Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Fantasia (arr. for flute, violin and cello by Michael Hersch)

Emi Ferguson, flute
Miranda Cuckson, violin
Coleman Itzkoff, cello
live performance

Orlando Gibbons - Fantasia (arr. Hersch)

ORF - Radio Feature on the Wien Modern premiere of Michael Hersch's "POPPAEA"

original link: https://oe1.orf.at/artikel/689136/Wien-Modern-zeigt-Poppaea

Das Festival Wien Modern steuert auf seinen ersten Höhepunkt zu: Am Freitag hat im Odeon-Theater die Oper "Poppaea" Premiere. Der US-amerikanische Komponist Michael Hersch verhandelt darin das gewaltsame Schicksal der einst mächtigsten Frau Roms.

5. November 2021, 17:10

Die Tötung einer Frau und ihres ungeborenen Kindes steht am Beginn dieses Opernwerks, in dem die Gewalt von Anfang an hörbar, sichtbar und spürbar ist. Im römischen Kaiserhaus unter Nero haben alle Mechanismen von Zivilisation und Kontrolle versagt. Erst bringt Poppea Nero dazu, seine erste Frau Octavia zu verstoßen und grausam zu ermorden; am Ende fällt sie der Spirale von Machtstreben und Gewalt selbst zum Opfer. 

"Es geht im Kern um eine Welt, die sich noch den Anschein gibt, zu funktionieren", sagt der Regisseur Markus Bothe, der diese Uraufführungs-Koproduktion von Wien Modern und dem Festival ZeitRäume Basel inszeniert. "Doch Kategorien wie Humanismus und Menschlichkeit bilden hier nur eine ganz dünne Schale."

Kein barockes Happy End

"Poppaea" setzt dort an, wo Claudio Monteverdis "L'incoronazione di Poppea" endet. An das barock-typische Happy End und den Sieg der Liebe glauben der Komponist und Michael Hersch und seine Librettistin Stephanie Fleischmann allerdings nicht. Die Ambivalenz der Titelfigur, die bereits bei Monteverdi grundgelegt ist, treiben sie auf die Spitze: Poppea ist in diesem moralfreien System Täterin und Opfer zugleich.

Michael Hersch hat für ein achtzehnköpfiges Instrumentalensemble, Frauenchor und Solisten eine hochexpressive Musik komponiert - langgezogene, vibratolose Töne bestimmen die Gesangspartien. Die Titelrolle hat Hersch ganz auf die Sopranistin Ah-Young Hong zugeschnitten; mit ihr arbeitet er seit Jahren zusammen und hat etwa mit dem zweistündigen Monodrama "The Threshold of Winter" große Aufmerksamkeit erregt. "Nicht nur ihre Stimme, sondern auch ihr Gesicht, ihre Bühnenpräsenz, ihre Ideen und Erfahrungen beeinflussen meine Arbeit grundlegend", sagt Hersch.

Gewalt an Puppen

Wie inszeniert man Gewalt und vermeidet zugleich Voyeurismus? Markus Bothe lässt auf der Bühne fleischfarbene Figuren malträtieren. Auf dieser findet sich auch eine ganze Ladung Zivilisationsmüll in Form von tausenden PET-Flaschen, die als Vorhang den Blick verschleiern. Doch von schönen Fassaden wird an diesem Opernabend nicht viel übrigbleiben. 

Im September war "Poppaea" bereits im neu eingerichteten Kulturzentrum der Kirche Don Bosco in Basel zu sehen, nun zeigt Wien Modern die Oper in der klassizistischen Säulenhalle des Wiener Odeon-Theaters.

ORF - Gewaltrausch & Plastik: Wien Modern zeigt "Poppaea"

Michael Hersch 
one step to the next, worlds ending - seven songs after texts of Jan Zwicky
for soprano, flute, oboe, clarinet, chamber organ, violin, and double bass
Ah Young Hong, soprano
Jürg Henneberger, conductor
Ensemble Phoenix Basel 
live performance
December 2, 2022 - Gare du Nord - Basel

TEXTS
I
I was alive,
one step to the next …
… It arrives. 
The far dream that terrified us …
… one step to the next, worlds ending.
… The far dream that terrified us …

II
Near is the hard grief, the grief
from the pit, whose hands shake
… from the pit … the pit whose hands shake,
which cannot find the knife,
which cannot stand, or kneel, or lie, 
the grief that is tearless, that gags.

… a loose stink that lifts and settles in our mouths.
Did you raise your hand? 
Did you say something? 
… settles in our mouths. 
Did you say something? 
Louder. Louder.

… tearless, that gags.

III
And the dust. What of the dust?
… worlds ending.

IV
… they make a nurse dig out
the shaft grave underneath
the slumped pulp of the head.
The heart still beating faintly.
It goes on.

They make a nurse dig out the shaft grave underneath …
It goes on … 
The heart still beating faintly.

V
…And I … And I … And I … And I …
… the sharp edge … 
… shadows blurring, deepening.

… And I remembered that other spring:
the world was ending then, too …

VI
Earlier each day comes the light
and our appetite, the terror that we are,
shines darkly in every living thing.

… appetite … terror …

… slumped pulp of the head.
The heart still beating faintly.
It goes on.

VII
Near is the hard grief, 
the grief from the pit,
whose hands shake, …
I was alive, …
…one step to the next …
… and what of the dust …
… they make a nurse dig out 
the shaft grave underneath
the slumped pulp of the head.
… And I remembered that other spring:
The world was ending then, too …
… one step to the next, worlds ending.
… that other spring …

- All texts by Jan Zwicky (b.1955)

one step to the next, worlds ending - seven songs after texts of Jan Zwicky

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 1)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- https://www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MUFA22822-WDR-Programm-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - https://michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 1)

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 2)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- https://www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MUFA22822-WDR-Programm-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - https://michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 2)

Michael Hersch
MEDEA - (excerpt 3)
Libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann
Sarah Maria Sun, soprano
Schola Heidelberg
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Ensemble Musikfabrik
live performance - June 3, 2023
Commissioned by Ensemble Musikfabrik and Kunststiftung NRW
PROGRAM NOTE (in German, with English language libretto included)- www.musikfabrik.eu/wp-content/uplo…m-85-230511.pdf
PROGRAM NOTE (English Translation) - michaelhersch.com/works/program/MEDEA.html

MEDEA - (excerpt 3)

Josquin des Prez (ca.1450-1521) Mille Regretz
Michael Hersch, piano

Josquin des Prez - Mille Regretz (Michael Hersch, piano)

Michael Hersch
POPPAEA - opera in one act - Scene IX - Nero's Lament
Steve Davislim, tenor
Ah Young Hong, soprano
Silke Gäng, mezzo-soprano
Jürg Henneberger, conductor
Ensemble Phoenix Basel

photo by Markus Sepperer

POPPAEA - Scene IX - Nero's Lament (Davislim, Hong, Gäng)

A Forest of Attics - nine pieces after texts of Bruno Schulz
movement 1

"The enormous beech trees around the church stood with their arms upraised ... and screamed and screamed." 
-Bruno Schulz 

The Network for New Music
Live Performance - April 11, 2010

A Forest of Attics - movement 1

Michael Hersch - Symphony No. 2 
first movement
Marin Alsop, conductor
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

painting: "Limbo" by Nicholas Cairns

Symphony No. 2 - first movement

Michael Hersch
Images from a Closed Ward (no. IX)
FLUX Quartet

artwork by Michael Mazur

Images from a Closed Ward (no. IX)

Host Alison Young discusses composer Michael Hersch's Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja on Classical Minnesota Public Radio. The work, a commission from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, premiered on November 5, 2015.

Patricia Kopatchinskaja speaks about the Hersch Violin Concerto on MPR

Michael Hersch 
Symphony No. 3 (2009)
movement 1 (of 7)
Marin Alsop, conductor
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for Contemporary Music
Live Performance

Symphony No. 3 - movement 1

Michael Hersch
Symphony No. 3 (2009)
movement 2
Marin Alsop, conductor
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for Contemporary Music

Symphony No. 3 - movement 2

Michael Hersch 
Symphony No. 3 (2009)
movement 3
Marin Alsop, conductor
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for Contemporary Music

Symphony No. 3 - movement 3

Michael Hersch 
Symphony No. 3 (2009)
movement 4
Marin Alsop, conductor
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for Contemporary Music

Symphony No. 3 - movement 4

Michael Hersch plays Josquin des Prez - De Profundis Clamavi
arranged by Michael Hersch for solo piano
recorded in 2004 at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York,

Hersch: Cello Sonata No. 2 - Milosz Fragments - Feldman - Rihm: Piano Pieces

Josquin des Prez - De Profundis Clamavi

" ... to tremble in the air
blow in the ashes stir the ether
gnaw our fingers seek vain words
drag off the fallen shades behind us ..." 
- Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - I

"They walked along ravines ...
They breathed on the frozen dawn ..."
- Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - II

"... again the forest: a charred cloud
forehead branded by black light
and a thousand eyelids pressed
tightly on motionless eyeballs
a tree and the air broken ..."
-Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - X

Michael Hersch
a breath upwards: twelve songs after texts of Dante and Pound
movement 1

Ah Young Hong, soprano
Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet
Jamie Hersch, horn
Miranda Cuckson, viola

a breath upwards - movement 1

Michael Hersch
The Vanishing Pavilions - Book I - movement 22
Michael Hersch, piano

Hersch: The Vanishing Pavilions Disc 1

The Vanishing Pavilions - Book 1 - mvt.22  … the snows ignite …

Michael Hersch
Violin Concerto - movement III
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin 
Tito Muñoz, conductor
International Contemporary Ensemble

Violin Concerto - movement III

Michael Hersch
I hope we get a chance to visit soon(excerpt)
live performance - 2018 Aldeburgh Festival
Ah Young Hong, soprano I
Kiera Duffy, soprano II
Tito Muñoz, conductor
Mahler Chamber Orchestra
recorded by BBC Radio 3
The New York Times - Cancer Haunts a Composer's Life and Work
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/03/arts/music/michael-hersch-ojai-festival.html

I hope we get a chance to visit soon (excerpt)

The work of composer Michael Hersch has been described by The New York Times as “viscerally gripping and emotionally transformative music ... claustrophobic and exhilarating at once, with moments of sublime beauty nestled inside thickets of dark virtuosity,” The Baltimore Sun as “work of great originality, daring, and disturbing power,” and The Washington Post as "spare, intense, fiercely inward-turning." Recent performances include those at the Aldeburgh Festival, Ojai Festival,  Lucerne Festival, and Avanti Festival; the New York City premiere of Zwischen Leben und Tod at the newly established National Sawdust, and new productions in Chicago (Ensemble Dal Niente) and Salt Lake City (NOVA Chamber Music Series) of his monodrama, On the Threshold of Winter. Over the past several years, Hersch has written works for Ensemble Klang, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Alban Berg Ensemble Wien, and the Library of Congress. Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja commissioned both his Violin Concerto, which premiered in 2015, and his chamber work ... das Rückgrat berstend, which premiered in 2017. She recently recorded the concerto with the International Contemporary Ensemble (I.C.E.), and the duo with cellist Jay Campbell. Other recent recordings include his Images from a Closed Ward with the FLUX Quartet on New Focus, and Black Untitled on Ensemble Klang Records. In 2019/20, Mr. Hersch will be  Composer-in-Residence with the Camerata Bern in Switzerland.

Michael Hersch

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