The program of the BSO's German tour includes Brahms' Third Symphony and Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole Arthur Honegger Liturgical symphony. Lise de la Salle will perform Saint-Saens' second piano concerto and Chopin's second piano concerto.

The concerts will take place on February 1 in the Tonhalle Düsseldorf (Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Brahms), on February 2 in the Heinrich-Lades-Halle Erlangen (Ravel, Chopin, Honegger) and on February 5 in the Liederhalle Stuttgart (Ravel, Chopin, Brahms).

Since July 2011, the BSO has been part of the new institution "Konzert Theater Bern" in the federal city. Mario Venzago has been chief conductor of the BSO since the beginning of the 2010/11 season. He has recently recorded Bruckner's third and sixth symphonies on CD with the orchestra.

New Swiss orchestral works are therefore to be created in order to improve collaboration between contemporary composers and symphony orchestras. This centuries-old connection, the backbone of European music history, seems to have been in a serious crisis for at least thirty years. Not a single composition written after 1980 has been included in the repertoire of symphony orchestras or, as equivalent works to those of Ravel, Brahms, Beethoven or Mozart, regularly included in concert programs around the world.

However, this does not mean that no new compositions have been written in the meantime. On the contrary, we have become acquainted with numerous and valuable new works that have been appreciated by critics and audiences alike. The fact is, however, that it has not been possible to integrate these pieces into the repertoire, and this inevitably leads to the question: can symphony orchestras still make their contribution to new symphonic music-making in Switzerland today?

33 new orchestral works

According to the canton's press release, the Schauspielhaus and the Tonhalle in the city of Zurich are to benefit from support payments, but not the Kunsthaus, whose expansion is already receiving significant support from the lottery fund. In Winterthur, it is the Musikkollegium, the Kunstmuseum and the Theater Winterthur.

The Tonhalle wants to record its concert programs electronically and organize tours. The overriding aim is to "increase the national and international appeal of Zurich as a city of culture". The Musikkollegium Winterthur and Theater Winterthur are producing a children's opera together, among other things.

The project contributions do not constitute compensation for possible shortfalls in the cities' contributions. The money granted once every four years from the lottery fund is intended to finance self-contained projects. These include special events, improvements in cultural education, particularly for children and young people, the organization of tours and festivals, and the production of recordings.

Once per legislative period, the cities of Zurich and Winterthur will in future be able to submit a special application for financial support from the Lottery Fund in order to finance extraordinary and one-off projects by major cultural institutions. This is the key point of new criteria developed by the cantonal government at the suggestion of the cantonal council. They are now being applied for the first time. For submissions during the 2011 to 2015 legislative period, the cantonal government has stipulated that ten million francs are available per city.
 

A total of 385 places are available for new students at the University of the Arts. Admission is determined by an aptitude test.

The cantonal government has also imposed admission restrictions for the Bachelor's degree courses in physiotherapy, midwifery, nursing and nutrition and dietetics. There are a total of 325 places for new students on these four courses. Here too, aptitude tests determine admission.

Anniversaries determine festival themes and concert series, encourage the recording industry to record new material and reissue old favorites, and tempt the publishing industry to publish numerous book titles. It is undisputed that all these publications do not (or cannot) always go hand in hand with new findings. This makes it all the more remarkable that anniversary events now also seem to be driving music research forward; while a symposium on Giuseppe Verdi was held in Chicago, for example, the Folkwang University in Essen focused its conference on Richard Wagner as well as Verdi, and the Bern University of the Arts has already presented its research findings on the historical performance practice of Wagner's Flying Dutchman has presented (SMZ 11/2013), the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis did not forget that there was another composer to celebrate in 2013: Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713).

Of course, Corelli is a well-researched musical personality, which is why the Schola Cantorum symposium, according to the announcement, did not want to focus specifically on aspects of his life and the historiographical situation in Rome. Rather, Corelli should be seen as a crystallization figure of Baroque composing and music-making who had a great influence on contemporaries and subsequent generations: Corelli as a model.

Broad scope for interpretation
Nevertheless, there is no getting around Rome and the conditions prevailing there at the time if you want to talk about Corelli's composing - after all, Corelli had to take on board the wishes and suggestions of his patrons and sponsors. As a result, there was a whole series of lectures dedicated to the external circumstances of his life and work. The focus was on architecture in late Baroque Rome as a context for Corelli (Andrew Hopkins) and life as an artist in Rome during Corelli's time (Renata Ago). Rome as the center of the Catholic Church is also inextricably linked to Corelli's composing.

Antonella D᾽Ovidio introduced the Roman Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who specifically promoted Corelli and performed his works in private as well as later in semi-public academies. D᾽Ovidio showed how Corelli adapted his musical language to the specific aesthetic context of this court and incorporated the cardinal's preferences - melancholic moods, for example - into his sonatas op. 4. Finally, Agnese Pavanello put forward the thesis that Corelli deliberately worked to be regarded as a compositional model for the musicians of his generation; his strict publication policy and his success as an orchestral conductor, especially at prestigious events in papal Rome, may indicate this.

Dominik Sackmann offered insights into the composer's "engine room" with reflections on Corelli's possibly groundbreaking introduction of certain repetition patterns and endings as a formative principle and Nicola Cumer, who pointed out the importance of Corelli's works as a music didactic model not only for the violin, but also for partimento playing. Alessandro Palmeri and Gregory Barnett dealt with the as yet unresolved question of whether Corelli preferred a violone, a violoncello da spalla or even another instrument for his compositions; and Barbara Leitherer tested by dancing whether the French choreographies of the time can be transferred to Corelli's dance movements due to the lack of contemporary sources for Italian dance - which is not possible at all for the gigue, but is possible with modifications for other dances, and which nevertheless does not answer the question of whether Corelli's dances were actually danced to.

Even if the findings of the numerous presentations were not always fundamentally new and the sources used to substantiate the theses sometimes left a wide scope for interpretation, the audience was able to form their own opinions on some topics thanks to the high-quality musical performances.

Surprising, colorful tonal language
At the almost sold-out first evening concert, students of the Schola Cantorum under the direction of Giovanni Alessandrini presented the Christmas Oratorio by Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier (as part of the Friends of Early Music Basel series). Lulier was a close colleague of Corelli's at the court of Cardinal Ottoboni and adopted, among other things, Corelli's division of the orchestral musicians into concertino and concerto grosso. The result was magnificent solo contests, and the varying instrumentation allowed for additional dynamic and character differentiation. As the introductory instrumental movements were, according to the practice of the time, by a different composer - in this case Corelli - it was clear to hear that Lulier's tonal language was less concise, less colorful and less surprising than Corelli's.

But what actually characterizes Corelli's musical language? The symposium participants were able to explore this question at the lunchtime concert with students who presented sonatas by Corelli with clarified and unclear authorship. Is it the virtuoso violin solos? Is it the cantabile melody lines? Is it even the eloquent use of the ninth (which Johannes Menke had previously praised in his lecture)?

The fact that Corelli scholars also disagree on these issues was demonstrated by a round table discussion on the problematic attribution of those sonatas that Hans Joachim Marx describes in his catalog as works of dubious authorship. Agnese Pavanello discussed how philological and stylistic criteria could be weighted and combined in the assessment - which is particularly difficult with such an extensive oeuvre and such a complex source situation.

And so an interesting, multifaceted working discussion came to an end. It would probably have been even more productive if some of the speakers had not been asked to spontaneously present their theses in a language other than the one intended. This did not necessarily contribute to understanding - and could easily have been agreed in advance.

It should be emphasized that there was a joyful and tense atmosphere in the audience, especially at the concerts, in anticipation of hearing something new and old. Combining such concerts with academic conferences continues to be an important quality feature of the Schola symposia - even on anniversary occasions.
 

"There were only two camps: ourselves and the doofuses." For German author Clara Drechsler, the world was still a simple place in 1980. There were those who were familiar with current pop culture, with bands like Throbbing Gristle, the Fehlfarben or Simple Minds. And there were those who had no idea. Drechsler herself belonged to the first, dedicated group. Together with other initiates, she founded the magazine for pop culture in Cologne in 1980 Spexwhich would go on to have a significant impact on German pop journalism. The others included not least the feuilletons, for whom pop was more a foreign body than a mass phenomenon to be taken seriously.

Today, 34 years later, everything is different. Pop is everywhere. Newspapers are no longer afraid of contact - instead of "culture" and "feature pages", the sections are called "entertainment" and "lifestyle". New media such as the Internet and free newspapers have penetrated the sphere of Spex. The time has come for former editor-in-chief Max Dax and author Anne Waak to look back. In the almost 500-page volume Spex - The book. 33 1/3 years of pop they gather over seventy, in Spex published "key lyrics" from Joy Division to Northern Soul and the Pet Shop Boys.

The collection describes the development of a small and independent music editorial team with freelancers into an established pop magazine and provides an insight into the new language that Spex for pop criticism; a mix of slang with an affinity for the scene and intellectual feature writing. The focus on seemingly trivial matters and the rapid alternation between interview and continuous text - to pick out just two stylistic elements - makes for refreshing, new and stimulating reading at the best of times. At its worst, however, it is also detached, bizarre and incomprehensible.

The strengths of Spex lie in the analysis of pop as an interdisciplinary phenomenon that is not limited to music in connection with social and political aspects. A dimension that the book pays attention to in interviews with fashion designers such as Raymond Pettibon and Penny Martin. Also worth mentioning in this respect is an extensive interview with filmmaker Claude Lanzmann about his radical film epic Shoah and a socio-cultural analysis of the trip-hop band Massive Attack.

What the collection of articles can by no means achieve is an overview of three decades of pop culture. Rather, the book provides exemplary insights that are always surprising - especially from a historical perspective. For example, when it becomes apparent that contemporary references and references are no longer to be taken for granted today, or when bands such as Daft Punk are reported on, who were still on the verge of their big breakthrough at the time. Other bands like Cpt. Kirk &. or 39 Clocks are only (or still only) known to insiders today.

Much is addressed and just as much falls by the wayside. The texts are neither commented on nor embedded in their respective contemporary context. On the one hand, this is a loss, but on the other it also counteracts the reader's own comfort and encourages them to take on this critical work themselves. However, the lack of illustrations, pictures and record covers reduces the examination of the pop phenomenon to a purely textual one. This is just as unfortunate as the lack of female protagonists. Really missed Spex However, the historiography of pop has long since migrated to other parts of the world. Globalization is being Spex - The book only marginally noticeable, the focus remains on the German and English-speaking regions. As a result, the magazine misses out on a whole series of new, central issues. It is quite possible that, with this focus, we have long since rejoined the group of "doofuses".

Spex - The book. 33 1/3 Years of Pop, ed. by Max Dax and Anne Waak, 480 p., CHF 38.50, Metrolit-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8493-0033-3

BandXaargau offers young people from Aargau between the ages of 12 and 23 and school bands under the direction of a teacher the opportunity to perform on a professional stage.

The preliminary rounds will take place in March 2014 in Aarau (Flösserplatz), Baden (Merkker), Brugg (Piccadilly) and Aarburg (Moonwalker). A jury consisting of musicians will evaluate the performance and give the bands constructive feedback after their concert.

Six finalists are selected from four preliminary rounds. They receive coaching from a specialist from the music business. Arrangements and live performances are fine-tuned in their own practice room and the bands receive tips and tricks on topics such as CD recordings and applying for gigs. There is also a DVD recording of the performance.

The winning band will play a concert tour through the canton of Aargau and can thus gain experience and references. Bands can register via the online form at www.bandxaargau.ch.

Although the association has a total of almost 500 individual and collective members on paper, it was not possible to appoint a new board. Coupled with the dwindling interest in recorder lessons and the liquidity bottlenecks that have persisted for years as a result of outstanding membership fees, the cut that has now been made is an understandable and logical consequence.

Assistance for the foundation of music schools
Conceived in 1954 and founded a few years later in Zurich, the association was committed to providing children with affordable music lessons for all sections of the population on as broad a basis as possible. Dozens of today's well-established music schools in Switzerland and even those in the Principality of Liechtenstein were founded with the strong support of the members of the association's board at the time. Today's Association of Swiss Music Schools (VMS) also emerged from the association.

The Laaber publishing house has five such Herculean tasks behind it: opulent volumes have already been published on the complete works of Beethoven, Schumann, Mahler and Schönberg. And now Johannes Brahms, who has been neglected for far too long and who would not and could not find a place in the progressive thinking of musicology. Forty-six authors now satisfy the pent-up demand. With 160 works by the Hamburg master in individual articles. Listed not strictly chronologically, but according to opus numbers and works without opus numbers, they deal with the entire (known) oeuvre, which also includes the youthful works that have emerged in recent years Male choir songs in E-flat and B-flat major as well as a Album page for piano in A minor.

As the editors Claus Bockmaier and Siegfried Mauser mention, the interpretative approach is based on a whole "spectrum of methodological approaches, which differ according to the origin of the respective author, but also according to the genre-specific and historical developmental affiliation of the work under consideration". Sometimes individual work interpretations comprise four pages, sometimes, as in the case of the symphonies, more than ten pages. Almost every entry provides information on the background to the composition. The reader can then expect analytical observations, interspersed with comments by Brahms' contemporaries, such as Clara Schumann or his friend and biographer Max Kalbeck. The more recent reception history remains somewhat underrepresented. A short, but rich essay by Giselher Schubert compensates for this shortcoming. At the same time, Schubert, an expert on Brahms, argues for a stronger emphasis on aesthetic interpretations of the content, which above all Ballads Opus 10 for piano or the First Piano Concerto Opus 15.

Always well-founded, far removed from rampant entertainment fashions, the two volumes meet academic standards at every point. They therefore belong in every music library, but also on the bookshelf of every music lover. An extensive bibliography makes it easier to delve deeper into works which, in the case of Brahms, can never be dealt with exhaustively; the index of names, in turn, offers clues for a quick look-up - which will probably occur more often than a continuous reading.

Laaber-Verlag will soon be publishing further volumes in this series: on Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Claudio Monteverdi. In "difficult times", as the editors state in view of stagnating publishing business, these are risky but all the more commendable mammoth projects in terms of quality.

Johannes Brahms. Interpretations of his works, edited by Claus Bockmaier and Siegfried Mauser, 136 music examples and 11 illustrations, 1094 pages, in two volumes, hardcover, approx. € 178.00 (= subscription price until 31.3.2014, thereafter approx. € 198.00), Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2013, ISBN 978-3-89007-445-0

"There were only two camps: ourselves and the doofuses." For German author Clara Drechsler, the world was still a simple place in 1980. There were those who were familiar with current pop culture, with bands like Throbbing Gristle, the Fehlfarben or Simple Minds. And there were those who had no idea. Drechsler herself belonged to the first, dedicated group. Together with other initiates, she founded the magazine for pop culture in Cologne in 1980 Spexwhich would go on to have a significant impact on German pop journalism. The others included not least the feuilletons, for whom pop was more a foreign body than a mass phenomenon to be taken seriously.

Today, 34 years later, everything is different. Pop is everywhere. Newspapers are no longer afraid of contact - instead of "culture" and "feature pages", the sections are called "entertainment" and "lifestyle". New media such as the Internet and free newspapers have penetrated the sphere of Spex. The time has come for former editor-in-chief Max Dax and author Anne Waak to look back. In the almost 500-page volume Spex - The book. 33 1/3 years of pop they gather over seventy, in Spex published "key lyrics" from Joy Division to Northern Soul and the Pet Shop Boys.

The collection describes the development of a small and independent music editorial team with freelancers into an established pop magazine and provides an insight into the new language that Spex for pop criticism; a mix of slang with an affinity for the scene and intellectual feature writing. The focus on seemingly trivial matters and the rapid alternation between interview and continuous text - to pick out just two stylistic elements - makes for refreshing, new and stimulating reading at the best of times. At its worst, however, it is also detached, bizarre and incomprehensible.

The strengths of Spex lie in the analysis of pop as an interdisciplinary phenomenon that is not limited to music in connection with social and political aspects. A dimension that the book pays attention to in interviews with fashion designers such as Raymond Pettibon and Penny Martin. Also worth mentioning in this respect is an extensive interview with filmmaker Claude Lanzmann about his radical film epic Shoah and a socio-cultural analysis of the trip-hop band Massive Attack.

What the collection of articles can by no means achieve is an overview of three decades of pop culture. Rather, the book provides exemplary insights that are always surprising - especially from a historical perspective. For example, when it becomes apparent that contemporary references and references are no longer to be taken for granted today, or when bands such as Daft Punk are reported on, who were still on the verge of their big breakthrough at the time. Other bands like Cpt. Kirk &. or 39 Clocks are only (or still only) known to insiders today.

Much is addressed and just as much falls by the wayside. The texts are neither commented on nor embedded in their respective contemporary context. On the one hand, this is a loss, but on the other it also counteracts the reader's own comfort and encourages them to take on this critical work themselves. However, the lack of illustrations, pictures and record covers reduces the examination of the pop phenomenon to a purely textual one. This is just as unfortunate as the lack of female protagonists. Really missed Spex However, the historiography of pop has long since migrated to other parts of the world. Globalization is being Spex - The book only marginally noticeable, the focus remains on the German and English-speaking regions. As a result, the magazine misses out on a whole series of new, central issues. It is quite possible that, with this focus, we have long since rejoined the group of "doofuses".

Spex - The book. 33 1/3 Years of Pop, ed. by Max Dax and Anne Waak, 480 p., CHF 38.50, Metrolit-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8493-0033-3

All those, whether teachers or piano students, who are looking for playable but musically demanding pieces (e.g. for the minor subject piano) will find the following in the volume published in 2013 Russian piano music and will learn to appreciate the musical quality of these pieces.

The collection builds on the second volume of the Russian Piano School, which has been available in the German version for three decades, and combines a progressively arranged repertoire in 74 pieces ranging in difficulty from easy to intermediate. It includes compositions by well-known composers from Glinka to Gubaidulina, Tchaikovsky, Glière, Goedicke and Schnittke. However, great importance has also been attached to including musicians and teachers who are less well-known in the West and to giving space to regional composers (Agafonnikov, Tigranian, Kolodub, Sevastyanov).

All the pieces are relatively short, musically and pianistically very productive and have a programmatic title. In addition, the care taken in the choice of pieces is also evident in the fact that contextual contexts have always been taken into account and thus, for example The day has passed and Bedtime story or also In the mountains (by Gubaidulina) and Echo are printed opposite each other. The result is attractive combinations for concertos and preludes that offer the listener appealing music.

Russian Piano Music, A Collection for Young and Adult Piano Players, Easy to Intermediate, Volume 1, SIK 2409, € 22.90, Sikorski, Hamburg 2013

This is a booklet (two scores) for lessons. From Bach's B minor suite to Grieg's In the hall of the mountain king, from Vivaldi's Quattro Stagioni about Beethoven's For Elise and Mozart's Little night music to Verdi's La donna è mobile Here you will find popular classical repertoire in easy-to-play arrangements that are also suitable for sight-reading. The combination of violin and viola creates an "orchestral" sound, which makes it even more fun for the performers. The movement is "democratic": the viola also occasionally has the main part. I played through the whole booklet at once with an advanced violin pupil: she left the lesson beaming and asking to be allowed to play these pieces again!

Also published in the ready to play series, edited by George A. Speckert: Beautiful Adagios Nine Pieces for two violins (BA 10615), also set by Vladimir Bodunov, and Folk, for two violins (BA 10624). But the really great flow experience is offered by the Classic Hits!

Classic Hits for violin and viola, ready to play, edited by Vladimir Bodunov, two scores, BA 10626, € 13.95, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2013

"The Trumpet outings-series is designed for trumpet players of all levels to familiarize them with a broad musical horizon." - What the publisher Bim writes here is what it delivers: in Charles Reskin, it has found an arranger and composer who puts his unmistakable stamp on this series with a great deal of wit, charm and craftsmanship.

This booklet contains twelve pieces of medium difficulty for three or four trumpets. Accompaniments can be downloaded free of charge as MP3 files via the Internet, which certainly provides additional stimulation for everyday practicing. The musical spectrum ranges from funk to fanfare to an invention in the style of Bach. The dedicatees of the individual pieces are also remarkable. They include such illustrious names as Tony Plog, Thomas Stevens and, last but not least, the grand seigneur of Editions Bim: Jean Pierre Mathez.

Charles Reskin, Intermediate Ensemble Outings, for 3 or 4 trumpets, TP 321, Fr. 22.00, Edition Bim, Vuarmarens 2012