family - with relatives. "Amateur musicians are literally 'lovers' of music," he muses. "And that's what this kind of orchestral gathering is all about: coming together, listening to each other, making music together." He doesn't hide the fact that he would have chosen a classical piece rather than a work by his compatriot Shostakovich to work with amateur musicians. But since the wish is there, he accepts the challenge and reveals: "For me, the appeal of this open rehearsal lies primarily in finding a common path from the first performance to the last play-through of the work." What this path would look like and where it would end, well, that too is literally "open".

The first performance of the well-known march from the Suite for Variety Orchestra quickly made it clear that the designated General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera would not be facing the highest level of perfection. Certain aspects, such as rhythm or intonation, made it clear that the majority of the musicians in the foyer of the Wuhlheide Leisure and Recreation Center in Berlin were amateurs - with the exception of individual string players who belong to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

For the participating musicians, it is extremely fascinating to experience the decisive details that the Berlin-based conductor works on briefly but purposefully to bring the work together into a whole: Sometimes Vladimir Jurowski rehearses for several minutes with just the strings, then he asks the trombones to build up individual chords before taking apart individual passages in the alto saxophones or instructing the trumpets on dynamics. He knows how to captivate even those musicians who are not currently playing. Time and again, he intersperses exciting background knowledge about Shostakovich's situation as an "ostracized composer" in the Soviet Union or expresses his tonal objectives in vivid language or stimulating gestures.

While some of the musicians are primarily taking part in the rehearsal to play parts of Shostakovich's Jazz Suite, other orchestral musicians have traveled to Berlin especially to make music under the famous conductor. But as diverse as the demands and intentions of all those involved may seem at the beginning of the rehearsal, in the end everyone in the ad hoc orchestra enthusiastically accepts Vladimir Jurowski's instructions and seems to really enjoy his clear approach and precise rehearsal work.

The final performance of the March, Little Polka and Waltz No. 2 leaves behind a large group of euphoric amateur musicians who, in the hour-long rehearsal under Vladimir Jurowski, have not only traveled an unforgettable path together, but also an unforgettable musical and interpersonal journey.

In its press release today, the Federal Council summarizes the most important points of the new Culture Dispatch: The three "axes of action - cultural participation, social cohesion, creation and innovation - will be retained for the 2021-2024 period." CHF 942.8 million has been earmarked for the implementation of the draft submitted for consultation, which corresponds to an increase in funding of CHF 35.4 million.

In the area of "cultural participation", the "Youth and Music" program should be consolidated. In cooperation with the cantons and music organizations, the Federal Council will introduce support for talented musicians. In the area of "social cohesion", school exchange activities between the language communities will be strengthened and an exchange program for teachers will be set up. Finally, in the area of "Creation and Innovation", cooperation between culture and business is to be continued.

In addition to continuity, the Federal Council is also placing a special focus on digitalization. The digital transformation is influencing all areas and institutions of culture in terms of production, communication and preservation.

In the 2021-2024 funding period, cooperation with the cantons, cities and municipalities will continue as part of the National Cultural Dialogue. The Confederation also wants to promote gender equality in the cultural sector and appropriate remuneration for cultural workers.

The consultation period will last until September 20, 2019. The report was presented at the 5th meeting of the Parliamentary Group on Music on June 5 in Bern.