Musica degenerata

by | Oct 28, 2023 | EN Concert | 0 comments

Musica degenerata

Fischer

Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza

2023
Oct 28, 7:30 pm19:30 Uhr

Program

HANNS EISLER:
Suite Nr. 2 op. 24 (from the movie “Nie­mand­s­land”)
PAUL HINDEMITH:bio
Der Schwa­nen­dreher (The Swan Turn­er) – con­cer­to for vio­la and orches­tra

.…

ERWIN SCHULHOFF:
Suite for Cham­ber Orches­tra, Op. 37
KURT WEILL:
Die Seeräu­ber Jen­ny (from “The Three­pen­ny Opera”)
Bil­bao Song (from “The Hap­py End”)
Suite Panaméenne
Bal­lade vom ertrunk­e­nen Mäd­chen (from “Das Berlin­er Requiem“)
Was die Her­ren Matrosen sagen (from the “Hap­py End”)

Con­duc­tor

Iván Fischer

 

Soloists

Nora Fischer

(mez­zoso­pra­no)

Maxim Rysanov

(vio­la)

The event is about 2.0 hours long.

About the Concert

Entartete Musik – Musi­ca degen­er­a­ta. Once again, Iván Fis­ch­er and the Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra explore a dif­fi­cult but impor­tant top­ic through their pro­gram: the pieces are a selec­tion of works declared deca­dent, of com­posers repressed, or whose artis­tic activ­i­ty was made impos­si­ble, dur­ing the Third Reich. The con­cert will fea­ture music by movie score com­pos­er Hanns Eisler, who even­tu­al­ly emi­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca from Hitler’s Ger­many, Paul Hin­demith, who became a per­sona non gra­ta part­ly due to his Jew­ish wife and part­ly because of his dis­so­nant pieces, Erwin Schul­hoff, who died in a con­cen­tra­tion camp and Kurt Weill, who also came from a Jew­ish fam­i­ly. The vio­la con­cer­to will be per­formed by vio­list and con­duc­tor Max­im Rysanov, who at the age of 30 was select­ed Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year, while Nora Fis­ch­er, described as com­pelling by review­ers in the New York Times, the Guardian and BBC Music Mag­a­zine, will sing the songs.

Vik­tor Trivas’s alle­goric anti-war film from 1931, enti­tled No Man’s Land, is about five peo­ple of dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties meet­ing by hap­pen­stance, being stuck togeth­er and coop­er­at­ing at the out­break of the First World War. Eisler com­posed a four-move­ment suite from his own movie score. The Pre­lude is fol­lowed by a Capric­cio based on Jew­ish melodies and, after the Andante, the piece is con­clud­ed by a March.

The three move­ments of Der Schwa­nen­dreher by vir­tu­oso vio­list Hin­demith are each based on an old Ger­man folk song, jux­ta­pos­ing the val­ues of the past with the cur­rent hos­til­i­ties at the time. The title refers on the one hand to a swan-turn­ing cook’s assis­tant, and, on the oth­er, to a wan­der­ing min­strel. The orches­tral parts of the neo-clas­si­cist com­po­si­tion are made spe­cial by the lack of vio­lins and vio­las.

Suite in the New Style – this was the orig­i­nal title of Schulhoff’s jazz suite for orches­tra com­posed in 1921. The jazz pianist, who start­ed his career as a Wun­derkind, intro­duces his six-move­ment piece with a non­sense poem. The open­ing Rag­time can be inter­pret­ed as a par­o­dy, Valse Boston is also called the hes­i­tant waltz, Tan­go is less sen­su­al than usu­al, Shim­my was named after the chemise of Amer­i­can singer-actress Gil­da Grey, which became vis­i­ble when she danced, Step is a piece of all-per­cus­sion music of less than a minute and Jazz is the syn­co­pat­ed finale of the com­po­si­tion.

The con­cert will be con­clud­ed with pop­u­lar songs by Kurt Weill. First up will be one of the most famous songs, based on François Villon’s text, of the 1928 The Three­pen­ny Opera. which was banned by the Nazis, in which Jen­ny, a maid, is plot­ting a revenge fan­ta­sy with pirates.

A year after the sweep­ing suc­cess of the play, Weill was com­mis­sioned for a sim­i­lar work. Although Hap­py End failed, the Bil­bao Song, the cel­e­bra­tion of gang mem­bers at the begin­ning of the play, soon became a cabaret stan­dard. The murky past of the play’s pro­tag­o­nist, Sal­va­tion Army lieu­tenant Lil­ian Hol­i­day, will be dis­closed in The Sailor’s Tan­go at the end of the pro­gram.

Pana­man­ian Suite, com­posed in 1934 for Jacques Deval’s nov­el, Marie Galante, also includes tan­gos, as well as a march and a fox­trot. The dance move­ments will be coun­ter­bal­anced by an excerpt with an inti­mate accom­pa­ni­ment of the 1928 Berlin Requiem pay­ing trib­ute to the for­got­ten dead, the vic­tims of wars and crimes.

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