KlassikNet: Classical Concerts
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EDITOR'S PICK: VARÈSE (R)EVOLUTION AT THE LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL |
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By Culturekiosque Staff NEW YORK, 7 JULY 2010 — The French-American composer Edgard
Varèse (1883 -1965) was a gruff character who was prepared to fly in the
face of every convention. Known as the "Father of Electronic Music", he
was one of the first composers to take percussion and use it as a weapon
against the academicism of traditional instruments. Winds, brass and percussion, at times augmented by voices, dominate in Varèse’s often raw, rhythmic orchestral works. His Poème Électronique, in which sound fanned out over the Le Corbusier-designed Philips pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958, became legendary.
In addition to his Déserts (source of one of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées´s most memorable scandals when it was created in 1954) the programme in New York includes a performance of Étude pour Espace, a sketch for his never-realized utopian opera Espace, in an orchestral arrangement by Varèse’s former assistant Chou Wen-chung. In 2009, the Holland Festival presented the premiere of Étude pour Espace under the conductor Peter Eötvös and the video artist Gary Hill. Performances at the Lincoln Center Festival feature the New York Philharmonic under its new music director Alan Gilbert, the International Contemporary Ensemble under the direction of Steven Schick, the rhythms of So Percussion, Musica Sacra led by Kent Tritle, Finnish soprano Anu Komsi among others. Fortunately this New York festival takes place in the air-conditioned Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall rather than out-of-doors in the often intolerable tropical humidity that is the defining feature of summer in New York.
Part I International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Part I Programme:
Part II New York Philharmonic Part II Programme: Concert venues: CD TIP: All CD releases are chosen by the editors as being of interest to Culturekiosque readers.
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Culturekiosque Klassiknet's vote for the most important classical recording of 1998. Twelve years later, Riccardo Chailly's double CD set of the complete works of Edgard Varèse remains a distinguished achievement without the stale agenda or rigid obedience one often associates with the fragmented narrative of modern music.
BOOK TIP: All titles are chosen by the editors as being of interest to Culturekiosque readers.
Edgard Varèse: Composer, Sound Sculptor, Visionary Related Culturekiosque Archives The Evolution of Charles Darwin's Reputation | |
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