Alan Gilbert conducts Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft
Alan Gilbert returns to the music of Magnus Lindberg this week when he conducts the New York Philharmonic in the New York premiere of the Finnish composer’s Kraft (1983-85), a theatrical tour-de-force employing a large orchestra, unusual instruments (including, for this performance, scrap metal from a Staten Island junkyard), electronics, soloists (including the New York Philharmonic debut of Lindberg at the piano), and groups of instruments placed around the hall. The landmark work, which Lindberg calls “my breakthrough piece and my biggest and most complex work,” will be performed on October 7, 8 and 12, along with Debussy’s Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, with Joshua Bell as soloist.
Alan Gilbert comments:
“What Magnus did with Kraft is to rethink what music is about. The title refers to the German word for power but also to the English word ‘craft’ – as in construction, building things, putting things together, skill. He uses pure sound as the main element, which in this case is produced by the full orchestra as well as by found percussion instruments, junkyard scrap metal. The orchestra is using sound as building blocks to create structures in time – creating musical structures. There’s this visceral sense of construction and destruction happening with pure sound.
“The spatial element is very important. You have to hear this piece live in a hall; you can’t really experience its impact on a recording. There are stations placed in the four corners of the hall where the musicians go to play. If you sit in the middle you get the sense that the sound is spinning around you because of the way it’s written.
“The concept of melody doesn’t come into Kraft: it’s about the building blocks of sound creating this edifice. It’s going to thrill a lot of people and probably annoy some others! It’s loud: a kind of organized chaos. It has an alternative, heavy-metal kind of aesthetic to it. It’s an amazing piece.”
Magnus Lindberg is the Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic, and he and his music have figured prominently in Alan Gilbert’s first two seasons at the helm of the orchestra. Lindberg’s EXPO, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was the first work Gilbert conducted with the orchestra when he began his tenure last fall. A new work by Lindberg will be on the program in November when Gilbert conducts CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series, at Symphony Space and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Additional information about Kraft, including a video interview with Alan Gilbert, can be found at the New York Philharmonic web site: http://tinyurl.com/25u5lrn
Alan Gilbert: upcoming engagements – fall 2010
Oct 6
Debussy: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Oct 7, 8, 12
Debussy: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
Magnus Lindberg: Kraft (New York premiere)
Magnus Lindberg, piano
Chen Halevi, clarinets
Carter Brey, cello
Christopher S. Lamb, percussion
Daniel Druckman, percussion
Markus Rhoten, timpani
Juhani Liimatainen, electronics
Oct 9
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University, Brookville, NY
Sibelius: Violin Concerto (with Joshua Bell, violin)
R. Strauss: Don Juan
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Oct 14-16
Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1
Brahms: Violin Concerto (with Pinchas Zukerman, violin)
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Oct 19
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture
Brahms: Violin Concerto (with Pinchas Zukerman, violin)
Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Oct 24 – Nov 4
“Europe / Autumn 2010”: European tour with the New York Philharmonic
Nov 10, 11, 13
Mendelssohn: Elijah
With Carolyn Sampson, soprano; Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano; Allan Clayton, tenor; Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; New York Choral Artists / Joseph Flummerfelt, director
Nov 12
New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
Beethoven: Violin Concerto (with Midori, violin)
John Adams: Harmonielehre
Nov 19
CONTACT! (the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series at Symphony Space, NYC)
Magnus Lindberg: new work (world premiere)
Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (with Barbara Hannigan, soprano)
Nov 20
CONTACT! (the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC)
Magnus Lindberg: new work
Gérard Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil (with Barbara Hannigan, soprano)
Nov 26-27
Paris, France; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
School concert, Nov 26
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Family Concert, Nov 27, matinee
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Concert, Nov 27, evening
Zemlinsky: Sechs Gesänge After Poems by Maurice Maeterlinck, Op. 13
(with Yvonne Naef, contralto)
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Dec 9-10, 12
NDR Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany (Dec 9)
Lübeck, Germany (Dec 10)
Hamburg, Germany (Dec 12)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Dec 17
CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC)
Julian Anderson: The Comedy of Change (U.S. premiere)
James Matheson: New work (world premiere)
Jay Alan Yim: New work (world premiere)
Dec 18
CONTACT!, the New York Philharmonic’s new-music series at Symphony Space (NYC)
Julian Anderson: The Comedy of Change (U.S. premiere)
James Matheson: New work (world premiere)
Jay Alan Yim: new work (world premiere)
Dec 28-30
Vivaldi: Concerto for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10
Aaron Jay Kernis: a Voice, a Messenger (world premiere, New York Philharmonic commission)
Hindemith: Horn Concerto
Christopher Rouse: Oboe Concerto (New York premiere)
Ravel: Boléro
Dec 31
Tchaikovsky: “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Lang Lang, piano)
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Act II
(broadcast on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations)
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© 21C Media Group, October 2010