Platypus Ensemble
Steven Scheschareg baritone
Jaime Wolfson conductor

Arnold SCHÖNBERG Zwei Lieder op. 14
Peter ABLINGER ἀοιδή - REDE OHNE WORTE for voice, piano quintet and tape, 2021
Daniel HENSEL Energien … op. 41* (WP)
*funded by NEUSTART KULTUR “Stipendienprogramm 2022” of BKM and of DMR
Arnold SCHÖNBERG Suite op. 29

Tickets € 14 | Free admission for persons under 26 years

Schönberg began composing his Suite for Chamber Ensemble in 1924, the year of his marriage to Gertrud Kolisch. His outlook on life at that time finds expression in the work: waltzes and foxtrots are reminiscent of evenings spent dancing together, and a folk song becomes a secret message to the beloved. The composer Daniel Hensel was inspired by this musical constellation and responded with a lively piece that also contains a clear quotation: what Schönberg projects through Ännchen von Tharau is expressed by Hensel through an Elvis Presley song. Peter Ablinger's “ἀοιδή - REDE OHNE WORTE” for voice, piano quintet and tape is based on the orchestration of Schönberg’s “Ode to Napoleon” (1943). The model for the speaker in his “Ode” was Churchill, whose speech melody and rhythm Schönberg conscientiously transcribed. The source material for Ablinger's “ἀοιδή” was therefore Churchill’s speech to the US Congress in 1941, the year in which Schönberg became a citizen of the United States. Ablinger translates this speech into an electro-acoustic noise grid whose rhythmic pulsation cancels out the semantic content and compresses it into timbre – apart perhaps from a few moments in which a shadow of intelligibility remains. An analog translation or transcription is carried out strictly parallel to this in the given instrumentation – sometimes homophonic, sometimes quasi-heterophonic.

Cooperation with Platypus Ensemble