Cash injection for the Swiss music edition

The Swiss Society for New Music SGNM guarantees the liquidity of the Swiss Music Edition SME with an interest-free loan

Photo: Andrea Kusajda/pixelio.de

In view of the SME's unstable financial situation at the beginning of the current year and the urgent tasks ahead, including the linking of the two websites musinfo.ch and musicedition.chSGNM is providing SME with an interest-free loan of CHF 5,000 to finance its ongoing work.

Following the unexpected death of its president Hans-Jürg Meier in December 2015, the SME expanded its board under Roman Brotbeck and Thomas Gartmann and elected the president of the SGNM Javier Hagen to its board, which benefited the cooperation between the two music organizations and service providers, as can be seen from this example.

The SGNM is the Swiss section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), founded in 1922, and the Swiss relay to the international network of the ISCM. The SME is the Swiss composers' publishing house and also operates the Swiss database on New Music musinfo.ch.
 

Good singers wear big ties

Bach, Beethoven and Messiaen were inspired by birdsong. Heinz Richner from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern shows that there are parallels to music when you are accompanied by birdsong on a spring walk.

Male great tit with black "tie". (Picture: Heinz Richner, UniBE)

Singing and playing intervals requires a high degree of control, coupled with precise sensory perception and rapid adjustment if the interval sung is too high or too low. This precision is also required by great tit males (Parus major) during the breeding season. They tirelessly sing a two-syllable song. A single specimen has a repertoire of up to six different songs. The song is used to mark their territory against rivals and to attract potential mating partners.

In a study, the Bernese researcher Heinz Richner now hypothesizes that the precision of the intervals sung by different great tit males may be an indicator of their attractiveness or social status.

Great tits are among the most visually striking songbirds: The black and white head contrasts with the bright yellow of the front, in the middle of which a more or less wide "tie" of black feathers stands out. Previous studies have shown that the size of the tie is an indicator of attractiveness, social status, reproductive success and resistance to parasites.

In the study, males were encouraged to sing with a computer-generated tit song, their song was recorded, the vibration frequencies of the two tones of the two-syllable song were calculated using computer software, and the deviation from the closest interval was determined. The males were then measured and the ventral side photographed to determine the width and area of the black tie.

The results show that the singers of precise intervals and with a large vocal repertoire are also those with a large tie. This means that a rival or potential mate can judge the quality of a male not only by his tie, but also from a greater distance and in dense forest. This is the first study to establish a correlation between individual quality and the precision of the intervals sung for an animal species.

"It is astonishing that great tits use the same intervals on which the scales of Western music in pure tuning are based," says Heinz Richner. The new study is therefore not only highly relevant for understanding the evolution of acoustic communication in animals - but potentially also for the evolution of music.

Original article:
Heinz Richner: Interval singing links to phenotypic quality in a songbird. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS, 2016, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1610062113

 

Mister Café Bar Mokka passes away unexpectedly

Beat Anliker, a cornerstone of the Swiss rock and pop scene as the operator of Café Mokka in Thun, has died unexpectedly. He would have received the 2016 Thun Prize on November 1.

Beat Anliker (Image: City of Thun/zvg)

Beat Anliker, alias Pädu MC Anliker, is one of the city's best-known personalities - and a unique figure, according to the authorities' citation for the Thun Prize. With his cultural venue Café Bar Mokka, he has turned a former youth center into a renowned club and put the city of Thun on the map of important concert venues in Switzerland. With over 100 concerts a year, the venue is popular with audiences and musicians alike and radiates far beyond Thun's borders.

Well-known Swiss and international music stars, slam poets and other artists regularly perform at the club. The music connoisseur Anliker also repeatedly gave young musical talents the opportunity to gain their first experience on stage and was therefore also an important promoter of the regional music scene. Beat Anliker, who called himself MC ("Master of Ceremony") Anliker, ran his club with great passion for 30 years.
 

Commission against racism calls for vigilance

Switzerland must not be a welcoming place for extremist groups that spread racially discriminatory views and incite hatred, writes the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) with regard to the concert by right-wing extremist bands in Unterwasser on October 15.

Photo: occhi verdi©chambo4ka/fotolia.com

The concert in the canton of St. Gallen, which was attended by around 5000 people, was organized by various movements whose existence and actions are rooted in racial hatred. Although the prevention of racism does not include pre-censorship, the FCR considers it essential that the Swiss authorities at all levels carry out the necessary checks that are linked to the granting of a permit as part of a licensing procedure.

It is also important that the authorities are able to check compliance with the criminal law on racism at public events or, if necessary, take the necessary measures to report any violation of the law to the judiciary. With regard to the concert in Unterwasser, the FCR sees a great need for clarification with regard to the means of preventing or - in the event of illegality - sanctioning such events.

 

Colossal chatter harmony

The interplay of Tinguely's four "Méta-Harmonies" and the mobile "Klamauk" can be experienced for the first time - an extraordinary sound experience. A rich supporting program rounds off the exhibition until January 21, 2017.

"Fatamorgana - Méta-Harmonie IV" (detail), 1985 © Museum Tinguely, Basel; Photo: Christian Baur

We see gear trains hanging in rusty frames. The large wheels interlock and evoke crazy, oversized clockworks, fantasy machines and mysterious mechanical devices. Broken musical instruments and sound bodies are incorporated into the machine constructions. Symbols from the fund of art history alongside industrial and everyday objects in surprising functions, glass bowls, oil drums, cesspools and slag hammers complete the colossal sculptures. Despite the rust and numerous traces of transience, bright, cheerful colors predominate. At rest and at first glance, the four music machines resemble each other, but their sounds are completely different. A press of a button brings them to life, and then they reveal their full individuality for a few minutes.

Méta-Harmony I is the most melodic, violin and keyboard instruments are central elements. Hidden in the gears, a garden gnome with an accordion spins around its own axis as if possessed. Children's toys are very present, a wooden Pinocchio figure glides over the keys of a destroyed piano. Trying to assign the sequence of sounds to the mechanical movements and the resulting images takes some patience. But there is the sound of keyboard instruments, a scale forms the melody for muffled beats and rattles. Listening, recognizing and trying to understand the mechanisms, or allowing yourself to be amazed by the flow of associations - both approaches have their appeal.

The most opulent piece in the show is the Méta-Harmony 3 from the year 1984, also Pandemonium No. 1 called. Animal skulls that rattle their jaws. An old plastic rabbit and an eagle sculpture turn on their own axis, fifty-two motors move wheels whose imaginary axes criss-cross the room. New details become visible as your attention is drawn to the sounds. The whole machine is adorned with colorful tufts of feathers. Light effects make the machine flash and shine, and you can sense that Tinguely's confrontation with death is not tragic or frightening, but a baroque feast for the senses that does not deny its reference to the Basel Dance of Death.

Tinguely's synthesis of the arts

Méta-harmony is a challenging word. Annja Müller-Alsbach, curator of the exhibition, explains it like this: "The sounds that Jean Tinguely produces with his machines, the shrillness and croaking, rattling and rumbling, are the opposite of harmony. His sculptures are not music machines in the true sense of the word, but sound mixing machines. From the very beginning, Jean Tinguely used sounds as artistic material. He often took up found everyday and industrial sounds, which he treated as found objects, just like his sculptural objects. The acoustic stimulus emanating from the sculptures is intended to complement the visual stimulus. Hearing and seeing are synonymous for the understanding of his works.

He saw his Méta-Harmonies as independent phenomena, even if references to minimalist New Music or the Fluxus movement, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg are recognizable. However, Jean Tinguely was not interested in making a contribution to the music of his time, but rather in a synthesis of the arts.

The solo performance of each individual Méta-Harmony is an experience that will amaze and amuse you. But don't miss the opportunity to see the four Méta-Harmonies and the mobile sculpture Klamaukwhich complements the series, in interaction. Then something unexpected happens: harmony actually emerges. The tones and noises of the five sculptures interlock, complement or cancel each other out, creating soundscapes that form melodies and rhythms. This is astonishing when you consider that the works were created over the course of eight years and were delivered to their clients immediately, so that Jean Tinguely himself never had the opportunity to experience them in dialog. The interplay of the music machines can be followed in the exhibition several times a day, every half hour.

In his opening speech, museum director Roland Wetzel emphasized the uniqueness of the event: "It is unlikely that the large sculptures will be reunited in the foreseeable future. Two are in the collection in Basel, one in Vienna, and Méta-Harmony 3 from Karuizawa, Japan, was on its way as sea freight for eight weeks before it could take its place in the showroom.

Further artists in the accompanying program

The accompanying program, which presents new aspects of machine music and sound experiments by contemporary artists every month until the end of the show, will arouse curiosity. Right at the beginning, a work by Zimoun from Bern, a vibrating carpet of sound, can be heard and seen; in mid-December, Thom Luz presents an automatic stage set where chance and gas balloons determine the music; in the run-up to Christmas, four orchestrions from the Museum of Music Automatons in Seewen can be admired, adding nostalgic moments to the theme of machine music.

In addition to jazz, the concert program also offers students from the percussion and improvisation classes at the Basel University of Music a platform, and the Phoenix Basel ensemble will perform at the exhibition in January. An absolute highlight in January is the presentation of Things You Do Seldom by Bianca Hildenbrand, Eliza Coolidge and Timothy Severo from New York, an installation of 100 music machines built from everyday objects and 100 buttons that can be pressed, allowing everyone to mix sounds themselves and communicate interactively with the exhibition.

Two family Sundays on October 23 and December 4 offer experiences for all ages, including a beatboxing/human vocal percussion workshop. On these days, the Tinguely sculpture Klamauk is scheduled to go out into Solitude Park, weather permitting. In any case, you should take a look at the museum's event program often to find out about the numerous offers.

According to co-curator Sandra Reimann, the exhibition catalog will be published in mid-November, with art historical essays on the sound dimension in Jean Tinguely's work, newly discovered archive material and information from his assistant Seppi Imhoff on the history of the creation of the Méta-Harmonies.

Jean Tinguely, Méta-Harmonie I (detail), 1978, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, on loan from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation since 1983 © 2016, ProLitteris, Zurich; Photo: 2016 Museum Tinguely, Basel; Daniel Spehr

tinguely.ch

Music prizes 2016 of the canton of Bern

The 2016 Music Prizes of the Canton of Bern, each worth CHF 15,000, go to the composer Christian Henking, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the singer Andreas Schaerer and the solo project Strotter Inst. by Christoph Hess. The jazz pianist Marie Kruttli receives the "Coup de cœur 2016" prize for young talent in the amount of CHF 3,000.

Strotter Inst. photo: zvg

Christian Henking studied with Cristobal Halffter and Edison Denissov. He received important impulses from Wolfgang Rihm and György Kurtag. His opera "Figaro¿" premiered at the Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn in 2014.

Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who has lived in Bern for many years, has performed as a soloist with numerous renowned European orchestras alongside conductors such as Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe and Thomas Hengelbrock.

Andreas Schaerer studied singing and composition in Bern. He performs with the group "Hildegard Lernt Fliegen", in a duo with Lucas Niggli, in a trio with the two Viennese musicians Martin Eberle and Peter Rom and, most recently, with Bobby Mc Ferrin. Schaerer has been teaching jazz singing, improvisation and ensemble playing at Bern University of the Arts since 2010.

The architect, performer and musician Christoph Hess is behind the solo project Strotter Inst. whose name deliberately includes the instrument as well as the installation. In his concerts, he uses prepared record players to generate increasingly complex, layered sound and rhythm structures.

After studying classical music for several years, pianist Marie Kruttli discovered jazz. She continued her studies in Lausanne with Emil Spanyi, then in Lucerne with Hans Feigenwinter. As a composer and pianist, she founded her own trio in 2010, and as a pianist she has already played with numerous well-known jazz musicians.
 

Plural positions

Works by Michael Wertmüller and Martin Jaggi at the Donaueschingen Music Festival 2016

World premiere of Wertmüller's "discorde". Photo: SWR/Ralph Brunner

Once again: disturbing moments. The English philosopher Roger Scruton takes to the stage in Donaueschingen. Scruton was once an advisor to Margaret Thatcher and wrote a book about the music of the 20th century. Now he is lecturing in English on contemporary music or what he considers to be new music: works by Arnold Schönberg, Pierre Boulez or Karlheinz Stockhausen. Scruton's conclusions: New Music has got bogged down in systems, has taken as little account of the ear as it has of something as nebulous as "physiological conditions of perception". Ergo: contemporary music is now only a matter for the species that meets every year in Donaueschingen, for example. The audience applauded dutifully after the lecture and quickly left the room in the knowledge that it was hardly worth responding to the speaker. Listing Scruton's mistakes alone would go beyond the scope of the presentation. No: Theodor W. Adorno did not favor Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. No: The ear is not a suprahistorical constant. No: even Beethoven was not a popular mass phenomenon who wrote beautiful melodies that everyone understood. And no again: New Music festivals are well attended, whether in Berlin, Stuttgart, Oslo, Warsaw or Donaueschingen, where, in contrast to the 1950s or 1960s, not only 50 composers and theorists met, but - according to the organizer's press release - 10,000 people who are open to and interested in what today's composers and sound artists are working on.

Mergers

Positions such as the extremely conservative one described have become obsolete, and not only in Donaueschingen. Music history has long been taking place in the plural - and festivals such as the Donaueschingen Music Days reflect this. Swiss composer Michael Wertmüller brings the fantastic jazz-hardcore trio Steamboat Switzerland with Marino Pliakas (bass), Lucas Niggli (drums) and Dominik Blum (Hammond organ) together with the new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. This world premiere is rhythmically gripping, dense and energetic discord. The presence of both formations, which play incredibly precisely "on point" under the direction of conductor Titus Engel, is impressive. Wertmüller has little interest in organic unity. Again and again there are breaks, caesuras, general pauses, then also paratactic elements in the form of virtuoso solo passages on the Hammond organ, the electric bass or the clarinets and xylophone. The former drummer Wertmüller is experienced in the encounter between jazz/rock and what is known as new music. In the end, however, the sound balance remains problematic. Even when the electric bass and Hammond organ play quietly, even when Lucas Niggli is restrained on the drum set - fusion has its limits where dynamics do not fuse.

"Megaheterophony"

Last year there was unanimous agreement: it was a bad year with too many concepts and ideas instead of well thought-out music. Now it sounded better. Admittedly, there was boring music again this year, and sometimes - which is better - experiments that went wrong. On the other hand, quite a few of the 17 world premieres remain in good memory. The new concerto for trombone and orchestra by Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas sounds serenely confident in the concluding orchestral concerto. Haas' personal style corresponds to the sustained, microtonal soundscapes, which soloist Mike Svoboda enriches with wonderfully radiant and penetrating trombone tones. The new work by Martin Jaggi, born in Basel in 1978, was eagerly awaited. With his impressive work from 2008 Juggernaut for large orchestra, he still indulged in rather dark colors. In the now premiered Caral for orchestra begins with four flutes, which - slightly out of tune microtonally - present a musical culture threatened with extinction. The flute quartet plays melodies from the Andes, more precisely from the Bolivian and Peruvian plateaus, to which the orchestra responds in what Jaggi himself calls a kind of "mega-heterophony". As in Juggernaut Jaggi achieves the feat of formal coherence, even subliminal logic. Nothing breaks apart here despite all the sonic unruliness, despite all the different elements that give the work a colorful, but also profound face. Jaggi says that he certainly does not want to repeat himself. But this Caral will hopefully sound again soon.

See also: Report by Marco Frei in the NZZ from October 19, 2016

Link to the report

Föhn - a musical weather game

On Urs Widmer's weather-illuminating legacy in the setting by Fortunat Frölich based on an idea by Christian Zehnder.

Photo: bratispixi/flickr.com

A popular saying refers to the Föhn as the oldest inhabitant of Central Switzerland. Anyone who has experienced a Föhn storm there knows that this hot wind could also be described as a primal musician, because it sings, whistles, roars and thunders, making everything that is not nailed down rattle, clatter and rumble.

The initiator of the opera Hair dryerwhich premiered on the main stage of Theater Basel in 2014, the singer and director Christian Zehnder rightly wonders why this phenomenon has never been translated into music. There are certainly echoes of the music of the Alps as a couleur locale in Romantic stage works with Swiss content and in symphonic works with pastoral motifs, but the destructive power of the mountain spirits has only been recalled in more recent times by Heinz Holliger's Alb-Cheehr from 1991.

Anyone who has missed the few staged performances of the opera can now pick up a beautifully designed book and CD with nature and theater photos, published by rüffer & rub: Föhn, a myth in words and music.

The performers are the same as in the Basel production. However, they have re-recorded the work with the Ensemble Phönix Basel under the overall direction of Erik Oña, changing the sequence of recitations in standard language (speaker: Hansrudolf Twerenbold), the spoken dialog in a mixture of Uri and Obwalden dialect of the peasant couple (Carina Braunschmidt and Martin Hug), the male choir parts (prepared by Fritz Näf) and the vocal parts (the Danish coloratura soprano Susanne Elmark as the Föhnfrau and the yodel and overtone singer Christian Zehnder as the mountain and weather caller).

The task of the chamber orchestra is to use mainly wind and some string instruments, electric guitar, piano, percussion and noises to onomatopoeically depict wind, avalanches and the brute force of nature in roaring and boiling. The composer works with serial elements, uses clusters of up to twelve tones, but also composes freely in different sounds, even incorporating rows of carols and the head motif into folk songs in the choral parts Lueget vo Bärge and Tal.

In the spoken passages, the mountain people complain about the foehn. It is to blame for erotic excitement, pain and suffering. Helplessly, the farmer's wife resorts to a magic spell: "Rämpä, mämpa, dWelt isch scheen / Hä kä Ängscht, dü bleede Feehn." Nevertheless, the mountain thunders down into the valley. Only the foehn remains. The farmer and the farmer's wife hold hands.

The libretto testifies one last time to the poet's exuberant imagination, eloquence and love of his environment. Urs Widmer did not live to see the performance in which he was scheduled to be the narrator. Thus Föhn - a cyclical weather game in the printed, spoken and sung word has become a shining legacy.

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Urs Widmer, Fortunat Frölich, Christian Zehnder, Föhn - Ein Mythos in Text und Musik, 144 p., with CD, Fr. 34.00, rüffer & rub, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-907625-93-4

A guide to music

With "timpano", Bosse-Verlag presents an impressive complete package for basic musical education.

Excerpt from one of the title pages

When the postman brings the big box, I am amazed. timpano includes a thick concept folder, three songbooks and two material folders with worksheets. timpano is a teaching aid, no, it is much more than that, it is a compendium. It can be used to build up a complete music lesson for children from 0 to 10. It is aimed at specialist music teachers in early childhood, pre-school and primary school, but also at teachers and early childhood educators. It is also possible to use parts of it in early instrumental lessons.

The external reason for the creation of the textbook was the publication of the music education plan of the Association of German Music Schools. timpano now provides the material for its implementation and does so brilliantly.

After an introduction to the general orientation, the "Basics" chapter offers texts on all relevant aspects of early music teaching. There are articles on child development, dealing with all the senses, transfer to other disciplines and working with parents, to name but a few. This is followed by the actual musical material. Theme-centered offers timpano offers over 100 complete, very detailed lesson preparations. The song material has often been newly composed, and all the audio samples can be listened to on the three CDs included. The selection of music is carefully chosen, there is a lot to discover: jazz, non-European music, but also classical pieces outside the generally known canon. It is extremely helpful that there is also a tabular overview of all the subject areas, thanks to which you can find your way around very quickly.

The three illustrated songbooks in a somewhat smaller, handy format are intended to help the songs learned find their way from the classroom into the family repertoire. Some of the songs can be listened to, the arrangements are extremely varied and transparent, the CDs are designed in such a way that they can be confidently placed in the children's room. They take into account the fact that young children still react to the different styles in a relatively neutral way.
The two material folders offer additional (work) sheets for lessons: templates that can be copied, filled in or colored.

Conclusion: professionals have worked extremely carefully and with enormous expertise. Anyone working in the field of music education for these age groups will discover a veritable treasure trove of exciting pieces of music, songs and ideas in timpano. I am convinced that it will soon find its way into every music library. It is well worth the investment.

Perhaps that tiny hair in the soup: timpano is the joint work of five female authors and one male author. Every text, every song, indeed every idea is attributed to one of them, sometimes several times in different places. Perhaps a little less would have been more.

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timpano. Elementary music practice in thematic groups for children from 0 to 10, complete package, BE 2827, until 27.2.2017 € 159.00, thereafter € 184.00; all parts also available separately; Bosse Verlag, Kassel 2016, www.timpano.de

Early Romantic Sonata

Johann Nepomuk Hummel's lyrical work for cello already hints at Romanticism.

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, copperplate engraving by F. X. Stöber. Photo: Peter Geymayer/wikimedia commons

At first glance, the repertoire of chamber music works for piano and violoncello from the late Viennese Classical and early Romantic eras does not seem all that extensive. Ludwig van Beethoven's five great sonatas and the three variation cycles tower above and, with their disproportionate presence, eclipse perfectly valid compositions by Franz Xaver Mozart, Bernhard Romberg, Josef Woelfl and Franz Danzi.

The same fate is also shared by the Grande Sonate pour le Pianoforte et Violoncelle in A major op. 104 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837). The work is dedicated to Maria Pavlovna, the wife of Duke Carl Friedrich of Weimar, in whose service the composer was Kapellmeister from 1819 until his death in 1837. Hummel himself played the work in Paris and Vienna.

The extensive three-movement work is thoroughly lyrical in character. The cantabile and harmonies of the 2nd movement (Romanza) are reminiscent of the early Romantic era.

The Urtext edition supervised by Mark Kroll sets the same standards as the new editions of Beethoven's cello works published by Bärenreiter. It is based on the autograph and prints published during the composer's lifetime. The extensive preface and critical report provide a competent insight into the problems of performance practice and the contradictions of the sources.

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Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Sonata for Piano and Violoncello op. 104, Urtext edited by Mark Kroll, BA 10904, € 11.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2015

Touching

Hugo Distler tells the Christmas story in a heartfelt version for choir a cappella and soloists.

Hugo Distler 1941. photo: Karl Schweinsberg/wikimedia commons

Even during Hugo Distler's lifetime (1908-1942), his Christmas story op. 10 is one of the most popular sacred works from his pen. He wrote it in 1933 at the age of just 25 during a very fruitful creative phase. It was printed in the same year, but only had a single edition of 2000 copies, which did not detract from its popularity. The premiere also took place in Cologne in 1933.

In terms of content, the main part of the work is based on the New Testament stories of the evangelists Luke and Matthew. Formally, Distler's Christmas story, as he himself emphasized in the preface, is based on the work of Heinrich Schütz. It thus fits in with the efforts of the time to renew church music through recollection. A motet-like introductory and final chorus frame the action. In addition, the story is told by seven variations on A rose has sprung pervaded. The overall mood is cheerful, restrained and delicate. The work is scored with recitatives and the polyphonic movements are very demanding.

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Hugo Distler, The Christmas Story op. 10, edited by Klaus-Martin Bresgott, score, CV 10.011, € 18.00, Carus, Stuttgart 2015

Two elegies for viola

Vieuxtemps and Glasunow show the viola to be passionate, brilliant and melodic.

Henri Vieuxtemps (signature non identifiée : Bouchot ?). Gallica Digital Library/wikimedia commons

The "lion violinist" Henry Vieuxtemps wrote the Elégie op. 30 as his first work for viola and performed it in St. Petersburg in 1848. As the dedicatee, Count Wielhorski, was also a talented cellist, Vieuxtemps also arranged it for cello. The sombre, passionate F minor mood brightens up in the A flat major middle section, and the recapitulation is followed by a brilliant coda, whose sextuplet pattern also appears beforehand in many surprising transitions and in the piano part. The composer beautifully combines all the viola's registers. The additional part, marked by Tabea Zimmermann, contains all the fingerings of the first edition, supplementing them sensibly but overloading them with too many figures in the same register.Image

The 28-year-old Alexandre Glazunov, who was already working on his 4th Symphony, created a new work in 1893 with his Elégie op. 44 is one of the most beautiful original Romantic works for viola and piano. The melody, flowing in 9/8 time, is accompanied by a differentiated piano part. As in the Elégie by Vieuxtemps, the piano part is fingered by Klaus Schilde and the viola part is marked by Tabea Zimmermann.Image

Henry Vieuxtemps, Elégie op. 30 for viola and piano, Urtext edited by Peter Jost, HN 1229, € 11.50, G. Henle, Munich 2014

Alexandre Glasunow, Elégie op. 44, for viola and piano, edited by Dominik Rahmer, HN 1241, € 9.00, G. Henle, Munich 2014

On the piano Olympus

Two absolute top works of the repertoire, piano concertos by Beethoven and Mozart, in new editions.

Photo: Ochileer/flickr.com

Mozart's Piano Concerto in C minor - admired not only by Beethoven and obviously a source of inspiration for his own in the same key - probably deserves a place of honor among the master's many great concertos. Unlike its sister work in D minor, the solo part is even more consistently interwoven with the orchestra, which leads to symphonic effects, especially in the first movement. In the middle Larghetto, the purest chamber music prevails in dialog with the solo winds. And the finale ends - quite unusually and not as in Beethoven, for example - uncompromisingly in a minor key.

Ernst Herttrich from Henle-Verlag has now reissued the masterpiece. The piano reduction, fingerings, cadenzas and entrances are by András Schiff. In the most literal sense of the word, the publisher has shown a good hand: The orchestral part in the piano reduction is ingeniously kept simple, almost sight-readable and yet sounds colorful. The fingerings are also highly recommendable for the average consumer. This is not always the case when great artists present their own personal playing recipes ...

And finally, Schiff's cadenzas and entrances are also convincing, revealing a great sense of style and practice. Particularly noteworthy: at the end of the large cadenza in the first movement, Schiff quotes the end of the development section verbatim, thus creating a compelling transition into the tutti. All these additions and also some variants from Mozart's pen are unobtrusively integrated into the clearly arranged music. An exemplary edition!Image

The Bärenreiter publishing house has chosen a completely different approach for the new Urtext edition of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, which tends to be even more symphonic in scale. And the result presented to us by editor Jonathan Del Mar is also lavish. Not only has he meticulously corrected errors in a large study score, he also provides a separate solo part, a piano reduction and a comprehensive and interestingly illustrated critical commentary.

The editor's care and effort cannot be praised highly enough. The problem, however, lies in the concept: what is the point of a separate part for the piano solo, in which the orchestral part can only be seen from time to time? With this concerto in particular, you always want to have a complete overview. And conversely, in the piano reduction, which Martin Schelhaas has set excellently, the solo part is only included in small print, which is visually unconvincing.

Unfortunately, this new edition is neither practical for someone who wants to learn the solo part nor for the accompanist and is therefore of little help in lessons. The score, on the other hand, teaches you a lot about a work that you thought you already knew too well ...Image

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto in C minor K. 491, edited by Ernst Herttrich, piano reduction, fingering, cadenzas and entrances by András Schiff, HN 787/ EB 10787, € 18.50, G. Henle, Munich/Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2015

Ludwig van Beethoven, Concerto No. 5 in E flat major op. 73 for piano and orchestra, edited by Jonathan Del Mar; score, BA 9025, € 45.50; piano reduction by Martin Schelhaas, BA 9025-90, € 24.95; critical report, BA 9025-40, € 41.50; Bärenreiter, Kassel 2015

Gospel, refreshingly different

Peter Przystaniak has composed new gospels and rearranged well-known ones.

Photo: Geoffrey Froment/flickr.com

The booklet That's Gospel contains six new compositions and just as many traditional spirituals in new arrangements, including the gospel standard Oh Happy Day. The choral writing is predominantly in four parts, but is extended to five parts in some pieces by dividing the soprano. A written-out piano part is available as accompaniment. However, the added harmony symbols also make it possible to add an instrumental accompaniment (e.g. guitar or bass) or allow a simplified accompaniment as an alternative. The usual claps and snaps on the off-back beat in this music are added at the appropriate places in the score and can be changed if necessary. The soloists can make changes to the phrasing according to their individual preferences or possibilities and also add their own fills.

The choruses are catchy and easy to master. They are a refresher for the previous singing style.

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That's Gospel. New Gospel Songs and Traditional Spirituals for mixed Choir (with solo Voice) and Piano, composed and arr. by Peter Przystaniak; EP 11399, with CD, € 24.95; piano part with solo voice, EP 11399a, Fr. 16.80; Edition Peters, Leipzig u.a. 2015

Walk with Gershwin

Short Story, Lullaby and Walking the Dog for violin and viola.

Photo: Hartwig HKD/flickr.com

Ernst-Thilo Kalke, who also publishes works for string quartet and other formations, has arranged three well-known melodies here for violin or viola and piano in a technically easy and stylistically appropriate manner. The keys of two pieces have been chosen differently for the two editions in order to optimize the tonal possibilities of violin and viola. The rhythmic subtleties - syncopations, triplets, dotted notes - are very clearly presented. It is often up to the performers to decide whether they want to stick to the ternary scheme or switch back to the binary. The piano part delivers the original rich harmonies without difficulty and also takes part in the melodic action.

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George Gershwin, Promenade (Short Story, Lullaby, Walking the Dog) for violin and piano, arr. by Ernst-Thilo Kalke, BU 8123, € 12.00, Musikverlag Bruno Uetz, Halberstadt 2014


id., for viola and piano, BU 8126, € 12,00

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