News

The 119th birthday of Fanny Hensel will be celebrated on 14.11.2024!
Born on November 14, 1805 in Hamburg, Fanny Hensel grew up as the granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and eldest child of the banker Abraham Mendelssohn and his wife Lea in a well-to-do and educated Berlin family. At the age of 12, she was already playing the 24 preludes from the first part of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier by heart for her father.
1831 was an important year in her career as a composer:
She composes three cantatas Lobgesang, Hiob and the Cantata nach Aufhören der Cholera in Berlin (oratorio based on images from the Bible). Until her death, she continued to direct the so-called “Sonntagsmusiken” as an important cultural institution in Berlin’s musical life. Among the guests are Liszt and the Schumann couple, along with many other famous musicians. Fanny founds and conducts a choir as part of the “Sonntagsmusiken” and works as a composer, conductor, pianist and organizer.

Maria Jaell composed her 20-minute Concerto pour violoncelle (for violoncello and orchestra) in 1882, dedicating it to Jules Delsart, one of the most famous French cellists of her time.
In the decade of its composition, the work enjoyed considerable popularity and was also performed by the Belgian cellist Adolphe Fischer at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, it increasingly fell into oblivion and was only recently resurrected from its from its more than 100-year slumber. The manuscript has more than 400 pages, most of which contain contradictory versions of the work in disorganised form. The 2nd movement ‘Lento’ has only survived in rudimentary form. Julian Riem has now reconstructed and arranged the ‘Lento’ for orchestra on the basis of the manuscript and this edition extracts the most coherent and stringent version of the concerto possible from the entirety of the sources.

“The concert feels fresh and captivating, predominantly warm and enthusiastic, but also contemplative and profound. The glowing intensity, the engaging, grand melodic arcs, as well as the cross-sectional kinship and development of the material make the work as a whole a powerful, significant achievement. The instrumentation is rooted in the romantic tradition of …

A new book about Vivienne Olive and her music

Vivienne Olive has been composing since she first sat at the piano at the age of seven. Her oeuvre is incredibly diverse, characterized by different influences and always inviting discovery.
According to Olive herself, her catalogue of works includes serious, often serial compositions for soloists, small ensembles and large-scale orchestral apparatuses and choirs.
Olive devotes extensive studies and analyses to these before completion, sometimes with detailed proportion plans. Olive also frequently composes spontaneous light music, such as
the lively Bush Gin Rag.

New at Furore: Vivienne Olive: An Introduction to her Music
With contributions by Charlotte Cubitt, Barbara Gabler, Stefan Grasse, Theresa Henkel, Mary Ellen Kitchens, Arno Leicht, Vivienne Olive, Matthias Stubenvoll, Janosch Umbreit
and Uta Walther.
ISBN 978927327634

Frankfurt Book Fair, Cello Academy in Rutesheim, 220 years of Fanny Hensel 2025 and lots of news in our October newsletter.

Book Fair in Frankfurt
The 76th Frankfurt Book Fair opens its doors from October 16 to 20, 2024. The publishers Merseburger, Furore and Pan will be exhibiting in Hall 3.1 Stand D 99. This year, you can look forward to a particularly large number of stages, authors, stars and experts from the publishing and media world – at the heart of the industry, at the world’s largest book fair.

Forum Composition: The special concert
Saxophone quartet Eternum from Cologne
Saturday, September 14, 7 p.m. Palais Bellevue Kassel, 7 p.m.
Works by Gershwin, Glazunov, Ravel, among others, world premieres by Johan de Wit and CREATAFERA-Regine Brunke

“As a highly capable chamber music ensemble, the four young instrumentalists are highly noteworthy and worth listening to, and with playful ease they create the rare: enthusiasm and amazement.” Orchestra pit, 2024

“The quartet convinces with youthful freshness and a warm, chromatic sound.” Ö1/ORF, 2023

Ostinato super Thema Octoicha [Octoicha III] (6’50) for piano, harp and string orchestra

Curious Byzantine scales unfold in Ljubica Maric’s Ostinato Super Thema Octoicha. The work will now be performed by the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra on 9/14/2024 at 7:30 PM at Ford Hall, Ithaca College.

Ljubica Maric is one of the most prominent representatives of contemporary music in Serbia. Her compositions, influenced by the musical works of Schoenberg and Haba, have been enthusiastically acclaimed at performances in Prague, Amsterdam (World Music Days of the International Society for New Music 1933) and Strasbourg.
“Ostinato super Thema Octoicha represents an extraordinary challenge for the pianist. Although the piano part is technically simple – reduced to the level of children’s finger exercises finger exercises for children – it must be performed with great calm and evenness, completely independent of what is going on in the orchestra. This can only be achieved if subjective moments such as expression, pianistic habits, intrusiveness of any kind, especially romantic posturing, are dispensed with.” (L. Marić)

“All parts are technically simple and musically equal. Maric dedicates a very sonorous five-bar chord solo in ad libitum to the harp. The composer also dispenses with any kind of effects. Conventional notation makes it …

On Sunday, September 8, 2024, at 12 noon at the George Enescu National Museum, Sinaia Memorial House, Bucharest
CARMEN MARIA CÂRNECI – TraumLieder – for mezzo-soprano and piano (2023) – premiere
1. dream dancer / (verses by Stephanie Jans).
2. fire (verses by Anka Knechtel).
3. dream of a simple life (verses by Sabine Kleuker)
with Claudia Caia (mezzo-soprano), Andrei Tănăsescu (piano)
“The composer Tatjana Prelevic inspired me to compose the “TraumLieder”: in 2005 she led the project “Spreche als Klangbrücke” at the Hanover State University of Music and Drama, in which my songs were rehearsed and premiered by students in the original version for mezzo-soprano and ensemble. I had chosen three short poems about the inner world of women as texts for the songs; they inspired me once again to write this version for voice and piano.”