MUSIC WORKSHOP

Ensemble Forum Lockenhaus
Eric Lamb flute
   Szilárd Benes clarinet
   Christian Walcher bassoon
   Bojidara Kouzmanova-Vladar violin
   Nora Romanoff-Schwarzberg viola
   Dorottya Standi violoncello
   Veronika Kopjova piano
Dietrich Henschel musical direction
Theaterensemble Nesterval

Arnold SCHÖNBERG Suite op. 29
Johann STRAUSS (Sohn) Kaiser-Walzer op. 437 (arrangement: Arnold Schönberg)

Tickets € 7 | Free admission for persons under 26 years
Registration required

At the invitation of Forum Lockenhaus, the theater ensemble Nesterval is developing a play centered on music for the first time in its history. In an experimental artistic exchange with the Ensemble Forum Lockenhaus, its musical director Dietrich Henschel and with the involvement of the audience, a format is being developed that – already in view of the Schönberg Year 2024 – makes it possible to experience the composer Arnold Schönberg in a completely new way.

Only a few months after the death of his first wife Mathilde, Arnold Schönberg fell in love with Gertrud Kolisch, the sister of his student, the violinist Rudolf Kolisch. On August 28, 1924 – a good two weeks before his 50th birthday – he married the actress, 24 years younger than him. At Gertrud’s side, Schönberg experiences a second spring: he grows a moustache, wears elegant clothes, is interested in jazz, or what was understood by it in Europe at the time, and roams the bars of downtown Vienna with friends. His appointment to the Prussian Academy of Arts (Berlin) in 1925 accelerated this new élan vital; Arnold and Gertrud threw themselves into social life, practiced sports or traveled together.

Between October 1924 and March 1925 – shortly after his marriage to Gertrud – Arnold Schönberg composed his most cheerful work, the Suite op. 29, which he dedicated to “my dear wife”. The piece is full of references to Gertrud: from allusions to sporting activities and a dance-like “foxtrot” theme to variations on the folk song “Ännchen von Tharau,” which refers to Schönberg’s young love.

In an open musical workshop, the Ensemble Forum Lockenhaus under the direction of Dietrich Henschel and the Theaterensemble Nesterval explore Schönberg’s so exhilarating, dance-like sound world together with the audience. This first collaboration of Theaterensemble Nesterval and Forum Lockenhaus opens Arnold Schönberg’s advanced sound world for an immersive theatrical experience and unites the musicians of Ensemble Forum Lockenhaus and the workshop audience in exciting and unconventional constellations.

Cooperation with Forum Lockenhaus and Theater ensemble Nesterval