The international classical music trade fair Classical:NEXT will be held digitally this year, as will the Innovation Awards ceremony on 20 May 2020. The aim of this award is to raise awareness of pioneering projects in the field of classical music worldwide every year. The registered projects will be judged by a international jury and nominated for the award. This year it consists of 26 music journalists and expertswho are committed to the renewal of classical music and track down corresponding trends. They see it as their task to inform professional classical music players about potential recipients who move outside their own national or professional environment.

Also involved in the decision is the global art music community, which can be reached via the Classical:NEXT network site (www.classicalnext.com/net) can select the three best projects by voting. The award ceremony will be hosted by Mischa Kreiskott from NDR Kultur and streamed via several online channels.
 

Resistance to the criteria formulated in the draft bill on the basic pension has formed among federal cultural associations, even if the law is welcomed in principle. For example, the Federal Association of Visual Artists has written an appeal with 45,000 signatories to the federal government, members of parliament and the Federal Council, which is also supported by the Alliance of Liberal Arts.

According to Martin Maria Krüger, President of the German Music Council, creative professionals insured through the Artists' Social Security Fund (KSK) often do not even earn the required 30 percent of the average income that would be necessary to receive the basic pension according to the draft law, despite many years of highly qualified and enormously committed work.

For example, 20,000 artists are currently excluded from the basic pension because their income is too low. In turn, private pension provision is unaffordable for this professional group: a vicious circle of poverty.

The Music Council therefore appeals to the Bundestag to make improvements in the upcoming deliberations on the draft bill and to adjust the minimum income required for the basic pension downwards to 20 percent of the average income, in line with the situation of many creative professionals.

At a time when people are more likely to stick mini-pods in their ears when they're out and about than hum or whistle a tune themselves, the beautiful word "Gassenhauer" has long since gone out of fashion. While the popularity of music today is determined by charts, in the past it was voted on with the feet, or more precisely: on the street, namely by picking up the "catchy tune" and passing it on. In the decades around the turn of the 19th century, composers also liked to pick up on such popular melodies, wrote all kinds of arrangements (mostly for piano) and were well paid by publishers. Joseph Gelinek (1758-1825) was the undisputed "king of variations" in this respect in his day. Beethoven, however, always took a particularly thorough approach to a popular song.

Only rarely are such variations to be found in a chamber music context, as in the finale of the Piano Trio in B flat major op. 11, which is scored for clarinet (instead of violin).Pria ch'io l'impegno" a melody from the opera L'amor marinaro ossia Il corsaro (Der Korsar oder Die Liebe unter den Seeleuten) by Joseph Weigl (1766-1846), which was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on October 15, 1797. However, in this case it was probably not only the catchy music that contributed to its rapid popularity, especially as it does not come from an aria or canzonetta, but from a trio (at the beginning of Act II) between the captain, his servant Pasquale and Cisofautte, a bandmaster who sets clear priorities for himself: "But before I show myself as a master / I must first eat. / Then they will see / how much I can do. / When from the heights / to the depths / my hollow stomach / resounds so brightly." The vernacular is "An empty stomach can't jump well" not too far away from that.

Not quite an "evergreen", the "Pria ch'io l'impegno" inspired numerous contemporaries to create variations, fantasies or even more - in addition to works by Joseph Eybler, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Joseph Wölfl and Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Nicolò Paganini even wrote a Sonata con Variazioni op. 29 for violin with orchestral accompaniment. And as late as 1832, a certain H. W. Stolze from Celle published a set of variations for piano and violoncello op. 6. Nevertheless, Weigl's melody has only survived in Beethoven's composition - which is now (and not entirely accurately) referred to as the "Gassenhauer Trio".

The libretto (Italian/German) was also published in Dresden in 1798 under a slightly different opera title; the "Gassenhauer" can be found on p. 118/119 (scan 122/123). Link to the libretto.

Link to the project homepage "52 x Beethoven"

At today's meeting, the Federal Council decided to extend the Covid Culture Ordinance by four months. In today's press release, it cites the fact that the impact of the coronavirus on the cultural sector goes well beyond the period of validity of this support as the reason for this decision. All major events with more than 1,000 people will remain prohibited until at least the end of August 2020 and numerous cultural institutions will have to remain closed until at least June 8. Regarding the funds allocated on March 20, he writes: "The total amount remains at CHF 280 million for the time being. However, funds that were previously used to finance interest-free loans for cultural enterprises will now be partially allocated to default compensation. So far, applications for support amounting to CHF 234 million have been received."

Even a two-time extension of the registration deadline could not save this year's edition. According to the ARD press release, it is completely uncertain whether the candidates and jury members will be able to travel by the end of August - but given the international nature of this competition with participants from countless countries on four continents, this is an absolute prerequisite.

The subject combination for this year's competition (flute, trombone, string quartet and piano) will be postponed to the 71st edition of the competition (August 29 - September 16, 2022). This year's applicants will then be able to register again, even if they have already exceeded the age limit for 2020 by then - a one-off goodwill arrangement due to the extraordinary situation.

The annual festival of ARD prizewinners, which has been taking place since 2001, with 14 concerts in southern Germany from May 9 to 23, 2020, also has to be canceled. As an alternative, prizewinners from previous years will perform a studio concert without an audience at Bayerischer Rundfunk on Monday, May 25, 2020, which will be broadcast live on BR-KLASSIK radio and in a video stream at br-klassik.de/concert from 8.05 pm.
 

For around three weeks now, creative artists have been able to submit applications for support to the cantonal cultural offices. The amount of damages applied for already amounts to over 42 million francs. 366 applications have been submitted by creative artists, 105 by profit-oriented and 73 by non-profit-oriented cultural enterprises. The applications come from the entire cultural sector, from all over the canton, from all cultural fields. They were submitted by individuals, groups and companies.

The amount of the individual applications varies greatly and ranges from small three-digit to seven-digit amounts. The total amount of damages requested for the 544 applications currently amounts to CHF 42.2 million. According to the federal ordinance, the submission deadline is May 20.

The aid package of a maximum of CHF 20 million in compensation from the lottery fund, which the cantonal government of Zurich put together for the cultural sector on March 18, is aimed exclusively at non-profit cultural enterprises. The cantonal government has now decided this week to apply to the cantonal parliament for a supplementary credit of CHF 13.25 million for default compensation for profit-oriented cultural enterprises.
 

What would Beethoven have said when Robert Schuman formulated the first steps towards a united Europe in a declaration on May 9, 1950? The peace of the world could only be preserved through creative efforts, and: "Europe cannot be created in one fell swoop, nor by a simple summary. It will emerge through concrete facts that first create a solidarity of action." Even 70 years later, these words from the French foreign minister at the time are still justified. In a sense, they are also derived from the experiences of the early 19th century, when only the community of many nations was able to put a stop to Napoleon and his troops. The fact that the Congress of Vienna, which soon followed, did not fulfill the hopes of all those people who had made sacrifices, is another matter ...

For the Danube metropolis, the years 1814/15 were a time of great celebrations and amusements, as the heads of state and their entourages were not only to be entertained in the best possible way: The ballroom often became a place of diplomacy. So much stateliness also encouraged the creation of festive cantatas. However, such occasional works lead a shadowy existence in music history, if they have not fallen completely through the cracks. In the fall of 1814, for example, Beethoven created the Glorious moment a composition that was only performed twice more during his lifetime after the high-profile festive concert on November 29 of that year. It was not published until 1835, but then in a lavish and expensive edition. Two years later, the publisher replaced the original, situation-related libretto with a more general poem by Friedrich Rochlitz (Sound Art Prize) and explicitly pointed out in the preface to the edition that this "did not necessitate the slightest change in the music" have.

Beethoven was fully aware of the representative function of his composition. The expansive movements, the rich forte of the orchestra and the choral parts, many of which are reminiscent of Handel, are still evidence of this today. No. 3 is probably the most unusual and impressive (O heavens! what a delight!), in which the solo soprano and choir are joined by a solo violin. The finale, with its piccolo and effective "Turkish music", takes up some of the later Ode to joy but here it is further expanded by the use of a children's choir. Beethoven's later plan to precede the work with an overture was not carried out. - The Leipzig newspaper reports on the premiere General musical newspaper: "Apart from the highest court and all the monarchs present ... the hall was full to bursting." All these circumstances did little for the work. The glorious moment has remained an insider tip to this day.

Link to the project homepage "52 x Beethoven"

From August 2020, he will seamlessly take over the management of the Musikkollegium Winterthur from his predecessor Samuel Roth, who will then become Director of the House of Winterthur. Deuber was Managing Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy for twelve years. His responsibilities included the strategic development of the Festival Academy, maintaining an international network and managing the entire Academy team and the alumni orchestra.

He was also responsible for fundraising and (together with the artistic director) for programming and planning the concerts and masterclasses. Since April 2017, Dominik Deuber has also been Artistic Director of the Generations International Jazz Festival Frauenfeld, which takes place every two years.

At the end of February, it was announced that the current director of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Samuel Roth, was leaving the orchestra to take on a new challenge as director of the House of Winterthur organization. 46 candidates from Switzerland and abroad applied to succeed him.

Born in 1991, Adria Böckli is a drummer and composer who plays various percussion instruments as well as guitar and piano. He completed his studies at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He graduated in 2018 with a Master of Arts in Jazz Performance. Böckli is a member of numerous bands such as Sebass, Extrafish, Jack Slamer, Fabe Vega, Tome Iliev Sextett and Bogavante. He is also involved in choir projects, musicals and as a theater musician.

Böckli is very interested in Eastern European music and has already spent time studying in Bulgaria and Macedonia in recent years. In Belgrade, he would like to explore the music of the Balkans and its interfaces with Western European and American musical forms. The residency is scheduled to run from April 1 to July 31, 2021. Those responsible hope that the international situation will have calmed down enough by then for the artist to take up the scholarship.

The studio is periodically advertised for a four-month residency for artists from Winterthur. A total of eight people applied for the scholarship. Cultural practitioners from all disciplines who have lived in the city of Winterthur for at least three years without interruption or who have a special connection to cultural life in the city of Winterthur through their artistic work were eligible to apply
 

Venzago oversaw the merger of the orchestra with the Stadttheater under the umbrella of Konzert Theater Bern and during the renovation phase of the orchestra's home, the concert hall in the Casino Bern. His era also included concert tours in Germany, England and China as well as CD recordings (Othmar Schoeck, Anton Bruckner and Robert Schumann). The Board of Trustees, chaired by President Nadine Borter, awards Venzago the title of Honorary Conductor.

The BSO management will conduct the 2021/22 concert season exclusively with guest conductors. A committee of orchestra members is responsible for designing the 2021/22 concert program. Until the election of a new chief conductor, this will be led by the designated artistic director Florian Scholz.

It is unacceptable that festivals are left alone with the decision to cancel and expose themselves to liability risks that cannot be quantified, writes the forum. Strict hygiene and social distancing rules could also be implemented at cultural events.

Reliable criteria and clear framework conditions regarding the future eligibility of costs are also needed quickly. In addition, many festivals are facing negotiations about public funding for the coming year. The Forum is therefore calling for a flat-rate assessment and approval of the average grants for the past three festival editions.

More info:
http://forum-musik-festivals.de

Changing listening and usage habits have led to an increasing shift from physical to digital music consumption with downloading and streaming among library users. According to the canton's statement, the use of the music library in the recent past was still around a quarter of its best use (2005: 99,388 loans, 2019 with slightly different recording: 22,632).

This prompted the ZBS Board of Trustees to review the continuation of the music library. The increasing shift in costs to the IT sector and library network solutions also resulted in a drastic reduction in the media credit: at CHF 180,000, this is currently far (52.1 percent) below the long-term average media expenditure of around CHF 376,000. Against this background, the Board of Trustees decided to close the music library at the end of May. Only musical works created in the canton, on cantonal themes or by Solothurn artists will continue to be collected as so-called Solodorensia as part of the cantonal collection mandate.

The closure also has consequences for the staff: two people are losing their jobs (each with a workload of 20 percent). Continued employment at the ZBS is not possible, but solutions are being sought.

It must be strangely touching that Beethoven was working on another composition at the same time as the 4th Symphony, with which he opened up completely different, new spheres of expression. For the 5th Symphony virtually rises above the previous genre tradition in several respects. Firstly, Beethoven expands the orchestration in the finale, which was definitely worth mentioning in a letter to Count Franz von Oppersdorff (to whom the 4th Symphony is dedicated): "The last piece of the symphony is with 3 trombones and flautino Piccolo flute - not 3 timpani, but will make more noise than 6 timpani and better noise at that." Secondly, the scherzo and finale are formally linked, so that the scherzo with its shadowy transition to the radiant C major of the last movement seems like an oversized introduction. Beethoven repeats this astonishing effect again at the beginning of the recapitulation, which even Louis Spohr, who was otherwise reserved in his approach to the work, found deeply respectful: "The last movement with its meaningless noise is the least satisfying; the return of the scherzo in it, however, is such a happy idea that one must envy the composer. It is of ravishing effect!" Thirdly, it is the radicalism with which Beethoven begins the first movement: not with a slow introduction, not with a fully formulated thematic shape, but simply with an archetypal motif consisting of two notes and four, whose impulse of movement is already stopped by a fermata in the second bar, but which is present in almost every bar of the movement.

However, with this symphony, Beethoven not only introduced a new concept to music, but also paved the way from Viennese Classicism to musical Romanticism. E. T. A. Hoffmann recognized this as early as 1810 in his General Musical Newspaper published a landmark review of the work: "Beethoven's instrumental music also opens up to us the realm of the monstrous and immeasurable. Glowing rays shoot through this realm of deep night, and we become aware of giant shadows that rise and fall, enclose us tighter and tighter and destroy everything in us except the pain of infinite longing .... Mozart draws on the superhuman, the marvelous, which dwells in the inner spirit. Beethoven's music moves the levers of awe, fear, horror and pain and awakens that infinite longing which is the essence of Romanticism. Beethoven is a purely Romantic (and therefore a truly musical) composer."

The autograph, with its numerous deletions and revisions, shows that the sublimity described here was associated with hard work for Beethoven. Leonard Bernstein demonstrated this impressively in a legendary television program in 1954. Link to the video. With these insights into Beethoven's writing desk, the much-heard first movement can also be experienced anew.

The autograph of the 5th Symphony is in the possession of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz and can be browsed through online (the various deletions at the end of the first movement can be found on pp. 82-86). Link to the autograph.

Link to the project homepage "52 x Beethoven"

In music, Philippe Adam (percussionist, Bern), Silvan Joray (guitarist, Gerlafingen) and Eve Schütz (musician, Solothurn) will be supported. The prizes are endowed with CHF 15,000 each. The applications were judged "on the basis of the quality of the artistic statements, the continuity of the artist's work to date and their potential for development, as well as the innovation and professionalism of their work".

The Cantonal Board of Trustees for Cultural Promotion received a total of 52 applications for the 2020 sponsorship awards and the 2021 studio grants. 32 artists applied for a sponsorship award in one of the six disciplines - visual arts, music, literature, photography and film, theater and dance as well as cultural mediation/cultural exchange. 10 applications were received for a residency at the artist studio in Paris in 2021. Two artists were also awarded six-month studio residencies in Paris in 2021. A studio residency is associated with a contribution of CHF 18,000 towards living expenses.

The event offers Bachelor's and Master's students, doctoral students and young postdocs from Swiss universities and colleges the opportunity to come into contact with each other and present scientific projects. It consists of a poster exhibition, a symposium, the presentation of the Handschin Prize and a lavish aperitif. The conference venue is the Kuppelraum in the main building of the University of Bern.

Poster presentation:
If you would like to present your scientific work in the form of an A0 poster, please submit your project idea by May 29, 2020 and the production costs will be covered.

Symposium:
Anyone wishing to present a scientific topic in a 20-minute presentation and discuss their findings with the audience should also submit their topic by May 29, 2020.

Web seminar:
On June 17, 2020, 10 a.m., a workshop on the design of scientific posters will take place under the direction of an experienced speaker.