More than half of the “Mahler/Scartazzini Cycle” has already been performed in Jena: Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s “Einklang” as well as the premiere of “Omen” and No. 6 can be heard in Jena on 23 March 2023; on 12 May 2023 part 7 of the cycle will have its first performance. The project which was initiated by Simon Gaudenz and the Jenaer Philharmonie began in 2018 and will be completed in 2025. Gustav Mahler and his works are, in Scartazzini’s words, “a counterpart that speaks to me even over a distance of more than 100 years … their world of thought, their construction, a certain movement; all these are impulses that in the end lead me to my own musical work.” The result is a colourful cycle of quite differing compositions. The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michael Sanderling will premiere yet another commissioned work by Scartazzini, “WUNDE(R)” für Orchester in Lucerne on 12 April 2023 and then take it on tour to Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover and Cologne. (photo: LA Consulting)

Miroslav Srnka’s orchestral work “Superorganisms” will be premiered by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ryan Wigglesworth in Tokyo on 27 June 2023 after the scheduled premiere in Berlin had to be postponed due to illness. Superorganisms are forms of existence in which kindred beings work together synergistically and in a self-organized manner. An example for superorganisms in human culture are symphony orchestras – and this is where Miroslav Srnka’s new work comes in.

Thanks to an appealing new edition it is possible again to take a look at the very last compositional project of the great Jean-Philippe Rameau. He died while working on the one-act opera-ballet “Io”, thus the work remained unfinished. In this first edition of the work, Sylvie Bouissou, editor of the “Opera omnia Rameau“, combines the surviving parts with the instrumental and danced movements of one of Rameau’s most popular operas, “Platée“. The ballet “Io” also takes place in the world of nymphs. It tells the story of the love affair between the nymph Io and Jupiter in the guise of the shepherd Hylas who rivals Apollo in the guise of Philemon. A first performance will take place with the Opera Lafayette at the Kennedy Center Washington on May 2nd and 3rd, 2023. Avi Stein will conduct the work, director Nick Olcott will be responsible for the production with a choreography by Seán Curran. – (Painting: G. A. Figino: Zeus and Io (1599))

The new edition of Antonín Dvořáks masterwork presents not a “new” Rusalka – conductors, performers, and audiences will find the same Czech masterpiece that has been enjoyed for over 100 years but the oprea in its definitive form, with all practical and musicological issues considered, well-documented, and clearly presented.

This new publication offers a source-critical edition of Mozart’s fragmentary “Requiem” (Bärenreiter-Verlag) as well as an alternative to the traditional Süßmayr version. When completing the fragment, the editor Michael Ostrzyga drew on comprehensive comparative and analytical studies of Mozart’s church style and compositional workmanship. The influence of Handel and Bach manifested in his final years, particularly in the “Requiem” fragment, is taken into account in those sections requiring completion or fresh composition. At two points readers may choose between alternative movements (or sections), since proceeding from Süßmayr’s historical version, two divergent options cannot be weighed against each other but each one may well reflect Mozart’s intentions. The new completion offers choirs and orchestras the opportunity to perform this legendary work in a well thought through version based on the most up-to-date research.

Paul Dessau’s opera “Lanzelot” after a libretto by Heiner Müller was celebrated as a rediscovery of the first rank and performed in its original version in a production by Peter Konwitschny at the Nationaltheater Weimar in 2019. “Lanzelot”, dating from 1969, is based on the fairy tale parable “The Dragon” by the Russian dramatist Jewgeni Schwarz. The live recording of the performance brilliantly conducted by Dominik Beykirch, a coproduction of the stages Weimar and Erfurt, has just been published by the label “Audite”. According to one review the recording proves “that the power of the music and its message makes Paul Dessau’s music still absolutely relevant today, three decades after the end of the Cold War.”

He has long stopped counting the many opera performances and concerts he has attended. Probably only a few music fans will have seen as many performances in as many opera houses and concert halls as Ulrich Etscheit, Head of Performance Promotion at Alkor-Edition. However, such music events were not the content, but the fruit of his long activity for the stage agency. Alkor distributes the rental material of Bärenreiter and other publishers for operas as well as large-scale orchestral and ensemble works. After a music dealer apprenticeship and gaining degrees in musicology, Italian studies and civil law with a focus on copyright in Heidelberg, Ulrich Etscheit took on this fundamentally important task for Bärenreiter in 1995. Bärenreiter is indebted to him for numerous opera premieres, commissioned compositions and first performances. Although Ulrich Etscheit was committed to all musical epochs right up to contemporary music, his special love was Baroque opera and in particular the stage works by George Frideric Handel. In fact, he wrote his doctorate on Handel’s “Rodelinda”. It is largely to his credit that Handel operas based on the “Halle Handel Edition” now form part of the core opera repertoire. At the end of March Ulrich Etscheit will retire from Bärenreiter but will continue to be devoted to the world of music as an interested, inquisitive as well as passionate concert and opera-goer.