1) Les grands spectacles II. Just a couple of words on this exhibition at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg. After yesterday’s boring display of traditional stage setting, it was refreshing, fascinating, and shocking (in the cases of Hermann Nitsch and Christoph Schlingensief) to learn more about the history of stage design. The exhibition that focuses on the interplay of fine arts and stage design, comprises examples from the 19th to the 21st centuries. It traces the development of modern stage design from the earlier ideal of a two-dimensional painted scenery to the turn of the century three-dimensional sets, constructivist approaches in Russian avantgarde circles, to Walter Gropius’ Totaltheater, to experiments with stage lighting and video projections.
2) OENM and Siegfried Mauser at the Salzburg Festival. This was an evening with two distinct concerts. The first program contained pieces for various ensembles by Johannes Kalitzke, Pierre Boulez, Ludwig Nussbichler, and Salvatore Sciarrino. The second program for piano plus live electronics or with prerecorded music from CD featured music (?) by Olga Neuwirth, Georg Friedrich Haas, Gerd Kühr, Hans-Jürgen Bose. It is sad that the pieces on the second program were of such a low quality. Olga Neuwirth’s composition is a joke; every first year student in electroacoustic music has a better control over the technical processes and tools. Haas’ piece is an exercise in mathematical formalism and sounds like a calculator connected to a pair of speakers. Kühr and von Bose should work as stand-up comedians; their pieces are real slapstick numbers, full of nonsense and idiotic babble. By contrast, the first concert contained a set of fabulous pieces, most notably Kalitzke’s Six Covered Settings and Sciarrino’s Quaderno di strada.
[...] The Kontinent Scelsi series presents two evenings with the Basel Sinfonietta. The first program featuring several Scelsi pieces for orchestra and Beata viscera by Perotin, and the second evening with a performance of Gerard Grisey’s fabulous Les Espaces Acoustiques. There is some more Grisey on the program: First, in a concert with Les Percussions de Strasbourg (Le Noir de L’etoile) in which there will be projections of astronomical signs, and later during the week in what promises to become a memorable evening with the Klangforum Wien (Scelsi: Okanagon; Tristan Murail: Desintegration; Scelsi: Anahit; Grisey: Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil). The Ensemble Modern will present a program with pieces by James Tenney, György Ligeti, and Georg Friedrich Haas (remember? he’s the one whose music sounds like a calculator hooked up to loudspeakers…). The big surprize in this year’s festival is surely a concert with the jazz, rock, and punk guitarist Marc Ribot whom many of you will recognize as the counterpoint genius on Tom Wait’s Swordfishtrombones. This special performance will alternate compositions by Scelsi with pieces from Marc Ribot’s album Scelsi Morning. The Scelsi week concludes with an improvisation that will be interspersed between pieces by Scelsi for trombone, guitar (Ko-Tha), and doublebass (Le Reveil). [...]
[...] Update 1: Wow, the moderation of the concert makes really no sense. I’m glad I didn’t go: lengthy interviews with the composers between the pieces are just not my case. Now Olga Neuwirt’s concerto for bassoon and orchestra. Let’s see how that goes. I remember a terrible piece by her for piano and tape at the last Salzburg festival. [...]