Teach me! – The Students of Nadia Boulanger
Jean Francaix, Klaviertrio (1986)
Leonard Bernstein, “Maria” from Westside Story
Aaron Copland, Vitebsk, Study on a Jewish Theme (1928)
Philip Glass, Head on (1967)
Astor Piazzolla, Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas
Quincy Jones, Main Title aus “The colour purple”
With Teach me! The students of Nadia Boulanger present music by Bernstein, Piazzolla and Françaix as well as Quincy Jones, Copland and Philipp Glass. The works are stylistically very different, but the composers have one thing in common: they were all students of Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger’s special personality as a teacher and her charismatic commitment as a source of inspiration for composers from all over the world are the focus of this program.
“Nadia Boulanger, my former teacher in Paris, used to tell me,‘ Quincy, there are only 12 notes, & amp; until God gives us 13, I want you to know what everybody did with those 12. Bach, Beethoven, Bo Diddley, everybody … it’s the same 12 notes !! ’”, Quincy Jones remembers her advice.
Teacher -Student
Gabriel Fauré, Trio d-Moll Op. 120
Lili Boulanger, D’un soir triste
Lili Boulanger, D’un matin de printemps
Camille Saint-Saëns, Trio e-Moll Op. 92
In 1913, Lili Boulanger became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome. Five years later, seriously ill, she dictated her latest compositions to her sister Nadia: D’un soir triste and D’un matin de printemps. Lili Boulanger’s teachers also included Gabriel Fauré, who in turn not only learned from Camille Saint-Saëns, but also remained lifelong friends with him. Student relationship with each other. An exciting audio journey through French romanticism.
Robert Schumann – Wolfgang Rihm
Robert Schumann, Fantasiestücke op. 88, I. Romanze
Wolfgang Rihm, Fremde Szene I
Robert Schumann, Fantasiestücke op. 88, II. Humoreske
Wolfgang Rihm, Fremde Szene II
Robert Schumann, Fantasiestücke op. 88, III. Duett
Wolfgang Rihm, Fremde Szene III
Robert Schumann, Fantasiestücke op. 88, IV. Finale
“The three“ attempts ”for piano trio have become classics of new chamber music since their first performance in the early 1980s. Wolfgang Rihm is fully aware of the“ strangeness ”of his chamber music“ scenes ”- especially that of the second trio, which has the title“ character piece ”. and reminds the listener of Schumann. The composer warns: “The foreign tongue speaks its own, no tone is quoted, the ‘tone’ is dropped, plunged.” In the course of the work, the music becomes, so to speak, “crazy” with Schumann’s gestures and quasi-quotations, Rihm seems to be playing with tradition, directing the music in ways that surprise and fascinate the listener. ” Bálint Varga
For Wolfgang Rihm’s 70th birthday, the trio has come up with a program that takes up the “madness” that Bálint Varga called “madness”, the torn, the fragmentary. The history of the piano trio genre, which Rihm initially still seems to be “present behind a veil”, is commented upside down by Schumann’s rarely played fantasy pieces, namely from the past, and thus creates new perspectives and levels of tension.
Boulanger Trio & Omar Massa, Bandoneon
Astor Piazzolla and his Influences
Astor Piazzolla, Oblivion
Johann Sebastian Bach, Präludium und Fuge C-Dur BWV 553
Alberto Ginastera, Danza de la Moza Dolorosa
Nadia Boulanger, Trois pièces für Cello und Klavier
Sergei Rachmaninow, Trio élégiaque Nr. 1 g-Moll
Astor Piazzolla, Adios Noniño und Fuga y misterio
Astor Piazzolla, Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas
With this program, the Boulanger Trio approaches Astor Piazzolla’s music from its classical tradition. The musicians pursue his enthusiasm and admiration for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and, along with Sergei Rachmaninov, pay tribute to his New York teacher Bela Wilder, a student of Rachmaninov.
At their side, the ensemble has the celebrated Argentinian bandoneon player Omar Massa, who has been interpreting Piazzolla’s music since he was six and is often seen by the press as his successor.
Boulanger Trio & Andrè Schuen, Bariton
Folk Songs
Ludwig van Beethoven, Trio G-Dur op. 121a, “Kakadu-Variationen”
Benjamin Britten, Folk Songs
Frank Martin, Trio sur des mélodies populaires irlandaises (1925)
Ludwig van Beethoven, Schottische und Irische Lieder für Bariton und Klaviertrio
Frank Martin’s piano trio is based on Irish folk song melodies and complex rhythm models that Martin experimented with in the early 1920s. The composer Benjamin Britten was also interested in folk songs. He arranged over 60 “English Folk Songs” for voice with piano or guitar accompaniment, many of which he performed together with the tenor Peter Pears. A century earlier, however, Ludwig van Beethoven had arranged numerous songs from the British Isles for one or more voices with piano trio, a selection of which will also be heard.
Boulanger Trio & Johann von Bülow
Tucholsky in Sweden
Text from the novel “Schloss Gripsholm” by Kurt Tucholsky
Music by Elfrida Andrée and Ludvig Norman
Tucholsky’s novella “Gripsholm Castle” is set in the “red castle”. But the summer love in Gripsholm between Peter and Lydia is not only carefree. Gripsholm also has dark colors, grounds the Berlin snout with Low German sprinkles, hides literary cabinet pieces such as the depiction of cruel rituals in the ancient Roman “Circus Maximus”.
Musically complemented with works from the Swedish Romanticism, the evening becomes a Scandinavian experience.
Boulanger Trio & Johann von Bülow
The old Man and the Sea
Text by Ernest Hemingway
Music by Astor Piazzolla, Antonín Dvořák and Ernest Bloch
Big game hunter. Deep sea fishermen. Civil war fighters. Womanizer. Ernest Hemingway was many things. Successful. Independently. Very masculine. And he suffered alive. Two days after his discharge from the clinic that was supposed to treat his depression, he shot himself in 1961. His life was arduous, like that of the fisherman Santiago, whose duel with the fish he described in his most famous novel “The old man and the sea “Describes.
Spencer Tracey, Anthony Quinn and Robert Redford played Santiago in adaptations of the Hemingway novel; Horst Janson did it on stage. Johann von Bülow portrays the fisherman in this program. Piazzolla’s “Seasons” are an atmospheric backdrop for the duel between fish and man. Ernest Bloch’s “Nocturnes” sprinkle in dramatic spice.
Boulanger Trio & Johann von Bülow
1914 – 1918
The benches in the school went empty.
A musical-literary memory
Music by Maurice Ravel, Rudi Stephan, Lili Boulanger and Paul Juon
Text: Soldiers letters; Poems and prose by Erich Maria Remarque, Erich Kästner, Stephan Zweig and Mascha Kaléko
In sound and word, the Boulanger Trio and the actor Johann von Bülow deal with the First World War, which went down in European memory as the Great War. Great in the extent of the suffering, gigantic in the dimension of mass killing, unspeakable in its senselessness. The artists have selected musical and literary works that reflect this in terms of content and time.
Boulanger Trio & Ulrich Noethen & Hans von Trotha
A Sentimental Journey
An evening that revolves around the Irish-English author Laurence Sterne. Sterne, who invented the modern novel in the middle of the 18th century, is considered to be one of the most daring experimenters in literary history.
In the National Portrait Gallery, a picture of Sterne hangs opposite one of Georg Friedrich Handel. Both represent the England of those decades – one literarily, the other musically – and when they come together, the London of that time emerges again, which everyone can experience through the senses. Sensuality is an important keyword with regard to Sternes literature: he tries to convey all kinds of emotions to us through his texts, to make them tangible for us – just like music does. The music of this evening echoes his lyrics, for example when the musicians of the Boulanger Trio find music by Arvo Pärt on the occasion of the experience of death, for which Sterne chooses radically modern means in his book. And when Sterne, instead of simply telling it, wants to know from his readers what the most beautiful of all women might look like, Franz Schubert’s “Adagio in E flat major D 897, Notturno” sounds. The echo chamber of music is far with this unusual author who has always wanted to expand the language and literary means – and just as the text can surprise every single page, there is also an appropriate musical replica.