Musikprotokoll, 2018; H&N, Sat 17/11/18; 10:00pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tom McKinney introduces a selection of works performed last month at this year's Graz festival of contemporary and experimental Music.

Bernd Richard Deutsch(b1977): Murales; Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien/Johannes Kalitzke (World Premiere)

... and, from a concert given by Klangforum Wien, again conducted by Johannes Kalitzke:

Friedrich Cerha(b1926): Kurzzeit III (World Premiere)
Chaya Czernowin(b1957): Knights of the Strange
Jeff Weston(b1986): Houses (World Premiere)

... and an improvised performance by Fred Frith(b1949) (guitars and/or possibly Violin) & Bérangère Maximin(b1976) (electronics). Neither the Beeb nor the Festival websites give exact information - and, who knows, there might also be a broadcast of Frith's solo viola piece Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, which was also performed (by Dimitrios Polisoidis) at the KlangforumWien concert. (In fact, I'm sort-of presuming that the programme I've detailed here is the right one - it's not clear from the H&N website!) The Beeb is such a tease: the blazes with "Alphabet Associations", "Only Connect" etc - there's hours of wasted fun to be had trying to match the hints on the website with the Festival Programme!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016rq

[Serial_Apologist]

THanks Ferney. This must be the first time I've seen a work by Cerha programmed on R3; it'll be my first-ever listen to his music.

[Bryn]

THanks Ferney. This must be the first time I've seen a work by Cerha programmed on R3; it'll be my first-ever listen to his music.

Blimey, you make me want to SHOUT "Act III". Cerha has been featured on Radio 3 many times, including at the Proms.

[Serial_Apologist]

Blimey, you make me wabnt to SHOUT "Act III".

Well it does read "World Premiere", I know - I've never heard any of his music before, thassall.

[Bryn]

Well it does read "World Premiere", I know - I've never heard any of his music before, thassall.

Sorry, I was hinting at his completion of Actr III of Berg's Lulu.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry, I was hinting at his completion of Actr III of Berg's Lulu.

I'd forgotten that!!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My knowledge of Cerha is also very limited: aside from "Act 3", I have a grand total of ... erm ... one CD devoted to his Music in my collection . I should remedy this pdq.

[Richard Barrett]

My knowledge of Cerha is also very limited

Cerha has a massive cycle of pieces entitled Spiegel I-VII for various orchestral, electronic & choral forces, completed in the early 1960s, which weren't a million miles from what Ligeti was doing around that time and are very impressive indeed, although later he moved towards a more post-Berg kind of expressionist style, the results of which aren't so interesting to me.

Here is the Spiegel series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eg5dvsXVak

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Here is the Spiegel series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eg5dvsXVak

[Bryn]

If you like what you hear, there's a Kairos double album with Monumentum and Momente as 'fill-ups'. It's price seems to have gone up around 50% since I got it, seven years ago, but well worth getting.



[I think it was this post which prompted me to get it.]

[Bryn]

Just a quick further note re. the audio format of the SACDs referred to in the previous post. Though there is no mention anywhere on the box, on the discs, their slip-cases or the very extensive booklet, they are in fact hybrid SACDs with 2 channel stereo for the CD layer and a choice of 2 channel stereo or 5.1 surround for the SACD layer.

[Quarky]

.....egalitarian sounds......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I dunno about anyone else - and perhaps my judgement has been skewered by some pretty astonishing Live gigs I've attended recently - but I thought the works on this programme were pretty thin things.