Author: chrenhart
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îles englouties premiered
Finally, more than four years after the piece was written, îles englouties for piano solo will be premiered by Urban Stanič. The Slovenian pianist is one of the most extraordinary young pianists that I have met and I am deeply grateful that he has decided to include my piece in his concert in Vienna on November 5, 2021 alongside two sonatas by Haydn, a work by the Slovenian composer Tilen Slakan and Liszt’s monumental sonata in b minor.
In îles englouties I have attempted to merge Debussy’s famous prelude La cathedrale engloutie, Albeniz’ El Corpus Christi en Sevilla and my piano concerto Las Islas Aguadas into one somewhat impressionist poem for the piano. The piece consists of two parts—its references remain muzzy in the beginning and eventually become clearer. In the last section, all the bells of the sunken cathedral herald triumphantly the church parade in Sevilla. My music is an homage to the two pieces that I have admired ever since and that have become particularly important for me over the past years.
The sheet music is now available from Universal Edition.
See also:
Urban Stanič
îles englouties
Gesellschaft für Musiktheater Wien
Categories
Concert and lecture in Leipzig
On December 7, 2021 I will have the pleasure of following an invitation by the composer Bernd Franke to give a lecture at the University of Leipzig in the course of which I will present several compositions of mine. An introduction to my compositional language, my aesthetical strategies and thoughts about the shades of harmonical clarity in my works will be at the centre of the lecture. After it a lecture concert will take place at the Grieg Meeting Place (Grieg Begegnungsstätte Leipzig). In this concert, the Scottish pianist Gregor Forbes will perform the second book of XXI Orakel der Nacht and the cellist Hugo Paiva will play Jeux de lumière. I’m very much looking forward to enjoying this event and working together with the two outstanding musicians as well as talking about my music and discussing with the students in Leipzig.
See also:
Grieg Begegnungsstätte Leipzig
XXI Orakel der Nacht – Zweites Heft
Jeux de lumière
Categories
îles englouties
for piano (2017)
EN
The title of the work «îles englouties» alludes to two pieces that have become particularly important for me over the years. It is easy to guess the first reference—Debussy’s famous tenth Prélude from the first book which he named «La cathedrale engloutie». In my piece one can find some of Debussy’s chords and melodies, sunken in the sound of bells and in between the rapid gestures of my music. Yet they stay stay recognizeable and will once in a while come to the surface.
In 2015 I begun to write a series of «island»-pieces. The first work in this series was my piano concerto «Las Islas Aguadas». I then re-orchestrated a great part of the concerto’s material and thus «L’isola morta» for symphonic orchestra originated. «îles englouties» roots in the piano concerto as well. Yet, enmashed in Debussy’s music, it forms a completely new work on its own.
In the final movement, another impressionistic piano work is being cited. As in my previous «island»-pieces, allusions to the Spanish tradition are made. In the present piece I took a very short section of Albeniz’s musical monument «Iberia» and merged it with Debussy’s chorus of «La cathedral engloutie» and lots of bell-like chords into a mountainous glorification of an iridescent soundscape.
DE
Der Titel des Werks »îles englouties« spielt auf zwei Stücke an, die für mich im Laufe der Jahre eine besondere Bedeuting entwickelten. Den Bezug zu Debussys bekanntem Prélude »La cathedrale engloutie« kann man leicht schon anhand des Titels erraten. In meinem Stück finden sich einige von Debussys Melodien und Akkorden wieder, ganz versunken in glockenartigen Klängen und eingebettet in rapiden und flüchtigen Gesten. Dennoch bleiben diese Anklänge als solche erkennbar und dringen an manchen Stellen an die Oberfläche durch.
2015 begann ich eine Reihe an »Insel«-Stücken zu schreiben. Das erste Werk dieser Serie bildet das Klavierkonzert »Las Islas Aguadas«. Aus dem Klavierkonzert heraus wucherte später »L’isola morta« für symphonisches Orchester. »îles englouties« wurzelt wiederum in ebenjenem Klavierkonzert. Verwoben mit Debussys Klangwelt steht es allerdings als eigenständiges Stück für sich.
Im letzten Teil meiner Komposition wird auf ein weiteres impressionistisches Klavierstück Bezug genommen. Wie in den vorangegangenen »Insel«-Stücken tauchen Allusionen an die spanische Musiktradition auf. Im vorliegenden Stück nahm ich eine kurze Passage aus Albeniz’ monumentalem Klavierzyklus »Iberia« und verschmolz diese Textur mit dem großen Choral aus Debussys »versunkener Kathedrale« sowie mit zahllosen Glocken-Akkorden zu einem gewaltigen, fast schon monströsen Klangmeer.
INSTRUMENTATION:
piano
DURATION: 13 minutes
PUBLISHED BY:
Universal Edition
PREMIERE:
October 10, 2021 (I) • Graz, Palais Meran • Urban Stanic, piano
November 5, 2021 (I-II) • Vienna, Gesellschaft für Musiktheater • Urban Stanic, piano
Categories
Solo Recital
Frankly, I’ve really missed staging something in the past months. On June 11, I’ll make a comeback as pianist with works by Richard Dünser, Katharina Roth and two books of my work XXI Oracles of the Night — in the course of which the second book is being premiered. Having been studying the pieces for more than half a year, I’m definitely looking forward to playing these works in public. All the pieces orbit arount the subject «Nocturne». I was looking for a programme that conveys faintly Romantic emotional worlds and sinisterly obscure soundscapes respectively.
Admittingly I tend to enjoy contemporary music that does not sound as we might expect modern music to be like. Music that seems to have fallen out of time can be extremely exciting—as long as it doesn’t present itself unprogressive or even reactionary. As a composer, I believe in individual solutions, in personal styles that might be arbitrary or just unfashionable and I assume that almost every great artist cannot be confused with another artist, due to his or her most individual compositional strategies. Naturally, composing successfully in the spirit of the time is repugnant to that idea to a certain extent.
a Saturn gong, four singing bowls and several mallets.
When working on my second book of XXI Oracles of the Night I have intensively meditated on harmonic clarity. We need structures that are recognizable and such structures that are apt to cause nebulosity at the same time. On the one hand, I added rather complex harmonies to my pieces using a planet gong and four singing bowls and melted these tonal colours with the equal-tempered tones of the piano. When writing for the piano and designing harmonic progressions, we must always consider the usage of the pedal as well. Thus the actual sounding result might be far more complex than what’s apparently written in the score—just have a think about it. The crucial thing, and I daresay the more difficult thing, is how to establish harmonic clarity while using the pedal function unstintingly. There are several strategies I chose to accomplish this task:
- (a) Writing rather simple chords. Seems easy, but isn’t really. Take a major triad. It will easily come to the foreground, but everyone will think «Oh, a lovely triad—how boring!». We can circumvent that problem to a certain degree by mixing a triad together with another simple chord. This results in Sacre-like chords (comp. Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps, mark 13f.). Furthermore we might consider accelerating the tempo of chord progressions while still holding down the pedal. Quite effective, rather difficult to play, yet the result will eventually become more and more obscure.
- (b) Reducing the texture and the speed respectively. Morton Feldman is unsurpassed in applying this method in order to create transparent structures and patterns. When working with very complex chords (with pitches that deviate from the twelve chromatic tones) this is a nice way to grant the listener some time to understand what’s happening harmonically. The problem is, it is in contradiction to classic virtuosity to some extent.
- (c) Using primitive scales. I really avoided writing diatonic structures thus far. It’s like touching the fire: One might get burned easily. We all know what the white keys sound like and we all have grown accustomed to the sound of a pentatonic scale really well. It’s become dull. However, in the middle of a a harmonic mess (remember, let’s keep the right pedal down for a while), such primitive structures might just establish the smidge of clarity we were striving to. Combining (a) and (c) in Presto or Agitato can result in very interesting, very complex and very exciting passages, I have found out. The vital question is: How long can a structure based on a primitive scale last at the maximum? In my work, I escaped my diatonic structures within five seconds, and additionally they are always flanked by something else such as a (microtonally deviant) stroke of the gong etc.
Other than that, in XXI Oracles of the Night, I was aiming at bringing allusions to esotericism into my music. On the one hand, the titles of the single movements such as The Solar Wind in the second book by themselves evoke the idea of an unearthly something happening around us. I did my best to translate such overtones into my piano pieces. Observed from a musical point of view, they become audible in the instrumentation for the one thing. Planet gongs and singing bowls are closely assiciated with a certain utilization context. The other idea of how to include the allurement of a possibly supernatural existence was to play around with musical clarity. Whenever we feel we could hang on to a theme, a chord, a tonality, whatsoever, the music descends elsewhere. It only gives us hints, some of which are stronger, others scarcely discernible.
Concert: Orakel der Nacht
Friday, June 11 2021, 9:00 PM
KULTUM, Mariahilferplatz 3, 8020 Graz
FAQ —
A story with the little giraffe
Only recently, a reader of the little giraffe pointed out that there were no FAQs hereabouts. That’s pretty true, I thought. Thus far. Almost certainly people would have a lot of questions to ask the little giraffe, I thought, but everyone was afraid to ask. Whatever the case may be, here you are ten frequently asked questions about the little giraffe.
What is the little giraffe’s given name?
It doesn’t have any. Disappointed about that fact? Let’s remenber one of the best lines of the iconic TV series Columbo starring Peter Falk as protagonist:
From the police, ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Columbo.
Columbo?
Yes, ma’am, but you can call me Lieutenant.
Hence we see that we don’t always depend on forenames.
How old is the little giraffe?
The little giraffe was put together in October 2019. It is approximately 1.5 years old.
Does the little giraffe miss Africa?
No, not at all. It has never seen the continent. It is true that the natural habitat of every member of the family Giraffidae is situated in Africa, but the little giraffe’s building blocks were fabricated in Asia. However, the assemblage took place in Austria.
What is the little giraffe’s favourite food?
As observed on the photo below, the little giraffe’s favourite dish is the greenery from our pot plants. Its strictly vegan diet could not prevent several bone fractures and split-offs, though.
Is the little giraffe a good ski jumper?
Due to the animated film series Athleticus, giraffes are no good ski jumpers. See it for yourself!
Does the little giraffe really love contemporary music so much?
I can’t put my finger on it. Certainly it enjoys a lot of modern music at the place where it’s living. It’s safe to say that whenever a piece of the little giraffe breaks off or gets lost it’s not due to the music it is surrounded by.
Is the little giraffe swashbuckling?
Definitely. Inspite of its tininess and regardless of its rather sheepish look, the little giraffe is very adventurous. Be it climbing up Christmas trees or confronting the hectoring clay boar: The little giraffe turns out as fearless as audacious—and it will never miss the boat when it gets down to breaking one or more than one of its legs.
Who’s the little giraffe’s best friend?
The little giraffe is best friends with a dragon-like five-legged creature called Fünffusssaurus. Read here more about Fünffusssaurus.
What’s the number of parts the little giraffe is made of?
The litte giraffe consists of more than 150 components. Additionally, there are are several spare parts available in the construction set.
Can I make friends with the little giraffe too?
Sure! The little giraffe is delighted to get in touch with its readers. Feel free to send a message to giraffe@chrenhart.eu — we’re collecting items, places and oddities that feature giraffes. Take a picture of your object/place/whatever you’ve seen and send it to us.
Categories
IN SPIRITO MAHLER
Ensemble Zeitfluss | Edo Mičić, conductor | Georg Klimbacher, baritone
Revisiting »Marley’s Ghost«
The highly acclaimed Graz based Ensemble Zeitfluss under the baton of Edo Mičić recorded a concert programme labeled «IN SPIRITO MAHLER» at Vienna’s Ehrbar hall in March. Music by Gustav Mahler, Dana Cristina Probst, Christian Diendorfer, Alyssa Aska and my new arrangement of Marley’s Ghost for baritone and ensmeble was performed. It was a great pleasure working together with the brilliant Austrian baritone Georg Klimbacher and with one of my very favourite ensembles. Feel free to listen to the concert which was professionally videotaped by Ábel Czinger and his team.
Programme:
Gustav Mahler: Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz | Erinnerung | Hans und Grete (arranged for baritone and ensemble by Pierre Hoppé) — 03:51
Dana Cristina Probst: Alba Carolina II — 16:52
Christian Diendorfer: Hubano-Arien — 33:57
Alyssa Aska: arcanum — 1:01:13
Christoph Renhart: Marley’s Ghost — 1:16:10
Between the performances composers and performers talk about their pieces and tell us more about this production’s making-of. Read more about my work Marley’s Ghost here or get a copy of the score at the online store of the Universal Edition.
Categories
Pentathlon
Pentathlon —
A story with the little giraffe
It’s about time to introduce a new figure: Fünffusssaurus. For reasons too obvious to mention we will not translate this into English. Fünffussaurus was purchased a while ago for ten-something at an online store. Before it was mounted—guarded by the severe look of the little giraffe—it remained quarantined for some days, just to be sure LPG doesn’t contract the dragon’s flue (which would be unimaginably frightening). As every construction kit is delivered with some extra building blocks, I chose to deviate a little from the construction manual; hence the name. Originally this was meant to be a dragon, but now it rather looks like a worm, though. A wyvern without wings. A lindworm-centipede-crossbreed. Whatsoever.
Locking horns
Once ready to become subject to this very blog, we’d like to get to know to our new figure a little bit closer. Let’s stage a competition and see which tiny beast performs better, Fünffusssaurus or the local heroine, LPG. There are five categories—quasi the pentathlon for the pipsqueaks—in which Fünffusssaurus will challenge the little giraffe: Height, width, flexibility, fragility and popularity. Let’s start with the first match.
Height
Let’s face it: giraffes are known to be … tall. There is no chance for Fünffusssaurus of winning this stage, is there? Have a look at the picture. While Fünffusssaurus keeps struggling with mother gravity to gain some extra inches, LPG is stablest when raising her nose up to the skies. A clear point for the crowd favourite.
Preliminary result:
(1)
(0)
Width
Fünffusssaurus captures a very decisive victory. If we look at the image, LPG measures 2.5 inches from ground to ground, whereas FFFSSS exceeds the range of the meter. Frankly, it was rather challenging to somehow fit FFFSSS into the meter. Other than that, the little giraffe reaches from the Yangtze River to the Amur River, but FFFSSS spreads all over the EU, Russia, Kazakhstan and Africa as well.
Preliminary result:
(1)
(1)
Flexibility
Let’s see, which of the two has a more dislocatable body and is overall more flexible. We already know that the little giraffe is very flexible. But how about FFFSSS? Let’s get down to it and count their joints. The little giraffe comes up with three ball-and-socket joints, all of them are sited at its neck. However, FFFSSS boasts about its tremendous amount of eleven such joints. Apart from that, also its feet are movable, no less than its tail and its horns. Thus, there is no need to dispute who’s gonna win this round, just have a look at the picture to verify the results.
Preliminary result:
(1)
(2)
Fragility
It is self-evident that LPG is rather fragile than indestructible. However, the same is true of our new friend, FFFSSS. We might count all possible items of each character that are likely to get lost. We might also take into consideration that the little giraffe is so fragile, it can’t even stand at all, once one of its legs is broken again. We might also observe, that FFFSSS has five feet that stick together but loosely whereas its underjaw is keen to fall off like a denture at any moment. I would like not to declare LPG or FFFSSS the winner of this match, though, for both competitors are just way too fragile to make a call. It’s a draw.
Preliminary result:
(2)
(3)
Popularity
Finally when it gets down to popularity, the little giraffe remains undefeatable thus far. FFFSSS has not recieved fanpost yet, whereas LPG has (indeed!). Giraffes are somewhat popular animals and when people see that they are occasionally fed to the lions in a zoo in Copenhagen for instance, many people get upset easily. As for FFFSSS, the popularity of a hitherto undiscovered species is undefined or null.
Final result:
(3)
(3)
Categories
Interview
Berufsbilder: Komponist
erschienen online auf dem Internetportal des Career Service Centers der Kuntuniversität Graz
csc-kug.at
WAS MACHT MAN ALS KOMPONIST*IN?
Als Komponist konzipiere ich musikalische Werke und lege mehr oder weniger konkret einen Plan fest, wie solche Werke umgesetzt werden können bzw. sollen. Ich fixiere meine kompositorischen Ideen in klassischer Weise in Form einer Partitur schriftlich, gelegentlich auch in Form von Quellcode. Denkbar ist aber auch, dass ein*e Komponist*in seine oder ihre Werke auf Tonträger einspielt oder sonstwie fixiert.
Wie viele andere Komponist*innen spiele ich meine eigene Musik (als Pianist). Einige meiner Werke habe ich auch selbst dirigiert und aufgenommen.
Da man als Komponist*in in Österreich im Allgemeinen nicht von Kompositionsaufträgen im Bereich der Neuen Musik leben kann – die wenigsten Komponist*innen erhalten gut oder überhaupt bezahlte Aufträge bzw. können ausreichend hohe Kompositionsförderungen lukrieren – geht man als Komponist*in meistens einer anderen zeitintensiven Tätigkeit neben der eigentlichen künstlerischen Arbeit nach, um sein*ihr Einkommen zu erwirtschaften, sei es durch Unterrichten, Dirigieren/Musizieren oder Jobs im Bereich Kulturmanagement etc.
Ich unterrichte – mit großer Freude – an der KUG musiktheoretische Fächer und kuratiere die Konzertreihe für Neue Musik im KULTUM. Darüber hinaus engagiere ich mich ehrenamtlich in Vereinen wie der ÖGZM.
WIE WIRD MAN KOMPONIST*IN?
Die einfache Antwort lautet: Indem man Werke komponiert. Man muss ja nicht bei der Wirtschaftskammer vorstellig werden oder einem Orchester irgendwelche Zeugnisse vorlegen, bevor ein eigenes Werk aufgeführt werden darf. Meistens ist man selbst sein*e erste*r Interpret*in, insofern würde ich meinen, ein Instrument zumindest mittelmäßig zu können ist so etwas wie eine Startrampe. Die etwas längere Antwort ist: Es gilt Werke, Handwerk, Umfeld, Gesellschaft, Geschichte, Traditionen, Spieltechniken, technische Entwicklungen etc. etc. genau und mit größter Neugier zu durchdringen (id est: zu studieren), um zu so etwas wie einer eigenen musikalischen Grammatik kompositorischer Ideen zu gelangen (id est: einen unverwechselbaren Stil zu schaffen). Dazu kommt, dass man sein Metier genau kennen lernen muss, sich Netzwerke aufbauen und auch wirtschaftlich denken soll, um dieser künstlerischen Tätigkeit langfristig erfolgreich nachgehen zu können.
WELCHE FÄHIGKEITEN BRAUCHT MAN DAFÜR?
Ich glaube, es ist eine recht eigenartige Mischung aus Biegsamkeit und Sturheit: Die Freude am Lernen und daran, die eigenen Ideen fortwährend kritisch zu überdenken ist genauso wichtig wie das Beharren auf eigenen Ideen, wenn man sich absolut sicher ist, dass sie gut sind, selbst wenn sie rundum auf Ablehnung stoßen. Die Akademie hat sich oft geirrt, das zeigt die Musikgeschichte, aber irrig wäre es auch, die alten Meister nicht zu hören. Darüber hinaus das Übliche: Eine sehr gute musikalische Vorstellungskraft, ein Gespür für Dramaturgie, eine hohe Sensibilität für ästhetische Fragen, Neugierde (ganz viel davon), und einen guten Schuss Größenwahn gepaart mit dem festen Glauben daran, dass man ein Amazonasschiff über einen Berg ziehen kann (das ist längst erwiesen).
WARUM HABEN SIE SICH ENTSCHIEDEN, KOMPONIST*IN ZU WERDEN?
Ich liebe es, Dinge entstehen zu lassen und nach meinen Vorstellungen zu gestalten. Egal, was. Ich programmiere auch gerne. Komponist bin ich letztlich geworden, weil ich über das Klavier zur Musik fand und ich mich als Interpret im Bereich der Neuen Musik immer schon pudelwohl fühlte.
WAS MACHT IHNEN DABEI AM MEISTEN SPASS?
Mein liebster Teilbereich beim Komponieren ist, so denke ich, das Instrumentieren. Beim Instrumentieren hat man eine stets angenehme Mischung aus Anstrengung und Weiterkommen. Beim Erfinden gänzlich neuer Abschnitte von Werken hingegen kommt man gerne einmal ins Stocken oder verwirft am Ende eines mühsamen Nachmittags wieder alles, was man bis dahin aufs Papier brachte. Das kann frustrierend sein, ist aber unvermeidlich, wenn einem die Qualität nicht “wurscht” ist. Instrumentieren ist viel dankbarer: Einen 16-stimmigen mikrotonalen Akkord für ein Orchester zu setzen ist auch anstrengend, aber man findet viel selbstverständlicher in irgendeine Lösung hinein. Gleichzeitig kann man dabei auch sehr künstlerisch vorgehen und sich Neues einfallen lassen.
WAS SIND DIE GRÖSSTEN HERAUSFORDERUNGEN?
Einerseits ist eine sehr große Herausforderung, genügend Zeit zum Schreiben zu haben. Gerade, wenn ich neues Material entwerfe, brauche ich einen freien Kopf und viel Ruhe. Mahler etwa komponierte in den Sommerferien einen Gutteil seiner Symphonien und instrumentierte sie über die restlichen Monate, wenn er Geld verdienen (id est: dirigieren) musste.
Eine andere sehr große Herausforderung ist, Aufführungen an Land zu ziehen. Man kann als Komponist kein abgekapseltes Leben führen, wie man sich das vielleicht gerne verklärend ausmahlern möchte (à la Komponierhäuschen am Wörthersee – heute völlig unerschwinglich). Vielmehr ist man anfangs zumindest Künstler*in, Vertriebsleiter*in, Marketingchef*in, Inkassobüro (wer zahlt schon freiwillig gerne Materialgebühren), Interpret*in, Konzertorganisator*in etc. alles in einer Person.
WELCHEN TIPP HABEN SIE FÜR ANGEHENDE KOMPONIST*INNEN?
Drei Tipps, alle gleich wichtig: Schlagt euch diesen Gedanken aus dem Kopf. Wenn das nicht geht, legt wenigstens Musik vor, die man neben Brahms und Mozart spielen kann. Und hört nicht auf mich, ich bin kein Guru.
Categories
La photo: La maladie
