Soirée of modernity

A double anniversary: to mark their 150th anniversaries, Stefan Litwin holds a “modernist soirée” celebrating Charles Ives and Arnold Schönberg, who were both born in 1874 – with a programme of music and literature, a Gesamtkunstwerk that reawakens the lost aura of each of their works. It is no coincidence that the piano virtuoso, born in Mexico City in 1960, who in addition to his professorship at the University of Music Saarland is a regular guest teacher in Europe and the USA, sees one of the main tasks of the performer to be “to alter the context, so that the piece can once more be understood from its original source.” The programme, hosted by the Austrian actor Michael Rotschopf acting as master of ceremonies, contains a selection of songs and instrumental pieces as well as excerpts from the writings, letters and diaries of both composers, who – one in Europe, one in the USA – made innovative contributions to modern music. Songs from Ives’s collection “114 Songs” meet a selection from Schönberg’s “Book of Hanging Gardens” op. 15. In addition to various piano pices and compositions for a piano quintet (with the Frankfurt-based Eliot Quartet) Schönberg’s “Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte” op. 41 will also be heard, which – in contrast with its ironic title – glorifies George Washington, turning him into Napoleon’s fictional opponent: a protest in sound against war, tyranny and the crimes of the Nazis.