tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84908237340441165502024-03-13T07:12:19.001+01:00Listening to...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-1898350273499477622014-06-14T19:28:00.000+02:002014-06-14T19:28:31.009+02:00...Tristan Perich, 1-Bit Symphony
1-Bit Symphony
With his 1-Bit Symphony, American composer Tristan Perich tries to challenge the concept of the artwork as we know it. Assembled into an CD jewel case, a microchip, a battery, volume control, an on/off-switch, and a headphone jack give life to music, consisting in its entirety and literally of 1 Bits.
In a video, Tristan Perich explains his approach to his composition.
I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-65592242912107760822014-06-04T21:41:00.000+02:002014-06-18T14:37:50.068+02:00...the Music of Galina Ustvolskaya
Hommage to Galina Ustvolskaya
Galina Ustvolskaya is certainly no longer an insiders' tip. Almost every work by her is available on CD, and the first biography was published this year by Andreas Holzer.
Nevertheless, it is not so easy to encounter her work in concert. The instrumentation is often unusual, and the pieces short in duration, which contradicts the programming in regular concert Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-19149620784930010572014-04-24T19:14:00.001+02:002014-04-24T19:14:49.750+02:00...the music of Morton Feldman and Amelia Whiteheart
Sculptures in the Desert
Thursday, April 22nd, I attended a concert at Alte Schmiede in Vienna with piano music from two of the most enigmatic composers of the 20th century: Morton Feldman and Amelia Whiteheart.
Swiss pianist Iris Gerber was playing Piano Piece 1952, Nature Pieces, and Intermissions by Feldman. She combined pieces from the Fifties with one of his very last works, Palais de Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-35839299510932002402014-04-21T23:16:00.000+02:002014-04-21T23:16:06.271+02:00...WANDA "Schickt mir die Post"
Release Party
On Sunday 20th, Easter, WANDA released the first Single "Schickt mir die Post" ("Send me the mail") from their upcoming (yet, as far as I know, untitled) album. To celebrate this undoubtedly important event for this young band, they gave a concert at Fluc, like Rhiz one of the most distinguished venues for new rock music.
Marco Michael Wanda, Ray Weber (Image: B. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-87523997997922551582014-04-11T19:36:00.000+02:002014-04-11T19:36:03.043+02:00...the George Crumb Trio
Music by Austrian and American Composers
On Wednesday, April 9th, I had the luck to attend a concert of the George Crumb Trio in the Alte Schmiede Wien (Old Smithy), together with the "Porgy & Bess" one of the most famous location in Vienna to listen to new music.
The Alte Schmiede has a strange atmosphere - located several stairs under the ground floor it seems to be part of the old Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-91365815967574929192014-04-08T22:43:00.000+02:002014-04-08T22:43:01.741+02:00...the Music of Awet Terterian
Awet Terterian, Master of Time
The by far most popular Armenian Composer is, without any doubt, Aram Khachaturian. Together with Sergej Prokofiev, and, of course, Dmitri Shostakovich, he was the most prolific composer of his time. I heard about him the first time, when my piano teacher pulled out some sheet music with a sonata by him, which I loved, despite or because his strange musical Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-14457965450459502822014-03-25T19:29:00.000+01:002014-03-25T19:29:41.817+01:00...Hans Werner Henze, Symphony No. 7
A Symphony Called "Symphony"
Henze's 7th Symphony, composed and premiered in the early 80s, is his first contribution to the genre which he entitled "Symphonie" and not "Sinfonia" or "Sinfonie." It is a work commissioned by the Berliner Symphoniker, and thus a work with a political statement per se. Henze's struggle with his German heritage, culminating in his move to Italy, finds its solution Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-30007121463048856092014-03-09T23:22:00.000+01:002014-03-09T23:22:11.123+01:00...the Symphonies of the 20th Century
A venture
I decided to make the symphonies of the 20th century the topic of my analysis class I am going to teach this semester. This is an incredible huge field but I am convinced that it must be possible to handle a topic in a given time frame regardless of its dimensions.
My students are composers, musicologists, and conductors, and were, at least till now, quite eager about my choice.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-59427428958641147652014-02-20T21:55:00.001+01:002014-02-20T21:55:19.128+01:00...John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble
The "John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble"
After I returned from the concert of the John Hollenbeck
Large
Ensemble in the Wiener Konzerthaus I listened to a couple of songs with his Claudia Quintet. I was instantly struck by the
huge difference of this music compared to that I had just listened
to at the Konzerthaus. Apparently, John Hollenbeck, drummer of his
band, has aAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-10301484053068931332014-02-14T15:21:00.000+01:002014-02-14T15:21:09.787+01:00...Maurizio Kagel, "Mare nostrum"I was always a big fan of the music by Maurizio Kagel. I certainly do not know all of his works, but the ones I have listened to so far, have convinced me that Kagel is a composer of the highest rank. Most important for me is his humor which distinguishes him from his peers.
Currently the Wiener Kammeroper is staging a new production of Kagel's chamber opera "Mare nostrum", which translates to "Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-38478241055772899842014-02-13T10:41:00.000+01:002014-02-13T10:41:56.480+01:00...WANDA
Austro pop taken to a new level
On February 11th the Austrian band "Wanda" gave their first official concert under their new label "Problembär Records" at rhiz, a small but nevertheless prestigious venue for new pop music.
I'd
never heard of "Wanda" before, which is a shame, and if not after this
concert than after their performance as support for "Der Nino aus Wien"
on May 13th at WUK Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-45820396687767063932014-02-09T23:49:00.000+01:002014-02-10T15:07:55.013+01:00...Mohammed Fairouz, Symphony No. 4 "In The Shadow Of No Towers"
Yet Another Commemoration Piece?
To be honest, I hadn't very high hopes when I read the first time about Mohammed Fairouz' Symphony No. 4 "In The Shadow Of No Towers" in the review of Grego Applegate Edwards in his Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review and also in The Classical Reviewer. That was before I heard a single note of Fairouz' music, and even after a couple of minutes into the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-81131723445869643212014-02-05T23:56:00.000+01:002014-02-05T23:56:34.628+01:00Recently ReadHere are a couple of links I bookmarked during the last weeks. I recommended some of them already via Facebook, Twitter and so on. Check out the overview.
Death has always be an important part of opera. In their article "Four centuries of suicide in opera" for the "Medical Journal of Australia", Saxby A. Pridmore and his co-authors are researching this topic from a medical point of view. In the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-57725053217869132382014-02-03T15:48:00.000+01:002014-02-03T15:48:29.170+01:00...Warpaint - Warpaint
Warpaint's Second Attempt. Lectures on Variety
Beginning at the end
Almost no review of the album "Warpaint" by the LA-based
band with the same name misses to compare the album with its
extolled predecessor "The Fool", from
2010. As I am unfamiliar with Warpaint's first attempt this might
be
a good opportunity for engaging with the music of "Warpaint"
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-82534061560051180902014-01-30T12:49:00.000+01:002014-01-30T12:49:02.562+01:00...Karl Amadeus Hartmann, 8th SymphonyThe music of German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann has almost
disappeared from concert life, despite his eminent importance for the
musical landscape in early post-war Germany. He was the founder of
Munich's
famous MUSICA VIVA festival for new music, and with him contemporary
classical music rose from the ashes of World War II.
But
what happened ever since? Hartmann suffered from cancer Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-6169556577473941692014-01-25T14:08:00.000+01:002014-01-25T14:08:45.328+01:00...the "Dickbauer Collective"Yesterday I attended the first concert in a series of three of the Session Work Festival at "Porgy & Bess", one of the most distinguished concert venues for jazz music in Vienna.
The first concert comprised three sets, starting with the band Luna*Lab and ending with the presentation of four new works composed by Viola Falb and Phil Yaeger for the "Session Works Composers Orchestra."
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-76984233663746118912014-01-23T12:07:00.000+01:002014-01-23T12:16:42.909+01:00Recently readHere are a few links to interesting blog articles I read in the last couple of days.
On January 14th Gavin Plumley wrote in his blog ENTARTETE MUSIK about the connections between Beethoven, Mahler, and Shostakovich. I bookmarked this partly because of the class I am teaching next semester on symphonies of the 20th century.
Symphonic Connections
I already posted a link on Facebook to an Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-39681962191378284492014-01-18T09:46:00.000+01:002014-03-07T17:32:57.561+01:00...Philip Glass' "Einstein on the Beach"A couple of days ago the blog aworks provided us with a link to a video stream of a performance of Philip Glass' opera "Einstein on the Beach" (1976). Last year I was lucky enough to attend an actual performance of this masterpiece of minimal music in New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, based on this experience I am very happy to repost this link here.
It has to be said that "Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-5033902495081878012014-01-07T22:16:00.002+01:002014-01-07T22:16:38.795+01:00...the real "Lady Gaga"
According to Wictionary, usually the word "gaga" is applied to the
senile, the infatuated, and the crazy. Surely, Lady Gaga is referring to
the latter, however, not in the sense of a disorder. But was is "the
Crazy", or, as she would put it, "the gaga" in her music, or rather her
style?
I heard her music long before I watched a video clip to one
of her songs, and I remember that I had Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490823734044116550.post-49042752562552714782014-01-02T23:24:00.000+01:002014-01-07T22:19:36.469+01:00...the "Cardigans"
Does
anybody remember the Swedish band the "Cardigans"? After their latest album
"Super Extra Gravity" in 2005 they pretty much disappeared into
oblivion, except maybe for 90s revival shows. The band might still be
remembered for its contribution to the soundtrack for the movie "Romeo
and Juliette", starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in 1996. They
wrote the song "Lovefool", which Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13973352423512828433noreply@blogger.com0