#cerha

[ericamacleod-blog]

It’s safe to say, this man knows how to control an orchestra. A friend of mine recently met Cerha at the Wigmore Hall, and introduced me to his music. I found this piece - along with many of his other works, completely awe-inspiring!

Friedrich Cerha is a living Austrian composer, aged 89! He’s most noted for his work on Berg’s opera Lulu. After some research on Cerha, I found a quote that seemed to describe how many people would aim to live their lives, He said; Despite my age, I am always searching for new things. The path on which I search leads me unavoidably back to me. Thus, it is also always about finding new sides of myself. The intense experience of music is a way into one’s own being.

I feel this is particularly evident in the fact this piece was written on 8 years ago. 

p.s. I hope you enjoy the mix of genres on this blog, that’s that I’m all about.

[skaphander]

Cerha: Schlagzeugkonzert

[imaginarylandscapes]

[ Freidrich Cerha - Monumentum 2/2]

Composer Friedrich Cerha, born in Vienna in 1926, has long been considered one of the most important Austrian composers of our time. In 1958, he founded the Vienna-based ensemble die reihe. Cerha directed die reihe, an ensemble comprised of talented soloists, for decades. In 1960 and 1961, Cerha composed a work that became central to his compositional output - a cycle entitled Spiegel. In 1979, he completed Berg's three-act opera Lulu, a work which garnered him international attention.

  Friedrich Cerha has spent much of his career delving into various 20th century musical styles, such as twelve-tone technique, neoclassicism, and serial music. He has also maintained an interest in replicable emotional developments, which permeate both his orchestral and chamber works. 

  Music-theatre has also played an important role in Cerha's compositional output. For example, Cerha created a version of Spiegel that included movement groups, lights, and objects. Soon after this he wrote the music-theatre piece Netzwerk. In the late 1970s, Cerha became highly interested in Bertolt Brecht's Baal and produced a work of the same name that grappled with the relationship between the individual and society. This work was followed by Der Rattenfänger(1984-1986) and Der Riese vom Steinfeld (1997). His most important orchestral works includeLangegger Nachtmusik III and Impulse. Over the past several years he has produced multiple solo concertos, such as his Concerto for violin and orchestra (2004), Concerto for soprano, saxophone and orchestra (2003/2004), and Concerto for clarinet and orchestra (2009).

  Today, Friedrich Cerha is as exceptionally productive as ever. His Concerto for percussion and orchestra premiered in the autumn of 2009 (Martin Grubinger, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg), followed by Instants(WDR Symphonieorchester), Like a Tragicomedy (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), and Kammermusik for orchestra (ORF Radio Symphonieorchester), performed at the Wiener Festwochen 2010. In September, 2010, Ensemble Modern and Hans Holliger will come together to put on the world premiere of Cerha's Quintet for oboe and string quartet. The Salzburg Biennale is making Cerha, whose 85th birthday is to be celebrated this coming February, a main focus of its festival in March.

  In addition to his active compositional life, Friedrich Cerha taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna until 1988. His students have included Georg Friedrich Haas and Karlheinz Essl. Friedrich Cerha is a recipient of the Grand Austrian State Prize, a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. The Biennale di Venezia awarded Cerha with the Golden Lion for his life's work in 2006.

[imaginarylandscapes]

[ Freidrich Cerha - Monumentum 1/2]

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Composer Friedrich Cerha, born in Vienna in 1926, has long been considered one of the most important Austrian composers of our time. In 1958, he founded the Vienna-based ensemble die reihe. Cerha directed die reihe, an ensemble comprised of talented soloists, for decades. In 1960 and 1961, Cerha composed a work that became central to his compositional output - a cycle entitled Spiegel. In 1979, he completed Berg's three-act opera Lulu, a work which garnered him international attention.

  Friedrich Cerha has spent much of his career delving into various 20th century musical styles, such as twelve-tone technique, neoclassicism, and serial music. He has also maintained an interest in replicable emotional developments, which permeate both his orchestral and chamber works. 

  Music-theatre has also played an important role in Cerha's compositional output. For example, Cerha created a version of Spiegel that included movement groups, lights, and objects. Soon after this he wrote the music-theatre piece Netzwerk. In the late 1970s, Cerha became highly interested in Bertolt Brecht's Baal and produced a work of the same name that grappled with the relationship between the individual and society. This work was followed by Der Rattenfänger (1984-1986) and Der Riese vom Steinfeld (1997). His most important orchestral works include Langegger Nachtmusik III and Impulse. Over the past several years he has produced multiple solo concertos, such as his Concerto for violin and orchestra (2004), Concerto for soprano, saxophone and orchestra (2003/2004), and Concerto for clarinet and orchestra (2009).

  Today, Friedrich Cerha is as exceptionally productive as ever. His Concerto for percussion and orchestra premiered in the autumn of 2009 (Martin Grubinger, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg), followed by Instants(WDR Symphonieorchester), Like a Tragicomedy (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), and Kammermusik for orchestra (ORF Radio Symphonieorchester), performed at the Wiener Festwochen 2010. In September, 2010, Ensemble Modern and Hans Holliger will come together to put on the world premiere of Cerha's Quintet for oboe and string quartet. The Salzburg Biennale is making Cerha, whose 85th birthday is to be celebrated this coming February, a main focus of its festival in March.

  In addition to his active compositional life, Friedrich Cerha taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna until 1988. His students have included Georg Friedrich Haas and Karlheinz Essl. Friedrich Cerha is a recipient of the Grand Austrian State Prize, a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. The Biennale di Venezia awarded Cerha with the Golden Lion for his life's work in 2006.

[selliotp]

Salzburg Biennale, Week 2

       I am a little embarrassed to report that I neglected to attend any of the events in the first week of the Biennale, a festival for new music in Salzburg... honestly, I simply forget.  However! I was able to attend four of the events this week and am trying to procure as many tickets for myself and friends as I can without paying- though of course I will if I have to. The events are categorized into four groups: Szenenwechsel (scene change), Zoom, Focus:Steichquartett (focus:string quartet), and Lichtspielmusik (light play music).

Friday March 11 19:30 1.2.2.4.4. – eine Metapraxis

According to the description on the website, the theatrical concerts of the Kaleideskop-ensemble incorporate music both old and new in such a way that has helped them to attain cult status and become popular among young people who would otherwise not be interested in new music.  I don't know if this is true or not, though based on this description, it does sort of seem like a compromise, a way of lightening the shock of new music's newness by surrounding it with other, more familiar and accessible elements.  Yet I was nonetheless very interested in this performance and stood in line last minute at the Republic Cafe in hopes of receiving a ticket for the sold-out performance... with success. The audience surrounded on two sides the stage floor, where the performers, in varied concert attire, sat very still on pieces of classically styled furniture- sofas, tables, chairs of different types, with great distance between them.  A young man stood up and raised his arms one at a time, into the air, slowly rotating them downward like the hands of a clock and then raising them up again.  As he began this, the musicians began playing a piece from John Cage.  The choice of instruments was probably not determined by the composer and included strings, piano, and accordion.  They each played sharp, shortly articulated sounds with lengthier pauses between them, which created a very pointillist effect- this was made all the more stimulating through the distribution of the players in the room. After at least 15 minutes of this, the man speaks a line about a pleasant company in a cramped room, and a raven who pulls at the girls' hair and sticks its beak in the cups only to be ignored by the tea-drinking people.  With the line "dann wurde er kühner" (then he became bolder), everyone runs to one side of the stage, where the harpsichordist has been waiting, and they begin to play a late baroque/early classical piece with an aggressive first movement. I enjoyed the show up until this point, but then they kept playing.  The piece lasted four movements, and I felt like I was in a concert for old music on period instruments, while I wanted to be in a contemporary music theater event.  There were some good ideas in the performance, for instance, the moment when all the performers push all of the furniture pieces o so slowly in a spiral pattern towards the middle of the room.  The sound of this constant, polyphonic friction was exciting and powerful.  In general, I would say that the theatrical elements did little to support the music, and vice versa. 

There was a goofy raven mask that some of the players wore... it was funny when one of them first popped up from behind the couch wearing it, but then it ended up staying for the rest of the evening.

Friday March 11 22:00   Focus III

While I had been waiting for a ticket to the previous event, an important person told me that I should go to this concert as well.  After having complained about the ticket price, I received a free ticket.  Upon my arrival at the Mozarteum's Solitär, I was delighted to be reunited with Sandra Heinrici, a friend who last year sang in my cycle for soprano and viola- Schneekreis. This concert was wonderful.  The Kuss Quartett played only two pieces.  Helmut Lachenmann's third string quartet, Grido, was the first.  The sounds he used, and the way he used them- the form, were continually a delight and I suddenly became very happy that I had come.  After this pure gesture of sonic modernism, Schönberg's second string quartet seemed a bit too post-romantic... or schmaltzig, as Sandra put it.  But the second movement was phantastic and the third and final movements, which contain the addition of a soprano, were enchanting.  Arnold Schönberg was a brilliant man, and everything he wrote, regardless in what style, continues to shine.

Lachenmann: Grido Schönberg: Streichquartett Nr.2 Op.10

Saturday March 12 16.00 Die Abenteuer des Prinzed Achmed

       "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" is a german film production from 1926 which was made entirely with paper sillhouette-figures and whose story is based heavily on parts of 1000 Arabian Nights.  My only criticism of this event is that the music, composed by Wolfgang Zeller, was already kitchy when it was written and therefore does not really suit the theme of the festival.  However, I am glad that this event was included.  The film is an innocent, phantasiful delight, and apparently, even kitsch has its place, for the live performance of the OENM supported the pictures splendidly.

Sunday March 13 19.30 Preisträgerkonzert "Musikpreis Salzburg"

        The series of Zoom concerts focuses each week on a different contemporary composer who is in active attendance at the festival.  For this week it was Friedrich Cerha.  Cerha is fairly well-known in Austria as a composer (though his biggest international acclaim comes from having finished Alban Berg's opera, Lulu).  I found the whole idea of giving a prize to an aged, already well-known artist to be a bit silly, unnecessary and pretentious (as a colleague of mine one put it during the last Biennale: "a composer of his age should not accept any prizes").  We also had to listen to some long-winded speeches before the performance of the last piece.  The program consisted of two Cerha-works, one by Schönberg, and one by the younger, spanish composer Elena Mendoza, who received a secondary sponsor-prize.  I liked her piece the most.  The gestures of Cerha were only sometimes new and interesting, and felt a bit lukewarm on the whole. Mendoza's work is not on Youtube, but here is another of her's. Conclusion All in all, I very much enjoyed the experience and am looking forward to the third week of the festival which starts this evening.  Honestly, by writing all of this out, I have realized that I do not really like being a critic and that doing so is probably not worth the time invested.  I might write a brief follow-up after the festival, but not something as lengthy and detailed as this.