The findings with which the Leipzig musicologist and concert dramaturge Malte Korff shines in his appreciation of the life and work of the most complex and contradictory Russian composer are not new. Never before, however, has a renowned author of composer biographies in the German-speaking world taken the trouble to compile so many documents from the first two decades of Tchaikovsky's life in order to examine them critically and present them in a generally understandable way.

Korff convincingly attributes almost all of the complexes and depressions suffered by the Russian, who was born 175 years ago, to the very close bond between the boy and his mother and to the problems with his homosexuality. The importance of his governess Fanny Dürbach, who came from western Switzerland, for his human and intellectual development is even clearer from the detailed description of those years than from the standard English biography by Edward Garden (1973).

In just three sentences, the tutor provided one of the many keys to understanding Tchaikovsky's later life: "You had to be extremely careful with him. Every little thing could hurt him. He was a child made of porcelain." The entangled cycle in which Anton Rubinstein's composition pupil, who initially trained as a lawyer, became entangled when he tried to suppress his shyness towards people and other problems with vast quantities of alcohol is expressed just as clearly as his prominent position in Russian society. With regard to the still mysterious cause of death, Korff adheres to the version that Tchaikovsky died of cholera after drinking unboiled water.

The list of works, which is followed by a chronological table and bibliography, is limited to a selection. A few illustrations span the spectrum from the portrait of the eight-year-old to the funeral at state expense with which a commoner was honored for the first time in St. Petersburg in 1893.

Malte Korff, Tchaikovsky. Life and Work, 256 p., Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-28045-7

For listeners who are tired of medieval kitsch and feel that music from that period does not need the addition of distantly related instruments and stylistic devices from other cultures or periods in order to be enjoyed; for these listeners, the Basel ensemble Peregrina under the direction of Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett has been a safe haven since its foundation in 1997.

Your CD Miraculawhich collects music in honor of St. Nicholas from different centuries, is in the best tradition of this ensemble. The sound of the female voices and the instruments is close, warm, not too reverberant; the program carefully selected and arranged. The instrumentation is varied: sometimes one voice is accompanied by the instruments, sometimes there is a vocal solo, sometimes a question and answer game between the lead singer and the tutti (in an ensemble with three female singers, it would be wrong to speak of a "choir"). In the first monophonic pieces, the ear becomes so attuned and begins to perceive such subtle differences that the two-part harmony (in the beautiful Conductus Gaudens in domino / Iube domne silencium) seems downright overwhelming. Dance movements (such as the Estampite Nicholaus inclitus, Track 11) are also represented alongside the vocal pieces.

Because St. Nicholas was widely venerated then as now, the pieces come from all over Europe. From Switzerland, the St. Gallen Benedicamus-Tropus Nicholai sollempnia can be heard (track 21). In short, with 27 tracks there is music for every taste. The last three tracks on an almost identical Tropus text (Benedicamus devotis mentibus) provide a small surprise: the last was composed in Verona around 1500 and proves that the taste for "simple" polyphony was preserved far beyond the boundaries of the Middle Ages.

Minor carelessness in the editing of the booklet leads to the only unfavorable remarks in this review: a typo has occurred on the back cover of all places (Miralula), and the sequence of the tracks in the booklet does not quite correspond to the sequence on the CD (tracks 11 and 12 are reversed), which can cause slight confusion.

A conspicuous number of composers with roots or residence in Aargau contributed to the development of Swiss piano music in the 20th century. In addition to Werner Wehrli, Emil Frey and Peter Mieg, these included Robert Blum, Walther Geiser, Hermann Haller, Walter Lang, Walter Müller von Kulm and Heinrich Sutermeister as well as Roberto Gerhard, Heinz Holliger, János Tamás, Alfred Wälchli and Ernst Widmer.

The American Jason Paul Peterson, who taught at the cantonal school in Baden, united the first three into a triad that was strengthened by personal relationships. Werner Wehrli (1892-1944) from Aarau was friends with Emil Frey (1889-1946) from Baden, whose private pupils included Peter Mieg (1906-1990) from Lenzburg. While Frey and Mieg worked on the promising Swiss Piano Masterworks CD with one sonata each, for which such a classification is only partially applicable, Wehrli's masterfully concentrated miniatures deserve a special mention. From a hike op. 17 receives special attention.

The musical and humorous ideas (Rast, On the railroad), delicate sound poetry (At the source, The mysterious fish) or elemental force (Bad boy dance) with pedagogical intentions, audibly inspires the pianist's joy of playing.

Despite an impressive mastery of the overloaded, incredibly difficult piano writing, Emil Frey's 2nd Sonata in A flat major op. 36, a rather bizarre two-movement work, is not convincing. On the other hand, Frey's highly expressive Fantasia on the chorale, written in the war year 1914, proves to be a finally rediscovered masterpiece. O head full of blood and wounds op. 33.

Peter Mieg's 4th Sonata (1975) in four movements, with a brilliant Presto (2nd movement), has neo-romantic traits. Children's music op. 65 by Prokofiev is astounding.

Michael von der Heide's tenth album is the first reminder of what a formidable singer the 43-year-old from Amden in the canton of Zurich is. On Bellevue he once again masters not only every melody but also many styles with ease and suppleness. Like a bird of paradise, which he likes to portray credibly on stage, he hops from French chanson to Swiss-German folk song to German song, with the pop format serving as a unifying element. The fact that he has no fear of contact with pop songs is more evident on the new album than ever before. What is new, however, is the electronic arrangement of some tracks with house patterns, in which acoustic instruments often only provide flourishes or accents.

The music of Bellevue is clearly characterized by Maurizio Pozzi alias Maury, who has already worked for Swiss greats such as DJ Antoine and Remady and created the anthem for the Street Parade in 2013. The Zurich native not only composed or arranged all the songs, but also produced them and played many instruments. The cool tone of the music reinforces the warm intensity of the vocals, von der Heide's unconditional devotion. The compositions, however, support the emotional state of the lyrics in a well-behaved manner. Since everything is predictable, most of the songs lack tension and character.

One of the exceptions is the dialect song by Christine Lauterburg Hinterem Bergwhich is connected to the Guggisberg song is reminiscent. Plucked string instruments bring a dry refraction to the piece with their ornamental playing, as is familiar from Leonard Cohen's late work. Charming duet Rien que des amis is that you can hardly distinguish the voices of Sina and von der Heide in places. But the piece composed by Markus Schönholzer is outstanding White sharks. It creates an atmospheric complexity that most other songs lack and that reflects von der Heide's reflective lyrics.

However, many of the lyrics are teeming with words such as heart, sun, summer and sea. The piece is hard to bear, for example I would do it again and again with you, because it is dripping with clichés and pathos and, with just such music, escalates into a tearjerker in the style of Helene Fischer. Dagobert from Aargau, for example, shows that things can be done differently in pop music and has also received a lot of recognition in Germany. - It will be particularly interesting to see how Michael von der Heide performs this piece live. He is not only a confident singer, but also a brilliant entertainer, whose mischievous presentation has already lent some of his songs a pleasant irony.

Michael von der Heide: Bellevue. MvdH.

The promotion of women in the classical music industry has become something of a tradition: competitions, sponsorship awards, umbrella organizations, festivals, etc. But there is still a huge imbalance between female and male composers on the concert programs of orchestras and ensembles. Since last year, there has been one more organizer to address this issue. The concerts of the Femmusicale festival in Bern will each focus on a woman.

The initiative came from pianist Patrizio Mazzola, who teaches at the universities in Bern and Lucerne. He was particularly disturbed by the fact that so few men were interested in and committed to women composers. Now he wants to set a good example. The organizer has not decided on a genre. Whether folk music, romanticism, contemporary experimental or even pop sounds, the music of 22 female composers could be heard. Admittedly, some of them were not just known since yesterday: Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Lily Boulanger, Sofia Gubaidulina. They are among the few women who have already conquered their place in the classical repertoire. They are the tip of an undiscovered iceberg, as Christine Fischer remarked during a panel discussion in which female festival artists discussed the role of women in Western music. The co-president of the Forum Music Diversity was referring to the unexplored centuries in which many more women may have been active as composers than we know today. But do women really still need such support platforms in contemporary music-making? Aren't young female composers already recognized and just as successful as their male colleagues thanks to equal opportunities in education?

Detours
Gabrielle Brunner's story confirms that many women nevertheless tend to take a roundabout route to composing. Although she was born in 1963, grew up in a family of musicians and is an excellent violinist herself, she only started composing in 2007. At the festival, she performed two powerful and dramatically stirring compositions for solo violin, which she played with sharp accents and great intensity: Lema I and Lema II. Brunner is also committed to discovering unknown female composers, researching the FMD's music media collection, which is stored in the music library of the Bern University of the Arts HKB, and producing a CD.

Ruth Dürrenmatt's performance at the festival opening was a rarity discovery from today. She presented her idiosyncratic Gesamtkunstwerk with impressive self-confidence: improvising on the piano, she began by singing a fervent, soulful "Moo" song. After this tongue-in-cheek introduction, things got serious: her self-written lyrics are socially critical, denouncing environmental pollution and unscrupulous capitalism, dealing with taboo subjects such as old age and death. Particularly impressive are her childhood stories, which bear witness to an extremely vivid imagination. When she tells of a fire demon that lives in trees or of her soul flying away to dreamland, she seems to be completely at one with herself. Accompanied by cello and piano (Brigitt Sahi and Patrizio Mazzola), the trained opera singer sings with a roaring voice and fierce impetus. Her drawings and paintings adorn the program booklet. Ruth Dürrenmatt, the youngest daughter of the famous poet Friedrich Dürrenmatt, is an artistic force of nature in the truest sense of the word. Her entire oeuvre is characterized by an unforced and natural naivety. She even attaches particular importance to this, as she revealed to SRF2 in an interview: "Woe betide the artist who is too mature." And even if a large part of the audience came mainly out of curiosity to hear what Dürrenmatt's daughter is up to, the stage action is a greatness in itself. There is always a touch of defiance in it. Although she improvised on the piano as a child, the 64-year-old was never encouraged to develop as a composer. It was a long road for her to break away from the traditional gender roles of her upbringing and find her own personal artistic expression: "I call it courage," she comments on this sometimes combative path.

Organizer Patrizio Mazzola has also shown courage with the launch of his festival. However, if his message is to spread further, a lot more is needed, from more professional communication to a sharper program in terms of content. Then there should also be more of an audience.

www.femmusicale.ch

According to the KIZ message unexpectedly different views on the contractual structure of the artistic direction of the ARD Music Competition and structural incompatibilities came to light in the course of the contract negotiations".

When the German music academies announced Ullrich's election on September 19, BR radio director Martin Wagner welcomed the appointment by pointing out that Ullrich was very well connected as chairman of the Rectors' Conference of German music academies.

In addition, Wagner continued at the time, his research focuses on "the theory of popular music and the relationship between music and digital media", which he hoped would give the renowned competition new impetus.

Born in 1980, Esther Roth is currently a freelance cultural manager. According to the canton's press release, she completed her education at the University of Basel with a Master of Advanced Studies in Arts Management. Since 2012, she has held the presidency of the Association of Artists and Theatre Organizers Switzerland and is President of the Board of Trustees of the Swiss Performers Foundation SIS.

She is currently responsible for national and political projects at "Helvetiarockt" and is a board member of RFV Basel - the Basel region's pop promotion and music network. In the past, she has worked in various cultural institutions in Switzerland and Germany in the production of theater and music (jazz, rock and pop).

Roth prevailed against 86 applicants from all over Switzerland. The selection committee, which included the head of the BKSD, Cantonal Councillor Monica Gschwind, and a representative of the Cultural Council, voted unanimously in her favor.

Esther Roth will take over as head of the cultural.bl department on February 1, 2016. The main focus will be on familiarizing herself with the ongoing business of the main department and making contact with cultural professionals in the region. However, the focus will also be on negotiations with the Canton of Basel-Stadt regarding contractual cooperation in the cultural sector and preparations for a new cultural mission statement.

This ends a one-year vacancy in the management of kulturelles.bl, although according to local press reports it initially remained unclear whether the post would be filled at all. Roth's predecessor Niggi Ullrich has been president of the professional association of independent theater professionals Act since July 1 of this year.

Max Lütolf qualified as a professor at the University of Zurich in 1976. He was appointed associate professor in 1977 and promoted to full professor in 1988. He retired in 2000.

The Institute of Musicology at the University of Zurich outlines his main areas of research as follows: "His wide-ranging academic interests were in liturgical music in the broadest sense, with a particular focus on the Middle Ages. Time and again, he was involved in large-scale edition projects. He compiled the index to the monumental collection of Analecta hymnica and edited a number of medieval manuscripts, among which the edition of the Graduale of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, which remains a reference work to this day, stands out. Time and again, he has also dealt editorially with the music of the Roman Baroque, for example in his edition of Arcangelo Corelli's opera I and III. However, his most important project was and is undoubtedly his monumental, eight-volume edition of the sacred chants of the German Middle Ages, which is nearing completion and which he will no longer be able to see. For many years, he was the responsible editor of Othmar Schoeck's works, as well as coordinator of the Swiss organ inventory."

What was particularly exciting about this event was the mixture of theoretical and practical lectures, with musicologists alternating with musicians who are very familiar with the work of János Tamás (1936-1995). In this way, the composer and the man who emigrated to Switzerland in 1956 because of the Hungarian uprising and was placed in a foster family were illuminated in a multifaceted way.

At the age of 20, János Tamás fled alone from the dictatorial terror in his home country. Although he later started a family here and made a living as a piano teacher at the Alte Kantonsschule Aarau, as well as conducting at the Theater Biel-Solothurn, the Aargauer Oper and the Orchesterverein Aarau, he received little recognition as a composer on the Swiss music scene.

The fact that the Paul Sacher Foundation, which also helped organize the symposium, took over Tamás' estate four years ago is a late but all the more valuable gesture. Heidy Zimmermann, who is in charge of the foundation's "Hungarian collection", gave an insight into the Sacher Foundation's collecting activities. Tamás is seen here as a complement to the prominent Hungarians, including Béla Bartók, Sándor Veress, György Ligeti and György Kurtág.

In her presentation, Tamás' biographer Verena Naegele highlighted the difficulties of the "eternal emigrant" in a differentiated manner. The young, promising composer and pianist, who had begun studying music with Ferenc Farkas in Budapest, found contact with a fellow countryman in Switzerland: he studied with Sándor Veress in Bern. However, the balancing act between his Hungarian musical roots and the democratically free but artistically uninspiring life in Aarau remained painful for him and even led to the composer's inner isolation.

Modern in a playful way

Musicologist Anna Dalos from the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest traveled all the way from Budapest for the Tamás Symposium. She spoke about the Hungarian music scene after 1956, which is little known in our part of the world. The twelve-tone and serial writing styles were hardly received there, as they were not permitted by the communist regime. The tonal constraints remained strong, and a rather naive idea of 20th century compositional techniques prevailed. Only György Kurtág practiced the row technique after 1968, and István Lang (1933) was, according to Anna Dalos, the most important pioneer with glissandi, noises, aleatoric free spaces and the detachment from metrical feeling.

Whether the pieces performed at the symposium or the orchestral works presented on CD: Tamás' music impressed and got under the skin. It is sparsely scored, poetically atmospheric, dramaturgically interesting and very modern in a playful way. The pianist Tomas Dratva probably knows the piano works best; he also premiered the piano concerto posthumously and has recorded several pieces by Tamás on CD. Together with the flautist Eva Oertle and the violist Alexander Besa, he played two typical pieces: Music in the twilight (1979) and the Sonata for viola and piano (1957/1974), which Tamás had revised during his studies with Veress. In a lecture-recital, Dratva also gave an insight into the trio Fire pictures (1986), which he subsequently performed with the clarinettist Fabio Di Cásola and the violist Alexander Besa (Oehms classic OC 443).

Music journalist Thomas Meyer reported on what it was like in Sándor Veress's composition class. Important Swiss composers such as Heinz Holliger, Roland Moser and Jürg Wyttenbach studied with Veress, János Tamás was the only Hungarian. Veress did not speak much as a teacher and only taught composition on a one-to-one basis. As a result, his students hardly knew each other and each was able to develop their own original musical language.

Aargau colleagues

Aargau was not simply frustrating for Tamás. It enabled him to make a living as a musician and teacher, as Verena Naegele explained in her presentation. Here he found interesting fellow teachers such as Jean-Jacques Dünki, Thomas Baldinger and Tomas Dratva, who performed and still perform his pieces. Tamás dedicated his first piano sonata to the pianist and "touch artist" Dünki. Dünki played the rather virtuoso work at the symposium and gave interesting explanations, for example that the composer's detailed and differentiated playing instructions can also restrict performers. Dünki also accompanied the songs The face of a bird (1984) on poems by the Aargau poet Erika Burkart, which Kurt Widmer once premiered and now also performed sensitively at the symposium.

Michael Schneider, who runs the Künstlerhaus Boswil, was a student of Tamás. In his presentation on the Ballad for orchestra (1989) points to interesting associations with the composer, whose symphonic "sound play" refers to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and Bartók's Divertimento for Strings. Music professor Peter Laki, who is related to Tamás and lives in Cleveland, has often published on Tamás' music. Now he spoke about the religious backgrounds and contexts in the Jewish composer's oratorios.

The libretto to the oratorio Noah's daughter (1985) was written by the Aargau writer Claudia Storz. She told how highly inspired the collaboration with Tamás was. The sentence from her libretto "Ade, du Oleander und Feigenbaum. We say goodbye now. Life was so good" was quoted by both artists as they said goodbye to each other. It symbolizes the final farewell to life, which Tamás took with his own hand on November 14, 1995.

Niklaus Riegg was born in 1980 and studied journalism, ethnomusicology and philosophy at the University of Zurich. He has been the artistic director of Blue Balls Music in Zurich since 2013. Among other things, he is responsible for the program of the Blue Balls Festival in Lucerne. He previously worked as a music journalist for the newspaper "20 Minuten" from 2006 to 2012, most recently as head of the entertainment section.

Thanks to his work as a jury member for various national music competitions, Riegg has an extensive network in the music sector, the city writes in its press release on the change. He knows the international music scene just as well as the conditions and challenges facing Zurich's musicians.

Riegg will take up an 80% position in the Zurich Culture Department on May 1, 2016. The previous head of the jazz/rock/pop department, Susanne Spreiter, is leaving the culture department at her own request after seven years.

Sarah Ross is the director of the European Center for Jewish Music (ECJM) in Hanover, which was established by Andor Izsák in 1992 and has been housed in the Villa Seligmann since its opening at the beginning of 2012. Its aim is to collect, research and communicate Jewish music, with a particular focus on synagogue liturgy.

Sarah Ross's responsibilities include the continuation and cataloging of the EZJM collection, regional and international networking with other disciplines of Jewish Studies as well as research and teaching with the aim of re-establishing, securing and further developing "Jewish Music" as an independent field of academic research with specific courses in the German university system.

Sarah Maria Ross studied ethnomusicology, Jewish studies and classical archaeology in Cologne as well as historical musicology, European ethnology and classical archaeology in Kiel, completed her doctorate as a DFG scholarship holder at the Rostock University of Music and Drama and most recently worked as an assistant for cultural anthropology of music at the Institute of Musicology and as head of studies for World Arts at the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Bern. There she worked on her habilitation thesis "Musical Timescapes: Reflections on a Musical Anthropology of Sustainability".
 

According to the media release from the councils, the KFG will be amended in order to implement the new measures envisaged in the cultural dispatch. These relate to cultural participation, music education with the "jugend+musik" program as a central element, as well as the promotion of reading and literature.

The revision of the FiG expands the so-called single distributor clause, which was previously only intended for screenings in a registered cinema, for the sale of audiovisual media such as DVDs or videos and for distribution via on-demand or subscription services. The amendment to the FiV regulates the obligation to report statistical data on film exploitation outside cinemas.

The laws and the ordinance will be published on the website of the Federal Office of Culture in mid-December.

In the final competition, Samuel Niederhauser came out on top against four competitors. With his interpretation of two movements from the Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor Op. 40 by Dmitri Shostakovich, he won over the competition jury in the Small Hall of the Zurich Tonhalle. He will invest the prize money of CHF 3,000, provided by the MKZ Foundation, in master classes.

The 17-year-old violinist Julia Schuller has been awarded the first "MKZ Vuillaume Prize". She will receive a violin from the master workshop of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume from MKZ. MKZ received the precious instrument through an inheritance.

In addition to an exhibition and concerts, a competition was also held at the festival. In the first category (up to the age of 18), the following young talents were awarded prizes:
1st prize: Sylvain Moeri, Conservatoire Populaire, Genève
2nd prize: Nelson Javet, Conservatoire de Musique, Lausanne
3rd prize: Marwan Hemma, Conservatoire de Musique, Lausanne

The following young guitarists were awarded prizes in the second category (aged 18 and over):
1st prize: Marco Musso, University of Music, Graz
2nd prize: Angel Tomas-Ripoll, HEMU Genève
3rd prize: Guillaume Geny, HEMU Lausanne, site Sion

Further information on
www.versoix.ch/bolero/home.php?page=1476&obj=9765

Photo: zVg

Marco Musso, Guillaume Geny, Angel Tomas-Ripoll (from left)

The Gradual from the former St. Katharinental monastery, a chorale book weighing thirteen kilograms and dating from 1312, is one of the most precious and magnificent manuscripts in our country. It contains numerous artistically high-quality miniatures on a gold background, filigree initials, musical notes and Latin hymn texts. Almost 60 years ago, the Swiss National Museum bought it back from the art market for 400,000 francs with the financial support of the Canton of Thurgau.

From November 29, it can now be seen for two months in the newly renovated Frauenfeld Castle as part of the castle exhibition "Zankapfel Thurgau", which focuses on the turbulent but also artistically productive period of the 14th and 15th centuries.

On the first Sunday of Advent, the specialist ensemble La Morra will perform two chants from the Graduale. Art historian Elke Jezler will explain the special features of the exclusive Thurgau medieval manuscript in more detail. Families and young guests will also be taken on a journey into medieval everyday and monastery life by the castle figures, the chambermaid Barbara and the cook Elsi. Admission to Advent Sunday (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) is free.