AlbumRelease date:
17.06.2016
Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Christian Jost, Iván Fischer
Berlinsymphony Lover-Skysong
The aural magic of opposites. Christian Jost has composed a contemporary classic for the Konzerthausorchester and Iván Fischer When composing a new work, Christian Jost is always on the lookout for magic moments. His music is frankly topical, poetic and associative – it tells stories for people and about people. That places him firmly in the tradition of premieres last presented in grand style by the likes of Gustav Mahler and Giacomo Puccini, and within that context suggests the use of concert halls and opera houses as venues for confronting the present and current events. The peg for the works on Christian Jost’s Neue Meister debut is the magic of opposites. “When in the second part of the BerlinSymphony the saxophone emerges from a pulsing orchestral sound and then gradually withdraws ever further into aural isolation, the atmosphere is established in which the entire work moves,” is how Christian Jost explains the work dedicated to his native city, premiered and recorded in 2015 with the orchestra of the Berlin Konzerthaus under the baton of Iván Fischer. Scored for vibraphone, piano, harp and large orchestra, the work reflects the energy-laden overall sound of the city, interfused with the repetitive rhythms of Berlin’s night life. The saxophone roams this vibrant sound landscape for the listener as it were, questioning the relationship of the self to the constantly changing urban way of life. While BerlinSymphony transforms the macro perspective on Berlin into sound, Lover-Skysong focuses on the intimate memory of a loving couple’s life together. The newly-composed work, due to be premiered on June 20 at the Neue Meister concert in Berlin, was recorded with the German Chamber Orchestra of Berlin under the direction of Christian Jost himself. The orchestra is augmented by a trio comprising percussion, electric bass guitar and piano. Jost describes the progress of the composition thus: “Even the opening Adagio points to the illusion in which this wilful fusion sound flows, leading to ever changing percussive and harmonic variations. What remains in the dark bell-like sound mix of piano, electric bass and vibraphone is a sense of grateful melancholy for what has been experienced.” Christian Jost is one of today’s greatest composers. The eight full-length operas and numerous large-scale symphonic works that he has already composed now form part of the standard repertoire of European theatres and orchestras, and they are performed worldwide. His work centres on premieres, a tradition that reaches back centuries to the core of music culture and that is again taking centre stage in the Neue Meister concert series. Jost is always on the lookout for modern and exciting narrative platforms for his works of music theatre and he develops innovative pieces that are set in a dramatic and magical atmosphere that dispels time and space. The mezzo-soprano Stella Doufexis, Christian Jost’s wife who died in 2015 at far too young an age, was the source for and inspirational heart of all his works and of his artistic activities.
Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin
refl ects the atmosphere of modern-day Berlin under the artistic director and fi rst concertmaster Gabriel Adorján: musicians from both sides of the formerly divided city have joined together with international colleagues to form an ensemble which has a loyal following thanks to its enthusiasm for the new and its commitment to music. The DKO’s repertoire ranges from works of the Baroque through to contemporary compositions, with the classical canon forming the core and contemporary works offering a stimulating contrast. One of the orchestra’s concerns is to attract attention to works at the edge of the traditional concert repertoire spectrum. Conductors such as Markus Poschner, Christian Jost, Michael Helmrath, Philippe Jordan and Simon Halsey have all taken the rostrum to direct the DKO. Internationally renowned guest soloists have included Daniel Hope, Nigel Kennedy, Ben Becker, Lucas und Arthur Jussen, Anna Prohaska, Martin Helmchen, Avi Avital, Maximilian Hornung, Asya Fateyeva, Matthias Kirschnereit, David Orlowsky and Baiba Skride. The orchestra has recorded CDs, among others, for the Deutsche Grammophon label featuring Daniel Hope, Albrecht Mayer, the Radio Choir of Berlin and also with Liv Migdal and Annika Treutler.
Get to the homepage of the German Chamber Orchestra https://dko-berlin.de/Konzerthausorchester Berlin
Founded in 1952 as the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (BSO), the Konzerthausorchester achieved recognition and international acclaim under chief conductor Kurt Sanderling (1960 – 1977). In 1984, the orchestra received its own venue at Schauspielhaus Berlin on Gendarmenmarkt square. In 2006, it was renamed Konzerthausorchester Berlin.
The Konzerthausorchester has more than 12.000 subscribers, which is among the highest numbers in Europe. With over 100 concerts per season, the orchestra not only performs at home, but also on national and international tours and during festivals.
The Konzerthausorchester regularly inspires its audience with new concert formats, as well as with unusual and exciting projects. Along with several programmes for children in underprivileged areas of the city, there are surprise concerts, new orchestral line-ups, spontaneous request programmes, public rehearsals and scenic concerts. Most famous is the unique concert series “Right in the Middle”. In this series, the orchestral musicians separate their chairs, creating space for spectators to sit down among them. Never has an audience been able to get this close to the music before!
The Konzerthausorchester is especially proud of its home on impressive Gendarmenmarkt right in the heart of Berlin. The building, called Konzerthaus Berlin since 2006, opened as a theatre in 1821. It is one of the most beautiful works of famous Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 – 1841). After being destroyed in 1945 during the last few days of World War II, it was completely rebuilt from 1979 during the era of the German Democratic Republic. It has three halls – the historically restored Grand Hall (1,400 seats), the Small Hall (nearly 400 seats) and the modern Werner Otto Hall (250 seats) from 2003.
Photo: Marco BorggreveMore releases
Christian Jost
Always in search of exciting modern narrative forms, he has created innovative new works of music drama and set them on a plane that magically dissolves space and time and has women at its centre. One of those works was the magic-realist opera RUMOR, which Jost developed together with the Mexican screenplay writer and director Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros and Burning Plain), another was his totally new conception of Shakespeare’s HAMLET in which Jost for the first time in the history of opera has Hamlet sung by a woman, then there was the nightmarishly surreal opera ROTE LATERNE, which Jost planned as a time-and-space-annihilating adaption of Chinese cult filmmaker Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern. For the Radio Choir of Berlin, Christian Jost evolved the completely new genre of choral opera, which emulates Greek tragedy by casting the choir as a leading actor and determining force. The two works he has written to date are ANGST, based on the real-life experience of two mountaineers in the Andes and set as a polyphonic journey into the heart of fear, and LOVER, a large-scale Zen-inspired meditation composed of chant, percussion and martial arts charting a path into the heart of love. The symphonic genre is another field in which Jost explores the “condition humaine”. This is well illustrated by the CocoonSymphony, composed in 2003 as a sonic odyssey into one’s own personality, and the BerlinSymphony of 2015 as a pulsing loneliness in an urban soundscape. The mezzo-soprano Stella Doufexis, who died far too young in 2015, was the wife of Christian Jost. She was the source and the beating heart of all his works and of his artistic achievement.
Photo: Alexander Gnaediger
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