KARL AMADEUS HARTMANN – CENTER

In 2019 the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Composition Prize will be awarded for the first time!

NMZ (January 23, 2019): “The Karl Amadeus Hartmann Society announces for the first time in 2019 the Karl Amadeus Hartmann Composition Prize for String Trio (violin, viola, violoncello) to promote young composers. The Society is committed to the mission and intention of Karl Amadeus Hartmann to promote young, highly talented composers and to introduce them to the humanistic and socio-political dimensions of his works.

Members of the jury:
Isabel Mundry
Composer – Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München

Clemens Schuldt (permanent member)
Conductor – Chief conductor of the Münchner Kammerorchester

Ingolf Turban
Violinist – Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München

Hans-Hennig Ginzel (permanent member)
Composer, cellist – Musical director of the ensemble hartmann21

Andreas Hérm Baumgartner (Chair of the jury, permanent member)
Artistic Director, conductor – Managing Director of the Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft / Hartmann-Center

„Die Welt als Schlachthaus“ [“The world as a slaughterhouse”] – for Karl Amadeus Hartmann as well as for Heiner Müller, this was not a theoretical experience, but experienced reality. Composed in the last days of the war before the final collapse of the inhuman “Third Reich”, the sonata “27. April 1945” for piano solo concludes the canon of compositions with which Hartmann, since 1927, untiringly opposed the incipient and in 1933 assertive National Socialism. He rigorously refused to be appropriated by the totalitarian regime in Germany and went into internal emigration, while as a composer he tried to speak abroad all the more eloquently. In his music, however, Hartmann not only mourns the loss of humanity, but also accuses and explicitly understands his composition as a “Gegenaktion” [“Counter action”]. The “slaughterhouse” has also become a topos for Heiner Müller’s work. His texts oscillate between the poles of an endless and hopeless cycle of violence and the utopia of a revolution – „die Lücke im Ablauf, das Loch in der Ewigkeit“ [“the gap in the course of events, the hole in eternity”] – as works and counterworks.
Bibiana Beglau, one of the most renowned actresses, could be won for the reading of the text excerpts from “Hamletmaschine” and “Verkommenes Ufer – Medeamaterial – Landschaft mit Argonauten”. An Hartmanns historischem Flügel wird sie begleitet von Andreas Skouras, einem der versiertesten Interpreten des Œuvres Bernd Alois Zimmermanns.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V., sponsored by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München and Bezirk Oberbayern.

Composed immediately after the National Socialists seized power in 1933, Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s first String quartet stands exemplarily for the canon of compositions with which he composed against National Socialism. At the age of 28, he rigorously refused any form of appropriation and went into internal emigration in Germany. He smuggled his works abroad, however, in order to speak there all the more eloquently. By constantly including Jewish melodies (especially the Passover song Eliyahu hanavi) as well as music and text quotations of ostracized and forbidden artists, Hartmann tried to convey his message of boundless humanity in all his compositions.
Furthermore, our ensemble hartmann21 is dedicated to compositions by the young Dresden composer Jadwiga Frej (UA) and the renowned composer Mark Andre. Twenty-one years old Jadwiga Frej, who was born in Poland and grew up and lives in Dresden, must already be counted among the most exciting voices of her generation. The composer Mark Andre, born in Paris in 1964, creates existential spaces of experience in his music, which are characterized by subtle processes of change. The Hamburger Abendblatt called his chamber music, which is as fine as it is concentrated, „Kartenhäuser des Klangs, die kein Wind umzublasen vermag“ [“houses of cards of sound that no wind can blow around”]. …zu…, whose title refers to the Revelation of John from Patmos (22,5), ist joined by Andre’s iv8. “iv” is the abbreviation for i(ntro)v(ertiertheit). It is about inner compositional spaces that are developed by focusing on fluctuating and fragile sound form.
Where are the limits of perception, of notation, of sound experience? We would like to explore these questions together with the composers Jadwiga Frej and Mark Andre.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V., sponsored by Bayerische Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, LfA Förderbank Bayern and Bezirk Oberbayern.

With Helmut Lachenmann and Peter Eötvös, we can welcome two of the most incisive composers who have cruciallly shapened the music history of the 20th and 21st century. Lachenmann set very individual impulses, especially through systematic exploration of the instruments and innovative expansion of their playing techniques. In this way, the way music is created is included as well as, for example, timbre and volume. “TemA” – created in 1968 – is probably one of the first compositions in which breathing as an acoustically mediated, energetic process was a central theme. Entirely in the spirit of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, music here claims a socio-critical potential: „Schönheit als verweigerte Gewohnheit.“ [“Beauty as a denied habit”] (Helmut Lachenmann)
In his works “Psy” for flute, violoncello and piano and “Two poems to Polly” (text by Lady Sarashina from the 11th century) for a “speaking cellist”, Peter Eötvös also explores the field of tension between sound and language. His music has a language-analogue structure and draws from a rich fund of colours and moods. It is a special pleasure to meet Peter Eötvös – one of the most renowned conductors and pianists – also as interpreter of his own compositions “Erdenklavier – Himmelklavier” and “Un taxi l’attend, mais Tchékhov préfère aller à pied”.
With our new own ensemble hartmann21, we continue to feel committed to Hartmann’s intention to promote young, highly talented composers and performers. In this singularly composed programme we would like to introduce the Hungarian Máté Balogh and the Munich-based Swede Henrik Ajax, who in their newly created works refer to the two “light figures” of contemporary music, Lachenmann and Eötvös, trace content-related references and reflect and condense the theme of “music and language” in their respective individual ways.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V., sponsored by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, LfA Förderbank Bayern and Bezirk Oberbayern.

SZ (February 2, 2018): “The Karl Amadeus Hartmann Society allows itself a new ensemble of its own. The critical spirit of the eponym is thus to be brought into the present.”

We feel particularly committed to the intention of Karl Amadeus Hartmann to promote young, highly talented composers and performers and to introduce them to the humanistic and socio-political dimensions of his works. Within the framework of our series of events hartmann21 – with its soloist concerts and the format “Podium of Young Composers” – this request was taken into account in the past two seasons. Now we would like to build on this, but also break new ground and present to you for the first time our newly founded ensemble, the ensemble hartmann21.
In order to intensify the promotion of young national and international composers and to achieve a higher density of content, we have also developed a new concept for our concert series. An essential part of this is the collaboration with outstanding composers and performers, such as Peter Eötvös and Helmut Lachenmann (concert in June 2018) or Mark André (concert October 2018). Their extensive experience and international networking should benefit our musicians and composers and carry their quality perspectively to the “outside world”.
Under the title “Vexierbilder” we are pleased to present you in our premiere concert compositions by Jörg Widmann, Michael Jarrell and Toru Takemitsu as well as world premieres by Diana Syrse, Sebastian Schwab, Jan Masanetz, Tom Smith and Hans-Henning Ginzel. From solo, duo to trio instrumentation, the ensemble hartmann21 will carry you off into a play of light and shadow.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V., sponsored by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, LfA Förderbank Bayern and Bezirk Oberbayern.

Following the intention of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, the “Podium junger Komponisten“ [“Podium of Young Composers”] is a platform that enables selected young composers to create a programme for an entire evening and to compose temporally comprehensive works for it. Following in the footsteps of the great contemporary diagnostician Karl Amadeus Hartmann, works are created especially for this concert that consciously seek an artistic examination of today’s “realities of life”. The portrait concert focuses on works by the Armenian Arsen Babajanyan and the Georgian Ovanes Ambartsumian. Both understand literature as a source of inspiration for their works. Thus verses of love and the harsh realities of Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan’s life are directly set to music for voice, while William Shakespeare’s 30th sonnet serves exclusively as the intellectual foundation for a purely instrumental composition.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V. in cooperation with the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, sponsored by Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, Anja Fichte Stiftung, Theodor-Rogler-Stiftung and LfA Förderbank Bayern.

With the violinist Thomas Zehetmair, one of the most outstanding and exciting musicians encounters Hartmann’s work, exposes himself to it, reflects, traces references and, as an interpreter, lets the listener participate in his individual world of experience. In a singularly composed programme, Zehetmair, together with violist Ruth Killius, creates a kaleidoscope of different perspectives and modes of perception and in this way allows one to experience Hartmann’s musically progressive Second sonata for violin solo in a new way, which is radically border-crossing in its tonal language. After Bach and Reger, it was probably only Hartmann who succeeded in giving the violin such an unusually complex polyphony.
The theme of the artistic sublimation of human borderline experiences brackets together the concerts of the 2017 season. In the Sonata for solo viola from 1955 Bernd Alois Zimmermann dealt with the death of his daughter in the same year. In reference to Alban Berg’s violin concerto, he dedicated the work: „… an den Gesang eines Engels“ [“… to the song of an angel”]. The final section of the composition quotes the chorale “Gelobet seist Du Jesu Christ” [“Praise be to You, Jesus Christ”]. Zimmermann described the piece accordingly as a chorale prelude. In this sense, the preceding sections can be understood as a gradual crystallization and condensation of the chorale theme that emerges in its pure form towards the end of the work.
In Bohuslav Martinus’ “Three Madrigals” and Gideon Klein’s “Duo im Vierteltonsystem”, violin and viola now meet and relate to each other in a variety of ways – sometimes as equal partners, sometimes as the upper and lower sides of a page, or as an object and its shadow. Within the Three Madrigals, composed in 1947 in American exile, a playful humour is at work. Alongside and in the middle of the game, however, a deep sadness is also felt, recalling songs and dances from the past. What can no longer be sung and danced, can still be played. Gideon Klein finally composed his “Duo im Vierteltonsystem” in 1940 during his studies in Prague with Alois Hába, the founder of micro-interval composition and long-time companion of Karl Amadeus Hartmann.

An event of the © Karl Amadeus Hartmann-Gesellschaft e. V., sponsored by Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst and Stiftung Künstlerische Musikpflege.

#Listen#Out will cooperate from 2018 on with the big and over Munich well known concert series hartmann21!