|
Panorama de Leeuw XXI: |
  |
Thea Derks, the biographer of Reinbert de Leeuw, is tracing his musical career in her series Panorama de Leeuw.The
series has reached 1974, the year in which the Schönberg Ensemble
was formed by the students of the Royal Conservatory in The Hague to
prepare for a performance of Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schönberg. Schönberg had composed this revolutionary piece in 1912 for the actress Albertine Zehme. Schönberg introduced a new style of singing in this work called Sprechgesang, a
form somewhere between speech and singing, in order to avoid the
echoing delivery generally associated with classical opera singing. Fassbinder The Schönberg Ensemble was increasingly successful andperformed the piece many times with different singers but Henk Guittart knew the moment that he heard the German actress Barbara Sukowa singing in a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder that she was the one that he wanted to perform Pierrot Lunaire. He called her and she agreed to take part. The first performance with Sukowa was in Theater Carré in 1984 and was a triumph. Aus Deutschland The Schönberg Ensemble impressed again a year later during the Holland Festival with a performance together with the Nederlands Kamerkoor ofAus Deutschland, the ‘liederenopera’ by Mauricio Kagel. In this work the Argentine-German composer gives his ironic view of the music of the 19th century. Composers from the period and the characters in their songs feature as performers in the opera. Broadcast Wednesday 6 July, 21:00 - 22:00 CET, repeated on Thursday 7 July, 17:00 CET
| |
