{"id":15535,"date":"2014-01-24T08:55:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T12:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=15535"},"modified":"2014-03-15T14:05:43","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T18:05:43","slug":"dual-frequencies-at-ultraschall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=15535","title":{"rendered":"Dual Frequencies at the Ultraschall Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TOM1848[1]\"<\/a>By Rebecca Schmid<\/p>\n

Duos\u2014both literal and metaphoric\u2014are the official theme for this year\u2019s Ultraschall Festival for New Music<\/a>, taking place in Berlin until Jan.31. The event, hosted by the city\u2019s two main classical radio stations, Kulturradio rbb and Deutschlandradio Kultur, is better known for its wide range of offerings than its tight programming. But the concept was not lost on a mostly orchestral concert at the Haus des Rundfunks on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Opening the evening was J\u00f6rg Widmann with his own work 5 Bruchst\u00fccke <\/em>(1997) for clarinet and piano. The approximately eight-minute series of miniatures creates pointed dialogue with a range of extended techniques, from circular gestures which are echoed inside the clarinet\u2014so skillful in the hands of Widmann as to simulate live electronic loops\u2014to the strumming of prepared strings. Holger Groschopp, stepping in for Heinz Holliger\u2014who was forced to withdraw for personal reasons\u2014coordinated from the piano with impeccable timing.<\/p>\n

In onstage moderation, freshly installed co-intendant and rbb radio host Andreas G\u00f6bel extended the duo theme to Widmann\u2019s parallel activities as a clarinettist and composer as well as his use of both A and B clarinets in the Bruchst\u00fccke<\/em>. Widmann admitted that he sometimes \u201ccurses\u201d himself in writing such difficult music but considers it an interpreter\u2019s responsibility to test established boundaries.<\/p>\n

He then took the stage for Elliott Carter\u2019s Clarinet Concerto (1996). The approximately 18-minute work requires the soloist move about and join different instrumental groups in short episodes until the entire ensemble comes together.<\/p>\n

Widmann\u2019s virtuosic execution of the filigree melodies and ability to emerge organically from a range of timbres revealed his uncanny ability to bend the clarinet to his own artistic ends. The conductor Wolfgang Lischke led the Deutsches-Symphonie Orchester in a precise reading whose slightly studied nature can easily be excused given that he was replacing Holliger last-minute.<\/p>\n

The second half of the program was devoted to Swiss composers, Holliger the first among them with his double concerto Janus<\/em>, which premiered in Salzburg two seasons ago. The original soloists, violinist Thomas Zehetmair and violist Ruth Killius, engaged in heated struggle with the orchestra, puncturing a molten surface of swarming textures.<\/p>\n

The final stretch of the approximately 20-minute piece, named after the Roman god who looks both to the future and the past, creates tremendous tension with the soloists thrashing their bows in the air, the harpist swiping various plastic objects across her instrument, metallic whirring in the string section giving way to ethereal chimes.<\/p>\n

Klaus Huber\u2019s Tenebrae<\/em>, the only work of the evening to exploit a large-scale orchestra and the oldest on the roster with a premiere date of 1967, is also a study in masterful instrumentation and dramatic purpose. The darkness implied in the title is more of a metaphysical force that drives the music, alternating glassy strings with frenetic winds, eerie emptiness with screaming blasts, a mystic realm that does not seek clear answers. A certain duality nevertheless underpins the 18-minute work.<\/p>\n

The 90-year-old Huber was present for a short conversation in which he spoke of the work\u2019s premiere in Warsaw, leading G\u00f6bel to tie the theme of darkness to Cold War politics of the time. Yet the composer emphasized that the music should speak for itself, perhaps even more easily now than it did in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

rebeccaschmid.info<\/a><\/p>\n