Organization

Admin

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Instrumentalist

Guitarist

David Fennessy

Electric Guitar

Singer

Mezzo-soprano

Jennifer Johnston

Mezzo soprano

Conductor

Jack Sheen

Orchestra

Actor

Brian Ferguson

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless'

Glasgow

United Kingdom

City Halls

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless': The Conqeust of the Useless Fennessy

Public

The Conqeust of the Useless

Pallavi Pawar

Approved

In the early 1980s the German film director Werner Herzog kept a diary of his struggle to make his film Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon. Entitled Conquest of the Useless, its descriptions of nature and Herzog’s day-today battle inspired composer David Fennessy to create an epic threepart work that touches on madness, ambition, Verdi, belief, Enrico Caruso, musical Romanticism and the teeming, chaotic brutality of the jungle.

Fennessy’s Conquest of the Useless moves from an orchestral depiction of Herzog’s original vision – “a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam” – though a four-part choir made up of samples from Caruso’s recordings, to a finale once described by the composer as “Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde put through a blender.”

Part-premiered by the BBC SSO at Glasgow’s first Tectonics festival in 2013, the completed work returns to City Halls for a performance preceded by a discussion with the composer and a screening of Les Blank’s 1982 documentary of the Fitzcarraldo shoot, Burden of Dreams (Cert. 15).

5.30pm Screening of 'Burden of Dreams' (Location: Old Fruitmarket)
7.15pm Herzog’s legacy – A panel discussion, including David Fennessy
8.00pm Conquest of the Useless (Location: City Halls Auditorium)

English

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless' by Fennessy, Alates (2023/2023), Dirigent Jack Sheen, City Halls, Glasgow, United Kingdom

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