This is the most suitable edition of Antonín Dvořák's trio for practical use! The pages are arranged by the editor so that you don't have to turn the pages until the end of the second movement, the paper is of a stable quality and the bar numbers are set at the beginning of each line and do not include the upbeat. None of the printed parts I know of in the past five decades fulfilled all these criteria at the same time. The concise Critical Report for this Urtext edition testifies to great care. Differences between the autograph score and the first printing of parts and score are pointed out in the notes. The editor Annette Oppermann gives priority to the most plausible solution in each case. The parts contain no bowing devices, only original fingerings, which are limited to occasional harmonics and empty strings. This is also a boon for the performers!

The story of how this gem of chamber music came about is amusing: in 1887, a chemistry student and amateur musician lived in Dvořák's house and received violin lessons in his room. While working on symphonic commissions, Dvořák heard the two violinists and was inspired to be the third violist in their ensemble. Due to a lack of literature for this instrumentation, he composed the Tercet op. 74 (the original Czech name) and shortly afterwards delivered the Drobnosti (trifles). The latter were arranged by the composer for violin and piano as Romantic pieces op. 75, however, is more popular.

The italianizing name Terzetto Opus 74 in C major was given a German title by Dvořák's publisher Fritz Simrock, who did not want to comply with the composer's wish for a Czech title in view of the German music market. The German name "Terzett", on the other hand, would have offended Dvořák's Bohemian homeland.

The sounds Antonín Dvořák conjures up with this small ensemble are masterly! And the instrumental demands remain appropriate to the level of advanced pupils and experienced amateurs. This edition now also makes rehearsals easier and banishes all worries when turning the pages.

Antonín Dvořák: Terzetto in C major op. 74, for two violins and viola, edited by Annette Oppermann; parts, HN 1235, € 12.00; study score, HN 7235, € 8.00; G. Henle, Munich

The questions are interesting: How much responsibility does a rock musician have? When does he or she reach the limit where provocation crosses over into taboo zones, into so-called "no-gos"? Rock and pop musicians have always dabbled in precarious areas - be it openly displayed sex fantasies (Rammstein eloquently: Bend over) or dark scenes of violence with references to the Third Reich (Slayer: Angel of Death). But not all the lyrics should be taken at face value. Some things - see Rammstein - are ironically broken, others - see Slayer - are deliberately inscribed with that scandal and are not necessarily politically motivated, but merely sales-promoting. A big outcry is advertising. It arouses interest.

The many pop and rock phenomena can hardly be reduced to a common denominator. In this respect, the author and pop critic Jens Balzer does well to start with a few selected examples. There are, for example, those rappers who have late adolescents in mind. "Young, brutal, good-looking xxx" is the slogan of rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang. Their lyrics are full of sex, violence and even anti-Semitism, which led to the Echo scandal. "My body more defined than by Auschwitz inmates", says the song 0815. Elsewhere they rap: "Make another Holocaust, come on with the Molotov."

Whether something like this can be justified with the concept of artistic freedom remains doubtful. For Balzer, in any case, such misconduct is an indication of the brutalization of morals. He sees clear parallels between music and today's politics, where Syrians, Muslims or Jews find themselves in the verbal crosshairs. For Balzer, pop's responsibility would mean a conscious counter-reaction to the new right in the sense of intelligent lyrics without phrases, without catchphrases à la Kollegah. And also a politically correct language, as he describes it in the case of the English performance artist Planningtorock, which is open to the different, the foreign in the sense of differentiated transgender considerations. "It's about," says Balzer, summing up, "the irreplaceable hope that pop can give us places and spaces, moments and opportunities in which people who are perhaps very different from ourselves meet us not as competitors and opponents, but as friends."

The 200-page book Pop and populism is already thought-provoking. However, it is questionable whether the cloak of silence would not be a better alternative than criticism, which is easy in the case of less intellectual rappers, but ultimately leads nowhere. Pop as a mass phenomenon is usually superficial to highly embarrassing per se. The same applies to right-wing politics. The lyrics there are also "emotional" - but far more dangerous than music for teenagers who just want to be strong.

Jens Balzer: Pop and populism. On responsibility in music, 206 p., € 17.00, Edition Körber, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-89684-272-5

Ever since Constantin Floros discovered the cryptic clues in the Lyrical Suite of Alban Berg, which document his love affair with Franz Werfel's sister Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, there is no lack of attention for his widow Helene Berg. After all, she survived him for 41 years, described herself as a "composer's widow" under the heading "Profession" in the "Registration form for main (annual and monthly) residential parties" and felt obliged not only to look after the compositional estate, but also to record something of Alban's life: "You must see how Alban lives ..." This is also the headline above Daniel Ender's major contribution in the chapter "Memory Spaces". Since the first edition of the letters was ultimately met with a great deal of mistrust, her work understandably focused on "image" building.

Her efforts to create an active foundation were successful and are also appreciated. However, her way of making the "auto/biographical" part appear as small as possible has again led to critical comments, but has also brought different assessments to light after Helene Berg's death in 1976. The confrontation of academic archival work with the "gender-attributive tasks" of widows as "educators of souls" inherited from the 19th century is addressed in various contributions. The call for a reassessment of Helene Berg's behavior is not only raised by Anna Ricke, but can also be derived from the above-mentioned contribution by Daniel Ender with the subtitle "Berg's living spaces and the staging of the authentic". In his essay on the Alban Berg Complete Edition, Martin Eybl also posed the question of why Helene Berg did not even consider such an edition despite the "broad spectrum of her activities".

The wealth of interesting illustrations and written documents should not go unmentioned.

Stiften Erinnerung - Helene Berg und das Erbe Alban Bergs, edited by Daniel Ender, Martin Eybl and Melanie Unseld, 210 p., € 29.95, Universal Edition and Alban Berg Foundation, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-7024-7574-1

The members Alicja Pilarczyk (violin), Pablo González Balaguer (saxophone), Nejc Grm (accordion) and Guillem Serrano (drums) of the Concept Store Quartet have been working together since September 2018 and have made a name for themselves in German-speaking countries in a very short space of time. They commission all the works they create themselves.

Léa Legros-Pontal (viola) and Silke Strahl (saxophone) have dedicated themselves to contemporary and experimental music as the duo Klexs since 2016 and are committed to expanding their repertoire.

The Zurich-based collective IиTERиATIOиAL Totem (Léo Collin, Nuriya Khasenova, Kay Zhang) won the prize of CHF 15,000 in the "Open Space" category, which was held for the first time. Stanislas Pili and the duo Eventuell with Manuela Villiger and Vera Wahl also received a "Mention of the Jury".

The aim of the Concours Nicati is to discover and promote young personalities aged between 18 and 35 who are committed to contemporary music. The competition is organized by the Association du Concours Nicati. It maintains close partnerships with the Fondation Nicati-de Luze and the Music Department of the Bern University of the Arts HKB.

SMM - Prevention and health promotion in the music profession are key objectives of the Swiss Society for Music Medicine. A horn class and a presentation by Peter Knodt, lecturer in trumpet didactics at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), will introduce the topic at the Basel Music Academy. Knodt interviewed graduates and the team of horn teachers on the subject and sees inter-institutional cooperation, suitable individual skills profiles and shared artistic and pedagogical convictions as important factors for health and lasting satisfaction in everyday working life.

Knodt's discussions will be supplemented by Horst Hildebrandt, Director of the Swiss University Center for Music Physiology, with thoughts on self-help concepts that play a decisive role in prevention and therapy. He will show how helpful a mixture of perception training, tone regulation, strength building, movement, breathing and posture training can be - supplemented by techniques for rapid regeneration and muscle and fascia care.

At the symposium, Rheinfelden psychiatrist Andreas Schmid will show where professional musicians find strength and recovery when they reach their limits. He will discuss the sources of resilience that prevent crises of creativity, exhaustion or even mental illness. His lecture will cover the general principles of resilience and their practical significance in everyday life as a musician.

The Zurich music physiologist Oliver Margulies presents concepts for anchoring a music physiology program at music education institutions. They go back to the pilot project "Music Physiological Counseling" developed by Horst Hildebrandt at the German music school in Lahr in the 1990s. It developed into the music physiology teaching and counseling programs that exist today at the music academies in Zurich and Basel. The lecture provides an insight into two projects supervised by Margulies since 2010 at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory and at the Zurich Conservatory of Music. These include individual counselling for teachers and their students, teacher training, stage training, support for gifted students, access to research projects and specialized counselling at the ZHdK.

Elke Hofmann is a digitalization officer and lecturer in aural training at the Basel University of Music. She reflects on the digital transformation that makes information available anytime and anywhere. The rapidly changing new technologies require additional availability, flexibility and communicativeness and therefore also make demands that can be perceived as stressful.

Those taking part in the symposium can attend two workshops in addition to the presentations. One is entitled "Who moves - wins: making the most of physical resources with FBL Functional Kinetics". Music and movement physiologist Irene Spirgi Gantert will show how physical and psychosocial resources are closely interrelated. Strengthening physical resources involves dexterity as well as flexibility, endurance and strength exercises.

The second workshop is dedicated to "The joy of musical expression - Dispokinesis for musicians". Flutist Karoline Renner will show how the method offers solutions for pain, breathing problems, lack of success when practising and performance anxiety, among other things. The aim is to improve your own instrumental and artistic skills. The workshop gives a first impression of the connections between physical and mental posture and how self-esteem can be developed through self-observation.

When one thinks of Dvořák's solo concertos, it is surely first and foremost his brilliant
Cello Concerto op. 104, "the perfect concerto ever", according to the pianist (!) Rudolf Buchbinder. His only piano concerto in G minor op. 33 is rarely heard in our concert halls. What are the reasons for this?

At the time, Dvořák already had some experience as a composer in the field of chamber music and symphonies. However, his very own tonal language is only partially revealed in the three movements of the work. Borrowings from masters such as Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner and Brahms are still unmistakable. This is particularly the case in the first movement, while the slow second movement already reveals very personal traits. However, what has repeatedly prevented many pianists from including this concerto in their repertoire is probably the unwieldy, uncomfortable piano writing, which sounds enchanting in places but does not allow for virtuoso showmanship.

For this reason, around 100 years ago, the Czech piano teacher Vilém Kurz felt compelled to thoroughly revise the solo part. For decades, only his version seems to have been played. One of the first pianists to champion the original version was none other than Sviatoslav Richter. He played the concerto quite frequently and even recorded it in 1976 with the Bavarian State Orchestra (under Carlos Kleiber!).

Robbert van Steijn recently republished this original version by Bärenreiter-Verlag, both the piano reduction and the score. The preface provides all kinds of enlightening information about the complicated history of the work's reception, and Ivo Kahánek adds some very useful tips on interpretation and fingering.

The growing interest in Dvořák's piano concerto in recent times cannot be overlooked. The new Bärenreiter edition will presumably reinforce this trend. András Schiff is probably not wrong when he says: "Numerous piano concertos of the 19th century, which are part of the repertoire of many pianists - and are played far too often - are no less complicated pianistically, without reaching Dvořák's work in terms of musical expression and compositional skill."

Antonín Dvořák: Concerto in G minor op. 33 for piano and orchestra, Urtext edited by Robbert van Steijn; score, BA 10420, € 59.00; piano reduction, BA 10420-90, € 32.50; Bärenreiter, Prague

Hiroshima, August 6, 8:15 a.m.: The peace bell is struck seven times. It is the moment in 1945 when an American bomber released the atomic bomb ten kilometers above the city. Tens of thousands died within seconds, and by the end of the year the number of victims had risen to around one hundred and forty thousand as a result of the radioactivity. Every year, the chimes open the memorial ceremony, which is attended by the survivors and their families, high-ranking officials, a large part of the diplomatic corps from Tokyo and thousands of ordinary citizens at ground zero of the explosion, today's Peace Park. A minute's silence is followed by speeches from the Mayor of Hiroshima and the Prime Minister, a flock of doves flies up and two children read out a pledge of peace.

Photo: Max Nyffeler

An exhibit at the Hiroshima Peace and Remembrance Museum: the kitchen clock stopped at the moment the bomb exploded.

The short and dignified ceremony is a highly visible part of a carefully cultivated culture of remembrance in the city, which today once again has over one million inhabitants. In addition to various memorials in the park, this includes the ruins of the former Chamber of Commerce and Industry, known worldwide as the "atomic bomb dome", and above all the Peace and Remembrance Museum. It documents the death and mass suffering of the victims in a way that is as factual as it is harrowing and demonstrates the destructive potential of the bomb in an exemplary educational section. It is terrifying to think that something like this could happen again anywhere in the world today.

Photo: Max Nyffeler

Point Zero and today's Hiroshima, on the left the monument of the "atomic bomb dome"

Since 2015, these traditional activities have been complemented by the "Music for Peace" initiative, which focuses on the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra stands for. It has set itself the task of spreading the idea of peace, which is held in high esteem in this city, throughout the world. Among its supporters, Martha Argerich is at the forefront with the honorary title of peace ambassador for the orchestra. The initiator and driving force is Shoji Sato, whose main job is working for a Tokyo artists' agency, and the symphony orchestra acts as the artistic sponsor. With thematically oriented concert programs and using the global connections in today's music business, it forms the hub of a long-term, international exchange program that not only extends to reciprocal orchestra visits and soloist activities, but also involves orchestra musicians individually or in groups, depending on the project.

Photo: Max Nyffeler

The concert hall in Hiroshima

The "transplantation" of orchestral musicians is unusual and points to one of the basic ideas behind the initiative. Beyond the legitimate endeavor to better position the orchestra on the international market, the aim is to broaden the background experience of both the individual musicians and the orchestra as a whole and to contribute to understanding across continents, language barriers and cultural peculiarities through human encounters. Orchestral education and peace education complement each other. "'Music for Peace' wants to make people aware of the idea of disarmament," says Sato. It is not surprising that our European classical music serves as a medium for such Japanese peace signals. It has a high status in the Far East, the audience is enthusiastic and, as can be observed in Japan at least, consistently well informed. It is also growing continuously, not least due to the influence of the media, without which nothing would work today.

On the eve of this year's memorial day, the Hiroshima Orchestra, under the direction of its permanent guest conductor Christian Arming, gave a concert with a new work by Toshio Hosokawa, the first cello concerto by Dmitri Shostakovich and the first symphony by Gustav Mahler. Hosokawa was born in Hiroshima and is currently the orchestra's composer-in-residence. He learned Western compositional techniques from Klaus Huber in Freiburg, but his musical language is audibly rooted in Asian musical sensibilities. Here, the lively line as a principle of form and vehicle of expression takes the place of a harmonically structured order; the harmonic space is replaced by the spatiality of the gesture, which - analogous to the brushstroke in calligraphy resulting from the movement of the body - begins and ends in nothingness, i.e. in silence.

Hosokawa refers to this parallel in the context of the recently premiered composition Song V there. It is a short, very concentrated concerto for cello and string orchestra with percussion and harp. Characteristic East Asian symbolism is also evident in the formal structure: according to Hosokawa, the solo part represents the voice of man, while the orchestra stands for inner and outer nature. The melodic line is enlarged to gigantic proportions, it spans the entire tonal space, frays and tangles and grows into expressive sound processes - a permanently high-voltage stream of energy that is brought to life with gripping intensity by the English cellist Steven Isserlis. The colorful orchestra provides the appropriate resonance chamber.

The Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra is one of Japan's top orchestras, it is responsive and cultivates a sparklingly transparent sound. The brilliant wind section and the flexible string sound are striking. It was able to make full use of its qualities in the concluding Mahler symphony, where it conjured up something of a Viennese atmosphere on the distant Pacific under Arming's inspiring direction with its collective rubato playing, the little swerves and glissandi, especially in the melancholy slow movement.
 

Photo: by courtesy of Hope Project, Hiroshima

Akiko's piano in front of the "atomic bomb dome"

The orchestra's initiative has already forged numerous links with Europe and Canada. There is a particularly close relationship with Sinfonia Varsovia; both were founded after the war in a city that had been razed to the ground, and to mark the centenary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Poland, the two orchestras recently performed in Warsaw in a mixed formation, playing Beethoven's Ninth together and Martha Argerich performed Chopin. Krzysztof Penderecki was already a guest in Hiroshima in June. In addition to Beethoven, he conducted his 2009 premiere in Krakow under Valery Gergiev. Prelude for Peace and his second violin concerto; two members of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra took part as external orchestral musicians.

But the really big fireworks will take place next August in Hiroshima, when the orchestra will once again perform the Ninth with twenty guest musicians from Poland, Denmark, France, Germany and the USA and choristers from Hanover, Hiroshima's twin city. And the surprise of the evening: Martha Argerich, otherwise not exactly known as a champion of contemporary music, will premiere a new piano concerto. It is called Akiko's PianoThe composer is Dai Fujikura. He is no stranger to Switzerland; in 2004 Pierre Boulez invited him to the first Festival Academy in Lucerne and a year later conducted his orchestral piece Stream State.
The piano concerto ends with a cadenza that evaporates into a triple piano at the end. Martha Argerich will switch from the grand piano to Akiko's piano. Akiko was a nineteen-year-old girl from Hiroshima who died from nuclear radiation the day after the explosion. Her piano, a high-quality instrument made by the American manufacturer Baldwin, survived the apocalypse, was restored and will now be played in public for the first time in this concert, initially in Hiroshima and then in Europe; according to reports, contact is also being made with Lucerne.

The pictures of the dead, the tattered clothes and the everyday objects melted into lumps in the Hiroshima Peace Museum are silent witnesses to the city's downfall. Akiko's piano tells of the horror, but also how to overcome it, in sound.
 

Photo: Max Nyffeler

The Hiroshima Peace and Memorial Park

Born in Australia in 1992, Kirsten Milenko lives and composes in Copenhagen and studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Niels Rosing-Schow and Simon Løffler. She previously studied with Liza Lim, Rosalind Page, Natasha Anderson and Ursula Caporali at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She is signed to Australian label Muisti-Records and her debut album Caeli was released in June 2019.

Alex Vaughan, born in Sidney in 1987, began trombone lessons at the age of eight, followed by several years of training in jazz and music theory at the Music Life-School of Performing Arts under the direction of Rory Thomas in Sidney. He studied composition and jazz trombone at the University of New South Wales and then moved to Weimar to continue his studies in Germany. His teachers include Reinhard Wolschina, Jörn Arnecke and Hansjörg Fink.

The Roche Young Commissions were first launched in 2013 as a unique collaboration between Roche, Lucerne Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy. Since 2003, works have been commissioned from world-renowned composers as part of the Roche Commissions, and the partnership has been expanded with the Roche Young Commissions. The works of the Roche Commissions and the Roche Young Commissions are premiered alternately every two years.

"I don't just play the piano ..." was the title of a music program on SWR2 in 2016 that portrayed composing women from different centuries. Playing the piano, which is, so to speak, the basic skill of a daughter from a good family, is usually one of the focal points of female composers in the 19th century. They performed as pianists and gave piano lessons, but not only that, they also composed for this instrument. In addition, they often received singing lessons and then accompanied themselves on the piano. In this way, the second focus of composition, the song, also grew out of this domestic musical tradition.

Many of the female composers we have chosen for our concert in honor of Clara Schumann grew up with female "role models" in their families who performed in public as musicians. Clara Schumann's mother, Marianne Tromlitz, performed as a soloist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts. Clara's friend of many years, Pauline Viardot Garcia, was born to sing, so to speak: Her father is an opera tenor and composer, her mother a singer and actress. After the death of her older sister, the famous singer Maria Malibran, Pauline, who was initially trained as a pianist, followed in her sister's footsteps. Josephine Lang's mother was also a singer. Fanny Hensel and Mary Wurm also had mothers who gave their children lessons themselves and provided them with a solid musical education.

Although familiar with music and closely associated with women who practise their profession as musicians in public, female composers are breaking new ground with their work. Composing is not considered a woman's job. As the critic Hans von Bülow wrote: "Reproductive genius can be attributed to the fair sex, just as productive genius is absolutely to be denied. There will never be a female composer, only a female copyist. I do not believe in the feminine of the term: creator. I also hate to death everything that smacks of female emancipation."
 

Clara Schumann saw herself primarily as a pianist. "I feel called to reproduce beautiful works [...]. The practice of art is a large part of my self, it is the air in which I breathe." She judged some of her own compositions to be less than successful. "[...] of course it always remains women's work, where there is always a lack of strength and here and there a lack of invention." And: "But I can't compose, it makes me quite unhappy at times, but I really can't, I have no talent for it." Her reasoning: "Women as composers can't deny themselves, I accept that from myself as from others." There are also statements that show pleasure in their own compositions: "There's nothing like the pleasure of having composed something yourself and then hearing it."

Robert appreciates Clara's compositions and sometimes admonishes her not to neglect composing. He also regrets that she does not get to compose in addition to her many tasks. "Clara has written a series of smaller pieces that are as delicate and musical in their invention as she had never managed before. But having children and a husband who is always fantasizing and composing do not go together. She lacks sustained practice, and this often moves me, as many an intimate thought is lost that she is unable to carry out." In these lines, Clara appears to be a composer to be taken seriously. However, no solution to the problem is sought. And when the two enter into direct competition, equality is no more. Robert suffers when Clara is the center of attention on concert tours. Robert wants to be depicted above Clara on a double medallion because the productive composer is above the reproducing artist. The fact that a clear hierarchy is concealed behind the superficial equality is also evident in the quote from Franz Liszt: "No happier, no more harmonious union was conceivable in the world of art than that of the inventing man with the performing wife, of the composer representing the idea with the virtuoso representing its realization."
 

For Pauline Viardot, creative and performing artists are of equal value. " [...] the dramatic artist must constantly create - he must conceive human, living, feeling, passionate, perfect figures, true to nature down to the smallest detail, and present them to the audience. Above all, I admire the creative master, and right next to him the creative artist. Both are inseparable - for each alone remains mute, and together they create the highest and noblest pleasure of man, art." Pauline was able to experience both sides intensively, devoting a long time to her stage career. Her eldest daughter grew up with her mother and her husband often accompanied Pauline on her tours. Then, at the age of 42, she ends her stage career, teaches, composes and only gives a few concerts. Clara Schumann admires the ease with which Pauline accomplishes everything. After the performance of two short operettas by Pauline, she writes: "The skill, subtlety, grace and roundness with which everything is done, often with the most amusing humor, is wonderful! [...] and as soon as she has written it all down, it just plays from sketch sheets! And how she rehearsed it, the children, how enchanting they are [...]! Everywhere in the accompaniment you can hear the instrumentation - in short, I found again confirmed what I have always said, she is the most ingenious woman I have ever met, and when I saw her sitting at the piano like that, conducting everything with the greatest ease, my heart softened [...]."

Although Fanny Mendelssohn received the same musical training as her brother Felix, her situation as a woman made it impossible for her to publish her compositions. Her father wrote to his fifteen-year-old daughter: "What you wrote to me about your musical activities in relation to Felix in one of your earlier letters was as well intended as expressed. Music may become his profession, whereas for you it can and should only ever be an adornment, never the foundation of your being and doing; [...]. Persevere in this attitude and this behavior, they are feminine, and only the feminine adorns women." Later he also admonishes her in this sense, which Fanny comments to a friend as follows: "The fact that one's miserable feminine nature is brought forward every day, at every step of one's life, by the masters of creation, is a point that could infuriate one, and thus deprive one of femininity, if it did not make evil worse."

Felix, who encouraged other female composers such as Josephine Lang and Johanna Kinkel in their compositions, remained dismissive of Fanny's efforts. He writes to his mother: "You praise her new compositions, and that is really not necessary, [...] because I know who they are by. Also [...] that as soon as she decides to publish something, I will give her the opportunity to do so as much as I can and relieve her of all the trouble that can be spared. But persuade I cannot publish anything for her because it is against my views and convictions. [...] I regard publishing as something serious [...] and believe that one should only do it if one wants to appear and stand as an author for the rest of one's life. [...] And Fanny, as I know her, has neither the desire nor the profession to be an author, she is too much of a woman for that, as is right [...]." When Fanny decided to publish her compositions at the age of forty, knowing that her brother would not like it, Felix finally gave her the "blessing of the trade" and wished her much joy.
 

Johanna Kinkel seems to have known very early on that she wanted to "make music her business". The family did not think this was appropriate. Her grandmother says: "Thank God we don't need our only child to learn music for her own entertainment". Johanna is therefore sent to a school where she is supposed to learn "housekeeping". But she doesn't like that at all. "Oh, how much better and easier I would have learned basso continuo, because I had already heard somewhere that there was a thing by that name that helped you to compose."
"I don't want to be a dilettante, I want to be an artist." She subsequently pursued this goal with great determination. She travelled to Felix Mendelssohn to play for him and then organized her musical training in Berlin. After studying basso continuo, she felt able to put her ideas into practice. "I had felt the urge to compose from a young age, but I didn't want to weaken it by putting a lot of amateurish ideas on paper without knowing the theory, as so often happens. [...] Now that I realized what had previously prevented me from clearly expressing my inner melodic world, I felt as if all my thoughts wanted to bud and blossom into sounds."
 

If one believes the reviewers of the time, none of the women composed as "masculine" as Louise Adolpha Le Beau. "One does not usually expect such solidity of theoretical development, such dexterity in the treatment of form, as in orchestration, from ladies; here we find a masculine, serious spirit, an artistic development on an extremely solid foundation, combined with a fine feeling for beauty of form and sound," said one reviewer in praise of Le Beau. When she approached Rheinberger in Munich to take lessons, he turned her down. He did not want to teach women. After playing her own compositions, she was accepted as "Mr. Colleague", and he attested to the exceptional quality of her Violin Sonata op. 10, saying it was "masculine, not as if composed by a lady". This praise runs like a red thread through the reviews, as in the following comment: "Ms. le Beau is one of the exceptions who make it further; if there weren't many men writing really bad music, then I would express my praise in the words: she composes like a man!" On the one hand, Le Beau seeks recognition as a composer; on the other, she finds herself in competition with her male colleagues. Despite her qualities, she searches in vain for an opera house that will perform her opera, and a professorship for composition in Berlin also remains closed to her. Women are not considered for this position.

If you look at the compositions of women from the 19th century, piano works and songs clearly dominate the picture. This is the case with Clara Schumann, Johanna Kinkel, Josephine Lang and largely with Fanny Hensel. However, an overview of Fanny Hensel's compositions is still not available today.

Fanny Hensel describes her difficulty in writing longer works as follows: "It is not so much the manner of writing that is lacking as a certain principle of life, and due to this lack my longer works die of old age in their youth, I lack the strength to hold the thoughts properly, to give them the necessary consistency. That is why I succeed best with songs, which only require a pretty idea without much strength of execution [...]." When women venture into composition, it is in the areas of piano music, song and chamber music. The large forms, oratorio, opera and symphony belong to "male" composition. Mary Wurm and Louise Adolpha Le Beau are active in this area, although not for the most part.
 

Since Beethoven, the symphony has been the crowning glory of a composer's career, so to speak. Mary Wurm wrote a children's symphony and Louise Le Beau a (single) symphony (op. 41), which earned her admiring reviews: "It is probably the first time that a lady has soared to the pinnacle of instrumental music, and with success. The composer not only knows how to treat the symphonic form masterfully, but also how to unify it with a wealth of musical ideas." And: "It undoubtedly takes a great deal of courage for a lady to write a symphony, both because of the peculiar difficulties of this musical genre and because of the prejudice that is held by the public against a lady's achievement in this field of composition, which was previously reserved exclusively for men. Miss Le Beau was able to draw her courage from the wealth of her musical invention, her phenomenal compositional technique for a lady and her secure mastery of orchestral means of expression. Her Symphony in F major is a musical work which, although not always equal in quality, is captivating and excellently developed in all movements..."

In this respect, only one of the composers we have selected has really reached Olympus. Fortunately, musical quality also exists without a mountain of the gods. This magnificent, diverse world of female composers is well worth a visit, and there is still much to discover.
 

The multi-year subsidy will enable greater planning security and ensure equal treatment with other major events, writes the city of Winterthur.

After "organizationally eventful years", the association einewelt.ch has been responsible for running the festival since 2016. Under its aegis, the event has consolidated over the past two years. With the exception of 2016, the city of Winterthur has supported the Afro-Pfingsten event on a project basis in recent years. With the subsidy agreement, the city wants to meet the organizers' wish for more planning security.

The subsidy agreement is limited until December 2022 and can be extended by the City Council for a further two years.
 

According to international media reports, the only thing missing for the appointment is the formal approval of the opera's supervisory board. This is to take place at a meeting on September 6. It was announced in June that Pereira's contract in Milan would not be extended. He will be succeeded in Milan by the current Vienna Opera Director Dominique Meyer.

In Florence, Pereira takes over a house in crisis. The previous artistic director Cristiano Chiarot resigned in July in protest against the new Maggio Musicale president Salvatori Nastasi, and the general music director of the Zurich Opera House Fabio Luisi, who also served as music director in Florence, has now also resigned from this position out of displeasure.

According to a statement from international media reports, the dead are the saxophonist Hannah Marcinowicz, the composer Jonathan Goldstein and their seven-month-old daughter.

The cause of the crash is not yet known. The two were apparently flying from London to Troyes and Lausanne, with Italy as their destination.

Goldstein ran a company for advertising jingles and wrote music for theater and film. Hannah Marcinowicz performed as a soloist at the BBC Proms in 2005 and has worked with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Speaking with drums", the title of the exhibition, is to be understood literally: Drummers in West Africa use their instruments to imitate the rhythm and melody of spoken language. For example, those of the Yorùbá in southwest Nigeria or those of the Ashanti in Ghana - tonal languages in which the pitch of a syllable determines the meaning of a word.

At political and religious events, the percussionists greet guests of honor with their talking drums and quote their biographies; they recite prayers or proverbs; they talk about past events, take a political stand and thus mediate between current events and history.

Even during the colonial era and at the time of the transatlantic slave trade, drummers raised their voices and combined their music with influences from other musical cultures. This ultimately gave rise to styles such as jazz, soul, reggae and hip hop.

More info:
http://talkingwithdrums.ch

As in the previous cultural contract, the funds from the Canton of Basel-Landschaft are earmarked for cultural center services in the area of professional contemporary cultural creation. In future, the Canton of Basel-Landschaft will pay the compensation to the Canton of Basel-Stadt and no longer to individual institutions. The distribution of funds to the institutions will be carried out by the Canton of Basel-Stadt on the basis of criteria that will be set out in a contract.

Funding for the bi-cantonal specialist committees BS/BL will be based on full parity from 2022. The canton of Basel-Landschaft will increase its contributions to the joint specialist committees for literature, dance and theater as well as music. A newly established regional specialist credit for structural development BS/BL will enable the selective support of institutions, associations and festivals from both cantons for structural and organizational developments.

Original message:
https://www.baselland.ch/politik-und-behorden/regierungsrat/medienmitteilungen/neuer-kulturvertrag-zwischen-den-kantonen-basel-stadt-und-basel-landschaft-an-die-parlamente-ueberwiesen