Metzmacher dirgiert Cerha, Schostakowitsch & Eisler by Various, pi 22 jan 2021, Od (2020/2021), Dirigent Ingo Metzmacher

The "Ernste Gesänge" by Hanns Eisler are a swan song: in 1962, at the end of his life, the Vienna-born composer created a touching song cycle that addresses people - and at the same time lets the alienation Eisler resonate with his new homeland, the GDR , meanwhile brought. "Be you, singing, my friendly asylum" is the conclusion of the "Ernste Gesänge" as well as the composer. Conductor Ingo Metzmacher and baritone Georg Nigl develop the cycle together with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in the large broadcasting hall of the ORF RadioKulturhaus. The project came about at extremely short notice and was specially designed for the second lockdown. The audience is not permitted, but listeners are cordially invited to Ö1, the video stream of ORF RadioKulturhaus and ORF III. Eisler's work is complemented by Friedrich Cerha's colorful string cascades from "Spiegel II" and by Dmitri Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony op. 110a. For this work, Rudolf Barshai arranged Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, music that echoes the horrors of World War II. The Russian composer wrote his string quartet in 1960 near Dresden, and he mixed memories of the atrocities of war with his musical monogram D-Es-CH, which bores into the listener's ears.