In 1837 “Des Heilands letzte Stunden” enjoyed a successful British premiere. Numerous performances followed until the end of the century and the oratorio becomes a staple of musical life on the British Isles.
A choir named after Beethoven? Admittedly, he didn’t leave behind an extensive choral repertoire. Tristan Meister, director of the Beethoven Choir Ludwigshafen since 2017, set out to explore this question by delving deep into Beethoven’s choral works.
I like to be inspired by greenery, sunlight, or rain.
Nana Forte is a Slovenian composer whose music ranges from choral and vocal-instrumental to orchestral and stage works. In this interview, she gives us an insight into her work.
Only in the last few years has Marianna von Martines (1744–1812) finally begun to win the recognition she deserves as an important composer of the eighteenth century. Martines’s synthesis and mastery of both old and new styles is a central theme in her works, and scholars studying her music have pointed it out frequently. It is especially evident in her sacred choral-orchestral works, one of the earliest being the Seconda Messa of 1760.
Monteverdi’s Vespers from 1610 is one of the few works of its time that belongs to the informal canon of pieces that almost every choir dreams of performing at least once. The work is polyphonic, challenging, and requires not only a high number of soloists, but also a relatively large orchestra, including some instruments that are still rather rare and therefore expensive. However Monteverdi’s Vespers can also be performed with considerably less outlay.
I find inspiration in the very concept that humans can create music.
If I only can pick one I do believe I need to pick when I first heard Claude Debussy’s Trois nocturnes for the first time. It was such an eye opener for me. I had never heard music composed in that way before.
I had the chance to prepare the three choruses for Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion at Indiana University when Penderecki himself came to visit in 2017.
In my childhood I was strongly inspired by Debussy’s piano works and also visually by Michio Mamiya’s Score of Piano Sonata No.2, then in and after my late teens by Lachenmann, Ligeti, Kurtag, Webern and Aperghis.
