A German Requiem
The Edinburgh Festival Chorus are joined by Nika Goric and Benjamin Appl in Brahms's A German Requiem, plus a rare rendering of Nono's pioneering electroacoustic music from the 麻豆社 SSO.
No conductor relishes unusual musical juxtapositions more than Ilan Volkov in his concerts with the 麻豆社 Scottish Symphony Orchestra: juxtapositions re-framing works with which many are familiar; by close proximity to those with which most are not.
So, tonight we hear a short, highly compressed, fiercely inventive work of electroacoustic music from 1967, by Italian composer Luigi Nono. It transforms the orchestra into urgent tectonic strata of unearthly chords, mixed with magnetic tape sounds re-rendered for the 21st century by electronic music experts, Sound Intermedia.
And this is a prelude to music by Brahms: a composer whose perceived conservatism might often obscure innovations which may resonate more strongly thanks to this pairing.
In A German Requiem he created his own form of vernacular libretto to structure a majestic choral meditation. Written in the late 1860s, after the painful loss of his mother, it combines a distinctive form of romanticism and melodic ingenuity with a unique treatment of the orchestra and voices. In tonight's performance the Edinburgh Festival Chorus join the orchestra alongside soprano Nika Goric and baritone Benjamin Appl.
Recorded at City Halls, Glasgow
Presented by Andrew McGregor
Nono: Per Bastiana Tai-Yang Cheng
7.50 Interval
8.10 Part 2
Brahms: A German Requiem
Nika Goric (soprano)
Benjamin Appl (baritone)
Sound Intermedia (electronic music realisation)
麻豆社 Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov (conductor)
Photo credit: Mariona Vilar贸s
