The focus of the blue hour 1 was the city of New York, with all the different artistic perspectives that this multicultural metropolis has to offer.
New York is the epitome of a pulsating metropolis, a melting pot of the arts and cultures. A very lively and productive topic for a blue hour. Starting from New York, new musical directions and styles have been and are being developed. This includes the minimal music of Steve Reich as well as the music of Paul Schoenfield, which changes elegantly between genres. New York impulses are also processed in the piece “Contrasts” by Bartók, who arrived in the city in 1940 as a Hungarian emigrant. The picture at this blue hour was Max Beckmann’s “The Prodigal Son”, which was taken in New York in 1949. The actress Sonja Beißwenger read texts by Ernst Toller, Mascha Kaléko, Teju Cole and Truman Capote.
Blue hour 1 At, 12.10.2021 | 20 Uhr Wed, 13.10.2021 | 6 p.m. Sprengel Museum Hannover, Calder-Saal (Kurt-Schwitters-Platz)
Mariya Krasnyuk violin Nikolai Schneider Violoncello Susanne Geuer clarinet Isabel von Bernstorff piano Sonja Beißwenger Text readings
Bela Bartok Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano Sz 111 Steve Reich New York Counterpoint for clarinet and tape Paul Schoenfield Café Music for violin, violoncello and piano
Tickets
Program booklet
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For Benny Goodman personally
In Budapest in 1938, Bartók received a commission from the American jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman: a trio with two movements and lots of Hungarian flavor. It shouldn’t be longer than eight minutes, please. Because so much fit on a 78 record back then. But Bartók delivered more with “Contrasts”: three movements, conceived as complex, controversial dialogues between clarinet and violin with piano. The work was almost 20 minutes long. He also mixed jazz with the Eastern European echoes. “Contrasts” was the first piece with which Bartók introduced himself to musical life in New York after his emigration.
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Max Beckmann, The Prodigal Son, 1949, oil on canvas, Sprengel Museum Hannover, art collection of the state capital Hannover, donation Volkswagenwerk GmbH, Wolfsburg (1956)
–On the pulse of Manhattan
Capturing the “throbbing vibrations of Manhattan” was the intention of Steve Reich when he created “New York Counterpoint” in 1985. During the performance, the clarinet part played live is counterpointed by its own sounds, which come from the pre-produced tape. A dialogue with yourself in a catchy minimal music sound, which, through repetition and the smallest shifts, fanned out the greatest simplicity into a fascinating variety.
“Café-Music” – snappy, with depth
Paul Schoenfield, born in Detroit in 1947, lives in the USA and Israel. The idea for his “Café Music” came to him in 1985 in a restaurant. It should also be played there, although a performance in the concert hall is fine with him.
“The work … draws on different types of music. For example early 20th century American, Viennese, light classical, gypsy, Broadway styles. A paraphrase of a beautiful Hasidic melody is contained in the second movement.” Paul Schoenfield
This snappy virtuoso piece entertains and touches with wit, slight irony and melancholy in the best and deepest sense – and let this blue hour end with a lot of New York spirit.
