World premiere of Lourié songs
On the big concert evening as part of the 9th Arthur Lourié Music Days, the only small festival in the world dedicated to the Russian composer, six late-discovered songs will be heard for the first time.
Arthur Lourié (1892-1966) is one of the great unknown composers of the 20th century. He belonged to the Russian avant-garde, later worked for Igor Stravinsky and was enthusiastic about Debussy and Busoni. His music combines the traditional (and archaic) with experimental, sometimes even post-modern concepts in an original and personal way. Many of his vocal works, most of which are still unknown, breathe the rich spirit of the "Silver Age", the artistic epoch in the early 20th century when Russia entered the threshold of modernity.
The highlight of this year's Lourié Music Days in Basel is the concert on November 6 at the Gare du Nord. Sasha Boldachev will be playing the Cinq préludes fragileswhich he arranged for harp. The Asasello Quartet then performs the 1st String Quartet, composed in 1915.
Robert Koller, bass-baritone, and Saori Tomidokoro, piano, perform six late songs for the first time worldwide. These are the following works for baritone and piano: Two Poems (1941/after James Joyce), Ave Atque Vale: Three Dionysus dithyrambs after Fr. Nietzsche (1948) and Serious hour (1959/after Rilke). The concert is rounded off with a suite based on the ballet music from The Moor of Peter the Great (1949-61) arranged for harp by A. Boldachev, also a world premiere.
The Arthur Lourié Society Basel has been committed to the dissemination and understanding of the works of the composer Arthur Lourié since 2005. The artistic director of the 9th Music Days, which will take place from November 2 to 6, is Stefan Hulliger.
