Friday, June 29, 2007

The Nation's Capital Celebrates Haydn And Mozart -- And Johann Hoven, Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, Zemlinsky, Weill, Szymanowski, And Webern

Austrian mezzo-soprano Elisabeth von Magnus and Dutch pianist Jacob Bogaart, under the patronage of the National Gallery of Art and the Embassy of Austria, have been giving a free, three-program overview of the Austrian and German Lied tradition, which has already featured performances of warm and exquisite songs by Haydn, Mozart, Johann Hoven, Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, and Zemlinsky.

The mini-residency concludes this evening, Friday, at the Austrian Embassy with an evening of German, French, and American songs by Kurt Weill.

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Program information to the performance of songs by Berg, Eisler, Schindler-Mahler, and Zemlinsky, at the National Gallery of Art, this past Wednesday -- part of the superb music program accompanying the exhibition Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945 -- are available here.

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This Sunday, July 1, at 6:30 PM, the Royal String Quartet from Warsaw, performs a free program of Webern and Szymanowski's two string quartets at the National Gallery of Art. Further information here.

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"Johann Vesque von Püttlingen (pseudonym Johann Hoven; July 23, 1803, Opole, Galicia [Silesia] - October 29, 1883, Vienna) was an Austrian composer who belonged to a noble family originally from Lorraine, the Vesques de Puttelange.

He befriended Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn, and beginning in 1828, he published a number of his own compositions, most of which, like the rest of his oeuvre, were contributions to the lyric vocal repertoire. In the end, he would compose over 330 lieder, notably the Ironischen Lieder; ten operas, including Turandot (1838) and Jeanne d'Arc (1840); and about twenty quartets, in both sacred and secular settings." (Wikipedia)
















The New Europeans are coming, the New Europeans are coming ... and they are not afraid of Western classical music!!

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Bonus Quote for the Day:

"I don't think there is much American music."
Sir Harrison Birtwistle

Photo credits: (c) Courtesy of the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Royal String Quartet, Warsaw, Poland. All rights reserved. With thanks.

1 Comments:

Blogger JMW said...

RE: Birtwistle: Oh, that's funny. One more reason why nothing of his will be coming to a hall near you.

8:21 AM  

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