Name: Kurt Schwertsik: Baumgesänge
Price: 17 USD
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Schwertsik's Viennese blend of gentle irony, nostalgia and absurdism has made little headway in the UK. This beautifully played orchestra disc should help. — BBC Music Magazine, December 2011, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Aug 2011
Catalogue No: CHAN10687
Label: Chandos
Length: 59 minutes

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Schwertsik: Nachtmusiken, Op. 104

Work length23:36

$5.00

$6.50

$8.00

HK Gruber, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 4-6 August 2010
Recording Venue: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester

I. Janácek ist mir im Traum erschienen. Ruhig bewegt

Track length6:36

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II. Wienerlied. Langsamer Walzer

Track length3:52

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III. …for David Drew. Ruhig bewegt und innig gesungen

Track length4:37

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IV. Geschwindmarsch. In rasender Wut

Track length3:02

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V. Flucht. Ruhig gehend

Track length5:29

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$1.60

Schwertsik: Herr K entdeckt Amerika, Op. 101

Work length14:42

$4.00

$5.20

$6.40

HK Gruber, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 4-6 August 2010
Recording Venue: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester

I. Überfahrt. Misurato, poco ritenente

Track length2:41

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II. Im Hotel. Allegretto

Track length2:37

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III. Unterwegs. Andantino tranquillo

Track length5:43

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IV. Das Naturtheater von Oklahoma. Andante con molto

Track length3:41

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Schwertsik: Baumgesänge, Op. 65

Work length21:22

$6.00

$7.80

$9.60

HK Gruber, BBC Philharmonic
Recorded: 4-6 August 2010
Recording Venue: Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester

I. Breit gesungen (Cantabile, ma pesante)

Track length2:37

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II. Lebhaft, Agressiv (Vivace)

Track length0:41

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III. Bleischwer (Molto pesante)

Track length4:58

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IV. Sehr gedehnt (Allagare il Tempo)

Track length4:56

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V. Beweglich (Poco rubato)

Track length3:08

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VI. Lebhaft, Agressiv (Vivace)

Track length5:02

$1.00

$1.30

$1.60

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About

The works by the Austrian composer Kurt Schwertsik are characterised by his own particular exploration of tonality, and his sense of musical irony and humour. A pupil of Joseph Marx and Karl Schiske at the Academy of Music in Vienna, he later studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Darmstadt. Here his works are performed by the BBC Philharmonic under HK Gruber, a close friend of Schwertsik’s and fellow founder of the MOB art & tone ART ensemble and the Third Viennese School.

Baumgesänge, Op. 65 (Songs of Trees) was composed in 1992 to a commission from the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) for the Wien Modern Festival that year. The work is inspired in part by the composer’s childhood memories. In Schwertsik’s own words: ‘Trees are friends. To climb a tree was a great joy to me and still is. In these six movements I have tried to give trees a voice… he who pushes aside his dreams has lost everything.’

In Baumgesänge, Schwertsik uses orchestral forces to evoke a sense of the majesty and height of the trees, the blaring wind, and the birdsong in the woods – even the blows of an axe are depicted through the use of tuba, double-bassoon, timpani, and piano.

Also on this disc is Herr K entdeckt Amerika, Op. 101, a work inspired by Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika. Despite the title (Mr K. Discovers America) there is not much specifically American about the music, although the rolling gait and touches of fanfare in the first movement, and the sense of large open spaces in the third movement, all contribute to the strong journeying character of the music.

Nachtmusiken, Op. 104 is Schwertsik’s most recent work, commissioned by the BBC and premiered in Manchester by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda in 2010. In his ‘night thoughts’, Schwertsik presents a series of urban nocturnes, elegies, and memories in a seductive mix of passion, sorrow, and melancholy that cannot help but to grip and hold captive the listener from start to finish.

Reviews

December 2011

Schwertsik's Viennese blend of gentle irony, nostalgia and absurdism has made little headway in the UK. This beautifully played orchestra disc should help.

November 2011

Gruber directs with conviction music he doubtless understands intuitively, while the BBC PO takes its many subtleties in its stride. Spaciously immediate sound, informative notes and a disc worth acquiring.

4th September 2011

Gruber is the BBC Phil’s composer/conductor, and Schwertsik (b1935) his lifelong Viennese friend and mentor, whose work he has tirelessly promulgated. These pieces well convey Schwertsik’s mercurial, ironic sensibility and his dextrous juggling of Romantic tonality and modernist impulse.

25th August 2011

The effectiveness of [Schwertsik 's] reconstituted language is shown in the three orchestral works by his close friend that Gruber conducts here. Nachtmusiken is the most recent: first performed by the BBC Philharmonic last year, it's a sequence of Viennese nocturnes, elegies and reminiscences of composers including Janácek, Mahler and Shostakovich.

15th October 2011

This disc of music by the quirky Austrian Kurt Schwertsik is a consistent joy...Schwertsik is far more than a skilled pastiche artist – ghosts from several centuries of Western art music drift in and out of these scores without overwhelming a distinctive and drily witty personality...Fantastic stuff, and sumptuously recorded.

Kurt Schwertsik: Baumgesänge

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