5th to 8th March 2009

Sonnets of dark love

BEAT FURRER and Flamenco / Cante Jondo

Salzburg Biennale will bring about encounters between Beat Furrer with Spanish flamenco inspired by Moorish sources.

Thursday, 5th March 2009
CONCERT I - 19.30
Mauricio Sotelo | Cripta. Música para Luigi Nono (UA)
Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik
Salzburger Bachchor
Beat Furrer, conductor
Alois Glaßner, choir master
Arcangel, Flamenco song
The Spanish philosopher Emilio Lledó writes about his friend Luigi Nono whose work lives on in "the wonderful sound universe created by Mauricio Sotelos". In Sotelos´ musical work Cripta the Sonnets of Dark Love by Federico Garcia Lorca (which Nono loved and wanted to set to music) become a fascinating space-sound experience for his teacher Nono. It is carried along by cante jondo (deep song) – the kind of flamenco singing that Nono had recommended his Spanish student to concentrate on. Music of heartfelt humanity in the "chambers of dawn".

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OENM
Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik
CONCERT II - 21.00 (Flamenco)
Flamenco: "Puro y jondo"
Arcángel, Flamencogesang
Miguel Ángel Cortés, guitar
Agustin Díassera, percussion
Antonio Saavedra, chorus and clapping
Manuel Saavedra, chorus and clapping
Some of the most exciting and successful Spanish flamenco artists create an evening of pure cante jondo from Iberian folk music based on very old sources. Singing that penetrates the depths of consciousness. Singing from the depths of time. Songs of the oppressed; music that has conquered the world. Singing accompanied by the guitar, by the pulse of life.

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Arcangel and Miguel Angel Cortes
Friday, 6th March 2009
CONCERT III - Part I – 14.30 | Andräkirche
Part II – 15.00 | Solitär
Works for organ, voice, recorder/electronics, guitar quartet, violin solo, violin duo, guitar and recorder, piano
by: György Ligeti, Luciano Berio, Sofia Gubaidulina, Toshio Hosokawa, Toru Takemitsu, Masayoshi Matsui, Maki Ishi, Dorothée Hahne, Agostin Castilla-Avila, Marios Joannou Elia, George Crumb, Johannes Maria Staud
Prize winners of the competition for interpretation of contemporary music and further students of the University Mozarteum from Austria, Italy, Japan, Spain, Brasil, Mexico, Greece, Lithuania, Russia...
The diversity of music of our time is reflected in the exciting programme presented by the Mozarteum and its young generation of musicians. From contemporary classical composers such as Berio and Ligeti to the young composers Elia and Staud, and from Tyrol to Japan, from the organ to the recorder. Hell und Dunkel (Light and Dark), Bewegung (Movement), Gesang (Singing), Toward the Sea, Traumbilder (Dream Pictures) and many others – titles that arouse our curiosity, music that awakens our imagination.

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CONCERT IV - 19.30
Prize-winning works of the composition competition:
Silvia Rosani | „La Nube e Issione” (1st prize)
Marios Joannou Elia | „Tempus tantum nostrum est“ (2nd prize)
Amr Okba | Adid (3rd prize)
Further works:
Giacinto Scelsi | SAUH IV für vier Stimmen
Sylvano Bussotti | Lachrimae für Stimmen und Elektronik
Sandeep Bhagwati | Tongues of Fire für 6 Stimmen
Steve Reich | Know what is above you für vier Stimmen
Ensemble „vocal arts“, Stuttgart
Voices and electronics
Angelika Luz, conductor

Prize winners' concert of the composition competition "vocal arts"

Vocal arts. The art of singing lives on in often new and unusual ways, but still follows tradition. In addition to the debut pieces, works were included by eminent 20th century sound scientists and by the Indian composer Sandeep Bhagwati. Contemporary vocal virtuosity focuses on crossing boundaries and combining musical worlds.

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Saturday, 7th March 2009
CONCERT V - 19.30
Mauricio Sotelo | Audéeis für Singstimme und Streichquartett
Beat Furrer | Spur for piano quintet
Luigi Nono | Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima, für Streichquartett
Stadler Quartet
Arcangel, Flamenco song
Hsin-Huei Huang, piano
The string quartet has left its mark throughout the history of music – an influence that continues today. Composing for four voices is an eternal challenge. In Mauricio Sotelos´ work, an unusual vocal voice or cante jondo joins the quartet. In Beat Furrer´s piece Spur (Trace), the piano is integrated into the delicate texture. Luigi Nono, on the other hand, has seemingly reinvented the string quartet in his epoch-making work.

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stadler quartett
Stadler Quartet
CONCERT VI - 21.15
Flamenco: "Lo que trae el aire"
Fuensanta "La Moneta", dance
Miguel Lavi, voice
David "El Galli", voice
Enrique "El Extremeno", voice
Miguel Iglesias, guitar
David Carmona, guitar
A dancer, three cantaores, two guitarists. Cante jondo in its purest form. Fuensanta "La Moneta" is widely recognised as one of the most expressive flamenco dancers of the younger generation. The singers and musicians consistently perform at the highest standard. Music with Moorish roots, intoxicating sounds and movements, impassioned like the sunny, glowing landscape of Andalusia.

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Sunday, 8th March 2009
CONCERT VII - 11.00am
Beat Furrer | Xenos for Ensemble (2008)
Beat Furrer | Fama, Szene VI
György Kurtág | Quasi una fantasia für Klavier und Ensemble (1987-1988)
György Kurtág | What is the word für Alt, Stimmen und Ensemble (1991)
Beat Furrer | Klavierkonzert (2008)

Piroska Molnár, alto
Isabelle Menke, voice
Nicolas Hodges, piano (Quasi una fantasia, Klavierkonzert)
Vocalensemble Zürich
Ensemble Contrechamps
Beat Furrer, conductor
Beat Furrer is "searching for a new relationship between language and instrumental sound". Two recent pieces reveal the enthralling and original results of his search, and document how fresh a piano concerto can sound. György Kurtág condenses works incomparable to any other since Webern – yet playfully, with more associations – every measure glowing with intense emotion. Even to words by Samuel Beckett.

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With the support of Swiss Council Pro Helvetia, City of Geneva, Republic and Canton of Geneva

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"The image of intersecting spaces"

A Weekend with the Composer Beat Furrer:
Contemporary Music and the Flamenco´s Canto Jondo

The Swiss-born composer and conductor, Beat Furrer, has lived and worked in Austria for many years. "What always preoccupies me is understanding what keeps humans moving so aimlessly that they, as if in a blind fury, separate themselves from nature," says Furrer whilst discussing his attempt to "understand this great transformation that is on the verge of being executed without our understanding".
"It is the perception of space, the image of intersecting spaces," that leads to the correlating density of Furrer’s scores; movements that lead from noise to sound, from the inaudible to fortissimo, from breath to voice. Drawing on musical traditions, the composer, who often uses classical instrumentation, considers it a challenge "to destroy traditions, to gain something new".
That Furrer chose the flamenco as his "affinity" for this festival may surprise at first glance, as this popular Spanish folk music is often exposed to massive commercialization, and not considered particularly non-European. But if one examines its origins, one realizes that, since the Middle Ages, Jewish, African, Moorish, and particularly, in more recent times, "gypsy" music has influenced the development of the various forms of flamenco.
The "cante jondo" (deep song), which is particularly preferred by Furrer, is the music of the "Gitanos" and, in its construction and rhythm, its sad expression and ritual festiveness, is far removed from mere exotic folklore. The "cante jondo", with its sighing way of singing and its completely unsentimental expressiveness, can sound uncanny, strange, but also fascinating to Central Europeans.
In addition to Beat Furrer’s works, a piece by the Spaniard, Mauricio Sotelo, entitled "Krypta for Luigi Nono"” will be performed on the weekend. Sotelo studied in Vienna although his most significant "friend and maestro" was Luigi Nono, who also recommended Sotelo concentrate on flamenco – the "song of the oppressed". For this reason, we have decided to include Nono’s distinctive string quartet in the program.
György Kurtág is another master of terse textures and the music that grows out of silence. After each of the contemporary-music performances by OENM, the stadler quartet, and the Contrechamps Ensemble, as well as chosen Spanish flamenco musicians will perform original "cante jondo".
The University Mozarteum will contribute two exciting concerts with prize-winning, young and highly talented musicians and composers to this first Biennale weekend. These programs will feature contemporary vocal music with references to the overall concept of the Biennale.



Beat Furrer

photo: Anna Merz

Beat Furrer was born in 1954 in Schaffhausen (Switzerland) where he received his first piano lessons at the local music school. In 1975 he moved to Vienna where he studied conducting with Otmar Suitner and composition with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati at the Hochschule für Musik.
In 1985 he and Viktor Liberda collaborated to form the "Klangforum Wien", which he also directed until 1992 and which he continues to be associated with. He was commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to write his first opera entitled "Die Blinden" (The Blind). His opera "Narcissus" premiered in 1994 at the Graz Opera House during the Styrian Autumn Festival.
In 1996 Furrer was Composer in Residence at the Musikfestwochen Luzern, Switzerland. In 2001 his music theatre piece "BEGEHREN" (Desire) debuted in Graz. In 2003 his opera "Invocation" debuted in Zurich, and in 2005 his sound theatre piece "FAMA" was performed for the first time in Donaeschingen.
Since autumn 1991, Furrer has held the position of Professor of Composition at the Graz School of Music and Performing Arts, and since 2006 of Guest Lecturer in Composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (College of Music and Performing Arts) in Frankfurt am Main.
In 2004 Furrer received the Music Prize of the city of Vienna (for 2003), and since 2005 has been an appointed member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. In 2006 Furrer was awarded the Golden Lion for his work "FAMA" at the Venice Biennale.

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