A commission from the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Cologne “Eight Bridges” Festival offers a glimpse into the world of the complete “other”: in Beat Furrer’s “VI Gesänge für Vokalensemble und Orchester” to texts by the Argentinian writer Sara Gallardo someone speaks who is at a crossroads, who knows about a secret life of things. Its songs are entreaties, they call to the different woods, the animals, the messengers “of the one who just is, who was never born and will never die”. The invocations are articulated in a diversified totality of the orchestra and the twelve voices of the vocal ensemble. Beat Furrer’s large-scale composition realises this cosmos in a many-voiced sensuality. The world premiere, conducted by David Robertson, will be given by the vocal ensemble Cantando Admont and the Concertgebouw Orchestra on 6 May 2022 in Amsterdam, and the German first performance on 7 May in the Philharmonie Cologne. Another world premiere, of a work for saxophone, piano and percussion for the Trio Accanto, follows on 8 May at the Witten Days for New Chamber Music.
(Foto: Manu Theobald)