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Newsletter August 2019

 

Editorial

 

Tell us what you think

From now on the Concertzender Newsletter will appear at the beginning of the month. Useful: then you know about all the good stuff waiting for you in the month ahead and don’t have to listen later. Of course you can always find our programmes afterwards on our website. Or even better: install our Concertzender app on your phone.

Concertzender appLast month we started our new programming, with the Morning Edition as a comfortable start to every work day. We’re very interested in hearing what you thought of this. Did you get up earlier? Do you go to work more relaxed, or has your burnout risk been reduced bya few percentage points? What do think of the choice of music? The presentation? The themes? Tell us! And that also applies to our news letter, the app and all the other programmes and concerts we record and broadcast.

Enquête
Also this month: we’re excited about the Naples-themed Early Music Festival 2019. Luc Nijs is looking forward to Luciano Berio’s only opera Un Re in Ascolto. We looking forward to the ambient festival in Bratislava named after our programme DreamScenes. There is news from Mozarabië . And we take notice of what you think of us: below each article in this special newsletter you’re invited to respond to one or more questions. Other comments, suggestions and reactions are very welcome. As a bonus on of this month’s responses will win Arthur Olof’s book.

So: what do you think of the newsletter? What do you miss, and what do you like? Is this too much or too little ? Too often or not often enough? Tell us by sending a reponse to the editorial staff.

 

 

daily from the end of June 2019

Theme: Classical Music

 

 

Morning Edition: waking you up before you go

From the end of June the Concertzender is starting each day with a new programme: Morning Edition. The basis is very simple: every weekday 3 hours of classical music to get up to, or to leave, or to listen to at home. We play complete works, sometimes around a theme, with short explanations about the music, the theme, the composers and/or the performers. Three compilers and two presenters rotate.

Each team records 7 morning editions once every two weeks, enough for one week. Morning Edition is a 'work in progress'. It’s being tweaked to make it even better and connect text and music as closely as possible. Permanent presenter Pauline Verburg explains:

Copresenter Stef and I are free to write the texts ourselves and to choose what we want to emphasise. So to prepare I listen a lot to the pieces, but sometimes a work has such an intriguing title and I think it’s nice for listeners to hear more about that. So I investigate that. So this preparatory work takes a lot of time!

The Morning Edition is recorded on Thursday mornings with permanent technician Lex van der Wal.

Read more

 

 

 

 

 

When will it be broadcast? The Concertzender Recordings

Symphony orchestras, recitals, festivals, jamsessions, organ concerts: the Concertzender makes more than 200 recordings per year. Enthusiastic visitors often ask our technicians when the concert will be broadcast. Because that differs from concert to concert and we’re dependant on others, that question is not so simple to answer. Shame! But Theo van Soest has come up with a temporary solution which partly solves the problem.

microphoneThe Concertzender website announces all the recordings here. When we can announce something we add the expected broadcast dates and times.

Jazz: Regular recordings in the Bimhuis
World Music: Diverse podia, including the Houtfestival in Haarlem
Classical Music: (Among others) the Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw aan het IJ.
Early Music: Many locations, highlight is the Early Music Festival (FOM)
Contemporary Music: Many locations, highlights are the Gaudeamus Festival and November Music,
Amateur Music: Many locatios, mostly choirs

Meet the producers
There are three producers: Wijnand de groot, Chris Pit, Kees van de Wiel. They look for “appropriate recording technicians” qua affinity, apparatus and travel distance, who can do the live recording and compile a mix thereafter. How complexer the performance, the more work the production requires. Thereafter there are at least a few weeks required to finalise the whole process of production, approval and delivery.

Read more

 

from 22nd August to 1st September 2019

Theme: Early Music

 

Napolitan spheres at the Festival Oude Muziek (Early Music Festival)

Lovers of early music are on the alert: from 22nd August to 1st September the centre of Utrecht wil once again be full of the Early Music Festival, which this year has Naples as its theme.

TarantellaThe Concertzender will be very involved and will broadcast one hour per day of Early Music during the Festival. We’ll be following the programme very closely so you can count on Napolean tarantellas, artist in residence Marco Marcoboni, the Huelgas Ensemble, Giuliano Prandi and much much more.

Daily Broadcast
Between 22/08 and 1/09 every day an hour of Early Music about the Early Music festival. And the Naples theme.

 

 

Friday 2nd August 2019

Theme: Classical Music

Genre: Baroque

Compositore del mese: Pergolesi

The August Composer of the Month is Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. His hometown Naples is this year’s theme for the Early Music Festival.

Pergolesi was born in 1710 in the Italian town of Iesi and studied from his 10th in Naples. He took violin lessons and must have been an outstanding singer in his youth. In the brief 26 years he lived, Pergolesi wrote a lot that is barely known. His Stabat mater is world famous, but Pergolesi wrote a lot more, in different styles. Such as his theatre music.

Commedia dell'arteDuring his life Pergolesi was very active in the theatre, both for large and small podia. In our Pergolesi-programme on 2nd August you can hear an unmissable theatrical group of four cantatas. This was unknown for a long time, such as much of Pergolesi. It came to light only when Stravinsky found this and other Pergolesi works interesting enough to arrange it in his ballet Pulcinella.

As theatre animal Pergolesi together with others was at the start of the comic opera: opera buffa. which is partly based on the Commedia dell’arte. The genre started around 1730, as entr’acte during the performance of serious and higher opera seria, full of relaxed music about mythical and historical figures.

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Friday 9th August 2019

Theme: Early Music

Ancient practice: Mozarabic liturgy reconstructed

Lost Music reconstructed: Mozarabic songs in Concertzender Live

In Concertzender Live on Friday 9th August 2019 we’re broadcasting two recent recordings from the Dutch Gregorian Festival 2019. The 7th edition took place last June in Den Bosch. On 16th June the Concertzender recorded the concerts by Gregoriana Amsterdam and from Ensemble Cantores Sancti Gregorii.Gregoriana Amsterdam

Mozarabic
During the concert by Gregoriana Amsterdam led by Geert Maessen lost Mozarabic songs were played, reconstructed together with Darrell Conklin from San Sebastian. In the early Middle Ages there were different liturgical-musical traditions in Christian Europe. From Karolingian times these traditions were gradually replaced by the Roman rituals with its Gregorian chant. At the end of the 11th century the Mozarabic ritual was abandoned, which had become the norm in Iberia and the South of France.

Both Gregoriana Amsterdam and mathematician Darrell Conklin have developed a method to generate melodies from the lost songs of the Mozarabic ritual.

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Sunday 11th August 2019

Theme: Crosslinks

Genre: Ambient

Dream a little dream: Dream Scenes special Bratislava edition

Bratislava, 29 June, 21.00. Sleeping bags are ready, tables full of apparatus and softly whispering beamers are getting ready for a very special get together: the Ambient Sleepover Festival. Between 21.00 and 08.00 there was an eleven hour long night concert in the Slovak city, with eleven acts who gave a performance for a public who listened, dozed or just slept.

CharonThe name of this festival was Dream Scenes Bratislava. And yes: the name came from the monthly DreamScenes mix series on the Concertzender!

Festival mix aired at the Concertzender
The Concertzender pays them back by proudly presenting a DreamScenes special, with a selection of acts from the festival!

The festival was organised by Lukáš Bulko (Alapastel) and Lukáš Medlen (Charon). The line up contained performances by Chaosdroid, Whithe, Alapastel, Casi Cada Minuto, Phragments, Prvočísla, 16 Colours, Strom Noir, Vrtačky Po Desáté Hodině, Meltingeyes and Charon. For anyone – hardly thinkable – who doesn’t know about the Slovakian ambient/experimental music scene, possibly only the name Strom Noir, and to a lesser extent Alapastel, will be known. Another good reason to delve deeper into the unknown Slovakian ambient-scene. Music knows no boundaries!

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every two weeks on Thursday evenings

Theme: Classical Music

Meeting Ludwig Schuncke

Ludwig SchunckeKennen sie Schuncke?
It was perhaps disputable in the case of Clara Schumann, but with Ludwig Schunke we can safely say that Unknown is unloved. In a new series – every two weeks on Thursday evenings at 19:00 CET – Cassandra van Agt will be presenting the music of this unknown composer.

Ludwig Schunke lived a proverbial short life (21 December 1810 – 7 December 1834). He was a pianist and composer. When he was 17 he went to Paris where he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Antonín Rejcha and where he became friends with well-known contemporaries including Kalkbrenner and Berlioz. In 1830 he returned to Germany where he also got to know Chopin while passing through the country.

In 1833 in Leipzig Schuncke began a friendship with Robert Schumann which led to them jointly establishing the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1834. Schumann’s Toccata op.7 is “dédiée à son ami Louis Schuncke”. Schuncke only wrote a few pieces for the piano but they were greatly admired by Robert Schumann at the time and are now considered to be some of the best surviving works for the piano from the first half of the 19th century.

 

 

starting September 2019

Theme: Classical Music

Beethoven on course

The Concertzender will be celebrating the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven in a new series of programmes in which all of his work will be broadcast. The programmes will be broadcast every weekday from 10.00 to 11.00 CET. In the programmes, experts will also be sharing their thoughts on the significance of his music.

BeethovenThe production team that is responsible for the programmes consists of:
Presenters: Pauline Verburg Rahul Gandolahage, Evert Jan Nagtegaal and Stef Lokin;
Technicians: Aart Veerman, Jan uit het Broek, Marco Wensveen and Walter Belaart;
Producers: Aukelien van Hoytema, Henk Hylkema and Robbert Jan de Neeve.
The production team is still looking for support so please let us know if you are interested in joining the team.

Work on the programmes will start in September.
A closely guarded secret at the current time is… the name of this new programme.

 

 

19 to 23 and 26 to 30 August 2019

Theme: Early Music

Ad infinitum: Nessun gionro senza Bach

Bach is in Italy, so perhaps we should be calling him Giovanni Sebastiano Bach, in the same way as Giovanni Battista Lulli changed his name to Jean-Baptiste Lully when he moved to France.

Hana BlažíkováBetween 19 and 30 August Bach ad Infinitum will be in an Italian mood inspired by this year’s Festival of Early Music in Utrecht. As part of the festival, the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi will be performed on Saturday 31 August in the Geertekerk in Utrecht. The soprano role will be sung by the world-famous Hana Blažíková.

On Monday 19 August in Bach ad Infinitum Govert Jan Bach will be investigating the link between Bach, opera and this well-known work by Pergolesi. Bach wrote a variation (or as he himself called it, an improved version) of this work: cantata Tilge Höchster, meine Sünden BWV 1083. The programme will also include a performance of the original work by Pergolesi by Concerto Italiano led by Rinaldo Alessandrini and a performance of cantata BWV 1083 by the Theatre of Early Music that features Emma Kirkby.

Listen to Bach ad Infinitum
Monday 19 to Friday 23 August, 13.00 – 14.00 CET
Monday 26 to Friday 30 August, 13.00 – 14.00 CET (repeats)

 

 

every Saturday, Tuesday and on demand

Theme: Jazz

The palace of Nostagia

Mel BlancNostalgia being ubiquitous, you can experience nostalgia on a camping site, in a traffic jam on the way to the beach or when watching a disappointing holiday special on the telly. No need to get gloomy, though, for the Palace of Nostalgia will be there during the summer to provide the perfect music for these moments.

Our special on the 31 August features the wit and wisdom of the parodist Stan Freberg, the comic Charlie Drake singing about the tribulations of owning a boomerang, George Formby with his ‘banjolele’, the French composer, arranger and sound wizard André Popp, a song about a race between a Cadillac and a Nash from The Playmates, and ‘the man with a thousand voices’ Mel Blanc.

Million Sellers
In the Autumn, the Palace will present a series titled The History of the Million Seller. This series takes us from the early days of the 20th century when records by Enrico Caruso, Al Jolson and Paul Whiteman were produced in their millions to the 1960s when eveything was different in popular music.

Read more

 

 

Theme: Contemporary Music

Opera in the 20th century: Un re in ascolto - Luciano Berio

By Luc Nijs

Luciano BerioThe Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) was known for his experimental work, which included electronic music. He wrote very few complete operas, but did write some operatic pieces that were used in other works. The exception was his opera Un re in ascolto from 1984.

Berio wrote the libretto himself, based on Sotto il sole giaguaro by Italo Calvini, an Italian writer of short stories. Berio called his opera an ‘azione musicale’: a musical action. The work does not really have a linear story line and as a result is surreal. The opera is about a mythical king who only has contact with his subjects through eavesdropping on their conversations. A convincing performance by a theatre group results in the king having increasing difficulty in distinguishing reality from fiction. He comes into a negative psychological spiral and the future that he foresees for his kingdom ultimately leads to his downfall. This king seems frighteningly similar to several of our current world leaders.

Recommended recording: Luciano Berio - Un re in ascolto, world première from 1984, issued by Col Legno (WWE 2CD 20005), and featuring the Wiener Philharmoniker led by Lorin Maazel.

 

Colophon

Concertzender
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3512 GD Utrecht
T: 030 231 20 96
E: info@concertzender.nl

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Privacy Statement
Editorial Staff:
Koen Croese
Translation:
David Young
Tim Newman
Technician:
Ronald Visser

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The next Concertzender newsletter will appear early September.

In the meantime, go to our website for the latest news

 

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