NEW STRAINS FROM THE LAND OF MUSIC
Young Austrian composers at the Salzburg Festival
International repute Important festivals in other countries are reserving large sections of their programmes for young composers from Austria, and art journals are trying to find out what is special about the New Music scene in this country. The question is, how is it possible to write something original when such a powerful musical tradition exists and when everything that can be expressed in sound seems to have been already “composed away”. What are the untrodden paths that lead to fresh and fertile pastures?
In the Austria Today series of five concerts from 30 July to 6 August a provisional answer will be given to this question. It is with full deliberation that the young generation of composers (mid twenties to mid forties) have chosen the Great Hall of the Mozarteum for their performances. For all the works on the programme represent progressive modern tradition and have been composed for select concert-hall instruments whose tonal quality is heard to best effect in a “conventional” hall like that of the Mozarteum. The organisers of the concert series consider it important, on the one hand, that audiences should have the opportunity to experience the rich variety of contemporary Austrian com- positions and to see the various aesthetic approaches which they represent: in no way can the compositions all be tarred with the same brush. On the other hand, the close relationship between the individual works will be made clear – if only from the point of view that the majority of them derive from the same period, viz. the nowadays. They reflect this period in different ways – sometimes clearly, sometimes in a broken manner.
Gerald Resch
The author, born in 1975, is a member of the Viennese
composers group Gegenklang. The last concert in the Austria Today series
is devoted to their works.
Alfred Hrdlicka,
Rhine Maidens I, 2001
AUSTRIA TODAY
30 July 2002
Austrian Ensemble for New Music
Conductor Johannes Kalitzke
1 August 2002
ensemble recherche
Petra Hoffmann Soprano
4 August 2002
Marina Formenti Piano
Florian Müller Piano
5 August 2002
Kairos Quartet
6 August 2002
Ensemble On Line Vienna
Conductor Simean Pironkoff Jun.
Anna Maria Pammer Soprano
Mozarteum, 7.30 p.m.
Tickets are available from
the Festival Ticket Office
for € 15, 22, 30 and 45
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at