Othmar Schoeck Festival 2024: Coming of Age
Full steam ahead into the limelight: the sixth Othmar Schoeck Festival in Brunnen from September 6 to 8, 2024 will focus on the composer's early works and present a musical panorama of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.
Othmar Schoeck grew up in Brunnen and began his music studies at the Zurich Conservatory in 1904. In 1907, he accepted Max Reger's invitation to join his Leipzig composition class. Back in Switzerland, Schoeck earned his living by conducting two male choirs in Zurich, while he became increasingly well-known as a composer. His early compositions soon brought him international attention.
Even though Schoeck felt committed to German Romanticism and saw himself as a successor to Schubert and Hugo Wolf, he knew the works of his contemporaries very well and drew inspiration from them. The Othmar Schoeck Festival 2024 presents a musical panorama of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and examines the Brunner composer's first career steps in the period before the First World War.
The program
Unheard-of love: Béla Bartók and Othmar Schoeck both raved about the Hungarian violinist Stefi Geyer. Right in the Opening concert with the Moser String Quartet their first string quartets can be heard and in the big symphony concert on Sunday Schoeck's violin concerto "Quasi una Fantasia". The Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren performs the work dedicated to Stefi Geyer together with the Basel Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Izabelė Jankauskaitė.
Particularly noteworthy is the Sunday morning service with the young Swiss baritone Manuel Walser. He sings Schoeck's three sacred songs op. 11 accompanied by Stefan Albrecht on the organ in the parish church of St. Leonhard.
And as always, the next generation of musicians is involved, be it with world premieres in the Chamber music concert, in the Workshop "futur composé" with Dieter Ammann or in a Colloquium of the Institute of Musicology at the University of Zurich, which presents case studies on press coverage of Schoeck's premieres and presents them in a Panel discussion is concluded.
There are seven events in total. A total of 18 works will be performed. An orchestra, a string quartet and a brass quintet, together with all the other 22 musicians, plus two musicologists, a musicologist and some students will be performing.
The performances
Opening concert, Friday, September 6, 2024, 8 p.m., Reformed Church Brunnen
Colloquium, Saturday, September 7, 2024, 3 p.m., Villa Schoeck, Brunnen
Concert and world premiere, Saturday, September 7, 2024, 8 p.m., Villa Schoeck, Brunnen
Church service, Sunday, September 8, 2024, 10 a.m., Roman Catholic parish church of St. Leonhard, Ingenbohl-Brunnen
Podium, Sunday, September 8, 2024, 2 p.m., Villa Schoeck, Brunnen
Workshop, Sunday, September 8, 2024, 4 p.m., Villa Schoeck, Brunnen
Symphony concert, Sunday, September 8, 2024, 8 p.m., Seehotel Waldstätterhof, Brunnen
Tickets are available from August 7 at ticketino.ch or via schoeckfestival.ch bookable. Reservation recommended.
The works
Jonas Achermann:
Composition sketch for brass quintet
Béla Bartók (1881-1945):
String Quartet No. 1 (1908/09)
Viktoryia Haveinovich:
Composition sketch for brass quintet
Alma Mahler (1879-1964):
Three songs
Aregnaz Martirosyan (*1993):
Duo for violin and piano (UA)
Christoph Pfändler (*1992):
- Duo for soprano and violin (UA)
- Composition sketch for brass quintet
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937):
String Quartet in F major, op. 35 (1902/1903)
Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957):
- String Quartet No. 1, op. 23 (1911/13)
- Three songs by Heine, op. 4 for voice, violin and piano (1906)
- Three sacred songs for baritone and organ op. 11 (1906/07)
- Violin Concerto (Quasi una Fantasia) op. 21 (
Franz Schubert (1797-1828):
Symphony No. 3 in D major
Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942):
- Sonata for violin and piano op. 7 (1913)
- Drei Stimmungsbilder (after poems from "Die Garbe" by Hans Steiger) for soprano voice, violin and piano op. 12 (1913)
Hyeok Son:
Composition sketch for brass quintet
Luca Staffelbach:
Composition sketch for brass quintet
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903):
Italian Serenade, arranged for orchestra by Max Reger (1873-1916)
The contributors
Basel Chamber Orchestra, symphony concert
Jonas Achermann, composer, workshop
Heinrich Aerni, musicologist, podium
Stefan Albrecht, organ, church service
Dieter Ammann, Composer, Workshop
Ariadna Bataller, viola, Moser String Quartet, Opening concert
Xavier Gil Batet, trombone, KamBrass Quintet, Workshop
Sebastian Bohren, violin, symphony concert
Oriol Reverter Curto, tuba, KamBrass Quintet, Workshop
Lea Galasso, violoncello, Moser String Quartet, Opening concert
Inga Mai Groote, musicologist, podium
Viktoryia Haveinovich, composer, workshop
Izabelė Jankauskaitė, Conductor, Symphony concert
Doris Lanz, musicologist, podium
Joan Pàmies Magrané, trumpet, KamBrass Quintet, Workshop
Kanon Miyashita, violin, Moser String Quartet, Opening concert
Maria Servera Monserrat, French horn, KamBrass Quintet, Workshop
Patricia Muro, violin, Moser String Quartet, Opening concert
Christoph Pfändler, composer, workshop
Hyeok Son, composer, workshop
Julia Spaeth, soprano, concert and world premiere
Luca Staffelbach, composer, workshop
Nadezda Tseluykina, piano, concert and world premiere
Manuel Walser, Baritone, Divine service
Guillem Cardona Zaera, trumpet, KamBrass Quintet, Workshop
Susanne Zapf, violin, concert and world premiere
The association
The Othmar Schoeck Festival Association enables performances of Othmar Schoeck's music at his birthplace Brunnen. It promotes a critical examination of the composer's biography. Thanks to the targeted involvement of young musicians, the work of one of the best-known Swiss composers of the first half of the twentieth century remains relevant.
The Board of Management would like to thank all Persons and institutionswho support the festival.
