Michael Hersch: "along the ravines" for piano and orchestra (2010)
ten movements after texts of Zbigniew Herbert
Shai Wosner, piano
Deutsche Radio Philharmonie
Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern

along the ravines

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)

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)

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

artwork by Michael Mazur

Images from a Closed Ward (no. IX)

" ... 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

"Cup your hands to scoop up sleep
and the forest will come: a green cloud
a birch trunk like a chord of light
and a thousand eyelids fluttering
with forgotten leafy speech
then you will recall the white morning
when you waited for the opening of the gates ..."
-Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - III

"I shall be moved neither by the postman's bell
nor by the shouting of angels

I shall sit
immobile
my eyes fixed
upon the heart of things

a dead star

a black drop of infinity"

-Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - IV

"The earth's axis screeches and comes to 
a stop.
Everything stands still then: storms, ships and clouds ...
Everything.

And after a while the world moves on.
The ocean swallows and regurgitates, valleys send off steam ...

... the resounding clash of air against air."

-Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - V

"they appear
a moment before
the final division
of those gnashing their teeth
from those singing psalms"
-Zbigniew Herbert

along the ravines - VII

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.

along the ravines - VII

Michael Hersch

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