Concert

Music by Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, Claude Vivier and Karl Amadeus Hartmann

A cooperation project with the Orchestra of the St. BlasiusAcademy

Ensemble of the Innsbruck Court Music
Marian Polin (conductor)
Stefanie Steger (soprano), Michaela Girardi (solo violin)
Orchestra of the St. Blasius Academy
Karlheinz Siessl (conductor)

One murdered, the other was murdered and the third mourned the murder: In our special project “Murder Music”, three composers with exciting biographies are in the spotlight: Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa, killed his wife and her lover when he found the couple in bed in flagrante delicto; the Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered by a prostitute at the age of 34 and Karl Amadeus Hartmann was a witness to murder and the atrocities of the Nazi regime. His Concerto funèbre for violin and string orchestra, a masterpiece of the 20th century, is the reaction of a humanist to violence and terror, in this case to the annexation of the Czech Sudetenland by Nazi Germany. Violinist Michaela Girardi, principal violinist in the Camerata Salzburg, will perform this work together with the Akademie St. Blasius under Karlheinz Siessl. Claude Vivier’s “Lonely Child” for soprano and orchestra from 1980 is considered a milestone of so-called “spectral music”. The two key works of the 20th century enter into a dialogue with the harmonically extravagant and incredibly expressive madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo from around 1600.