At the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2022, world premieres by Georg Friedrich Haas, Hannah Kendall, Bernhard Lang und Mauro Lanza have been presented.



14.10.2022 (WP)

Bernhard Lang – Cheap Opera #3 "May" (2021)

Bernhard Lang’s most recent documentary music theatre Cheap Opera #3 "May" for the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and the bass clarinetist Gareth Davis is based on the writings, drawings and concepts of May Kooreman – architect and writer, afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. The focus is on reduction to the essentials: Perception, identity, death and life.

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
Gareth Davis (bass clarinet)

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About Cheap Opera #3 "May"

"We are all human beings, have relationships, live through birth, disease, death. Why is my life with PD so different, what is there to tell? Are my experiences not universal in the end? Does not everyone feel lonely and lost at times? We all bring in our own fears, convictions, tastes. There is not one truth about PD, it is my perception next to yours." Read more







15.10.2022 (WP)

Mauro Lanza – Gretchen and the fragment on machines (2022)

Gretchen and the fragment on machines is Mauro Lanza’s own take on automation and music about machines. It’s the illustration of a "soft" machine that seems to know the poetry of flesh and whose gears, wheels and levers can rearrange themselves fluidly anytime. The Lincolnshire Poacher, another new ensemble work by Lanza, was recently premiered in Paris.

Talea Ensemble
Susanne Blumenthal (cond.)

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About Gretchen and the fragment on machines

Nowadays we tend to associate machinal behavior with the binary system, and thus with the four-on-the-floor dogma that dominates genres like electronic dance music. It wasn’t always so, since wheels and cogs can create any combination of rhythms: the pattern of Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade for example depicts a gracious ternary spinning and the same sort of pattern can be found in other machine-related pieces like Iron Foundry by Alexander Mosolov. Read more








16.10.2022 (WP)

Georg Friedrich Haas – weiter und weiter und weiter ... (2022)

Georg Friedrich Haas' multicolored shimmering overtone formations bring space and time into unusual relationships. In weiter und weiter und weiter ... he creates constant accelerations. For 45 minutes, an eternal, relentless accelerando is celebrated.

Ensemble Modern
Vimbayi Kaziboni (cond.)

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About weiter und weiter und weiter ...

A few years ago, I wrote down my memoirs. Memories of childhood and youth – in a family that defined itself as "decent National Socialists who have always remained true to their beliefs". I wrote about the violence and abuse to which I was subjected. And I described the network of old Nazis that permeated Austria, a small part of which I was able to perceive with my own eyes and ears. Read more








16.10.2022 (WP)

Hannah Kendall – shouting forever into the receiver (2022)

In the same concert by Ensemble Modern, ricordilab-laureate Hannah Kendall's shouting forever into the receiver incorporates "pre-programmed music boxes [...] tirelessly repeat[ing] truncated tinkling versions of [Beethoven, Mozart and Strauss] originals, linking the present back to the time when these well-known historical works were written: during the establishment of the Plantations".

Ensemble Modern
Vimbayi Kaziboni (cond.)

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About shouting forever into the receiver

"shouting forever into the receiver" is a line from Ocean Vuong’s novel "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous", describing a tiny green plastic toy soldier perpetually fixed in this action. When I first read this phrase, it reminded me of the shouts and cries, not only of the Plantations, but those of the Plantation Machine, its ongoing feedback-loop system, despite the passing of time. Read more