Programme

Olga Neuwirth
locus ... doublure ... solus for piano and orchestra (2001)

Arnulf Herrmann
New composition for soprano and orchestra (2019) [commissioned by musica viva, world premiere]

Pablo Heras-Casado, Conductor

Anja Petersen, Soprano

Tamara Stefanovich, Piano

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Uncharted territory can’t be discovered every day, but sometimes a crack unexpectedly opens, allowing us to hear something never heard before. One of those unexpected strokes of luck is Olga Neuwirth’s piano concerto. None other than Pierre Boulez ecstatically proclaimed it to be a major expansion of the piano repertoire: “Its material is in a state of flux, so that listeners are drawn into an experience that leaves them fascinatingly unsettled.” Art can indeed leave us delightfully unsettled if it calls everything into question. The Berlin composer Arnulf Hermann, born in the same year as his wilful Austrian colleague, leaves the comfort zone of rationality in his new work and follows the poet Monika Rinck along surrealist byways. What he is seeking is not certainty or reassurance but psychedelic transformations. Hermann’s newly commissioned work for the Bavarian RSO, sung by soprano Anja Petersen, carries us onto shaky ground in a world where everything seems possible – except an orchestral song.