XIV International Festival of Contemporary Music MOSCOW FORUM
RUSSIA – GERMANY: BEHIND BARBED MUSIC
16–20 December 2013
The XIV Moscow Forum festival is devoted to the new music of Russia and Germany. Its theme — Behind Barbed Music — has multiple connotations: the totalitarian past of the two countries; the dramatic personal fate of many 20th-century composers and musicians who professed the principles of avant-garde art; and, finally, the uncompromisingly complex, “barbed” musical language of contemporary works, which urges the listener to “renounce habit” (H. Lachenmann’s imperative).
For the first time in 18 years, the famous Ensemble Modern will perform at the Moscow Conservatory. It was previously a guest of the Moscow Forum festival “Music of Russia and Germany: Retrospective and Perspective” (1995), the first cross-cultural musical project in the history of our two countries. The festival’s guest will be Helmut Lachenmann — the patriarch of contemporary German music and the creator of a new aesthetic whose influence has probably left no contemporary school of composition untouched. His works will be heard in every concert in the Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory.
A kind of epigraph to the whole festival may be found in the title of one of the central works of its programme — Lachenmann’s “…Zwei Gefühle…” (“…Two Feelings…”) to a text by Leonardo da Vinci, which Ensemble Modern and the Studio for New Music will perform together, with the composer himself as narrator. These two feelings — the thirst for knowledge and fear — also manifest themselves in listeners’ attitude to new music. As Theodor Adorno wrote, new music stands against satisfying the habits of the “bourgeois market aesthetic”, which turns art into a well-oiled “pleasure service”. Today, however, everything that until recently was unconventional and unfamiliar has already been integrated into the “consumption machine” of the art market, and the primal feelings of curiosity and fear are once again shifting to the frontier of the new and unexplored.
Juxtaposing the music of Russia and Germany is always interesting because of the many historical and aesthetic parallels and, at the same time, the host of social and cultural differences between our countries. Because the contexts differ, one and the same work performed in Moscow and in Berlin can sometimes take on different meanings. It may be perceived either as a creative breakthrough or as an ordinary reproduction of earlier discoveries. In this sense, juxtaposing works by Russian and German composers within a single festival programme provides an important experience of mutual discovery.
This year’s festival is a logical continuation of the major Russian–German projects that the Centre for Contemporary Music regularly holds at the Moscow Conservatory — the 1995 Moscow Forum, in which Ensemble Modern took part, and the large-scale series of parallel concerts “Russia–Germany: Pages of 20th-Century Musical History” (2002–2003). Our festival will round off the Klang Stream / Sound Stream series (2012–2013), which introduced audiences to works of recent decades. Presenting more than 15 world premieres by composers from both countries over eight concerts, it will be the closing event in the calendar of the Year of Germany in Russia 2012/2013.
Vladimir Tarnopolsky, artistic director of the festival
The festival is held with the support of the Goethe-Institut Moscow.
LIST OF EVENTS
Monday, 16 December
12:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Helmut Lachenmann: meet the composer
19:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Festival Opening
Alexey Sysoev Kolyadka (Carol) for female voice and ensemble (2013) World premiere
Natalia Prokopenko Faldum for ensemble (2013) World premiere
Helmut Lachenmann temA for soprano, flute and cello (1968)
Faraj Karaev schnell zu/g vergangenheit oder ist eine alte musik schon/auch k/eine musik?/! for soprano and three instrumental groups (2010)
Dmitri Kourliandski The Match Girls (Unsung Songs of Jack the Candlestick) for soprano and ensemble (2013)
Nicolaus A. Huber Zum Beispiel: wogende Aeste for chamber ensemble (2011)
Ekaterina Kichigina (soprano)
Olga Vlasova (soprano)
Marina Rubinstein (flute)
Olga Galochkina (cello)
Studio for New Music ensemble
Conductor — Honoured Artist of Russia Igor Dronov
Tuesday, 17 December
11:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master classes by Ensemble Modern soloists
Eva Böcker (cello)
Sava Stoianov (trumpet)
14:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Helmut Lachenmann: meet the composer
18:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 1
Stefan Beyer Notoriously pyratish (2007) Russian premiere
Helmut Oehring Gestopfte Leere (1991)
Sanzhar Baiterekov The Circles of Moray (2013) World premiere
Matthias Pintscher Figura III (2000) Russian premiere
Georg Katzer La scuola dell’ascolta (2013) Russian premiere
Vladimir Rannev P est na. Iss O ex glo æ (2009)
Sergey Chirkov (bayan)
19:30, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 2
Helmut Lachenmann Pression for solo cello (1969–70)
Enno Poppe Holz for solo bassoon (1999/2005)
Jörg Widmann Fünf Bruchstücke for clarinet and piano (1997)
Hanspeter Kyburz Kaspar’s Dance for solo piano (2012)
Helmut Lachenmann Mouvement (- vor der Erstarrung) for ensemble (1983/84)
Friedrich Goldmann Linie/Splitter 1 for seven performers (1996)
Michael M. Kasper (cello)
Johannes Schwarz (bassoon)
Ueli Wiget (piano)
Nina Janßen-Deinzer (clarinet)
Ensemble Modern
Conductor — Ilan Volkov
Wednesday, 18 December
11:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Seminar
Fyodor Sofronov — New Russian Music of the Last 20 Years
Jörn Peter Hiekel — Music in Germany since the 1990s
13:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master classes by Ensemble Modern soloists
Johannes Schwarz (bassoon)
18:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 1
Wolfgang Rihm Im Innersten for string quartet (1976)
Peter Ruzicka …sich verlierend for string quartet and narrator (1996)
Studio for New Music Quartet
Fyodor Sofronov (narrator)
19:30, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 2
Alexey Sioumak Overture for ensemble (2012) World premiere
Helmut Lachenmann Trio Fluido for clarinet, viola and percussion (1966)
Olga Bochikhina Musica Sacra III: Christmas Song for ensemble (2013) World premiere
Helmut Lachenmann …zwei Gefühle…, Musik mit Leonardo for narrator and ensemble (1992/2003) Russian premiere
Helmut Lachenmann (narrator)
Nina Janßen-Deinzer (clarinet)
Rainer Römer (percussion)
Megumi Kasakawa (viola)
Ensemble Modern
Studio for New Music ensemble
Conductor — Ilan Volkov
Thursday, 19 December
11:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Master classes by Ensemble Modern soloists
Dietmar Wiesner (flute)
Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne (violin)
Nina Janßen-Deinzer (clarinet)
18:30, Concert Hall of the Composers’ House
Concert
Alexander Khubeev Kinematics for ensemble and electronics (2010)
Nikolai Popov ARTRA for percussion, electronics and video. Video artist – Todor Pozharev (Serbia) (2013) World premiere
Nikolai Khrust A Small Creation of the World (Katjas Gesang) for violin and electronics (2013) World premiere
Alexey Nadzharov Click Track for ensemble (2013) World premiere
Vladimir Gorlinsky The She-Wolf for ensemble and video (2013)
Karlheinz Stockhausen Mantra for two pianos and electronics (1970)
Mona Khaba, Mikhail Dubov (piano)
Dmitry Shchelkin (percussion)
Ekaterina Fomitskaya (violin)
Studio for New Music ensemble
Conductor — Vladimir Gorlinsky
Friday, 20 December
16:00, Conference Hall of the Conservatory
Presentation of the project “ARTures at an Exhibition”: The Interaction of Music and the Visual
18:00, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 1
ARTures at an Exhibition, a joint project of the Centre for Contemporary Music and the Artkhronika Cultural Foundation
Alexander Khubeev
Elena Rykova
Kirill Shirokov
Denis Khorov
Anna Romashkova
Natalia Prokopenko
Mark Pekarsky (percussion)
Students and postgraduates of the Moscow Conservatory
19:30, Rachmaninoff Hall of the Conservatory
Concert 2. Festival Closing
Helmut Lachenmann Intérieur I for percussion (1966)
Karlheinz Stockhausen Vibra-Elufa for vibraphone (2003)
Edison Denisov Laments for soprano, piano and percussion ensemble (1966)
Hans Werner Henze Fünf Szenen aus dem Schneeland for marimba (1978)
Dmitry Shchelkin (percussion)
Vladimir Urbanovich (percussion)
Alisa Gitsba (soprano)
Ivan Sokolov (piano)
Mark Pekarsky Percussion Ensemble