Anton Webern / Alban Berg / Olivier Knussen / Henri Dutilleux

Anton Webern / Alban Berg

Oliver Knussen / Henri Dutilleux

Archive 2005
Music

Henri Dutilleux. Photo : Marion Kalter ©

Anton Webern :
Six pièces pour grand orchestre, Opus 6 (1919 revised 1928)
Alban Berg :
Altenberg Lieder, Opus 4 (1912)
Oliver Knussen :
Symphonie n° 3, Opus 18 (1973-1979)
Henri Dutilleux :
Correspondances (2003-2004)

Christine Schäfer, soprano
Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris
Oliver Knussen, conductor
With the support of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Foundation for Culture and Sacem

Composer-conductor Knussen and soprano Christine Schäfer are impresarios of a musical engagement with poetic resonance. The Correspondances in Dutilleux’s study of innocence and transcendence is a mix of verse (Rilke and Mukherjee) and letters put to music (Van Gogh writing to his brother, Théo; Solzhenitsyn’s missives to the Rostropovitch couple). Knussen’s work, created for the London Prom’s, is rife with tragic undertones.