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| Grafenegg festival: the best of both worlds | Grafenegg festival: the best of both worlds |
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| An unseasonally cold August Saturday, the Grafenegg Estate on the borders of the Danube, northeast Austria. Inside a new glass-fronted concert hall a young woman in jeans sits cross-legged on the foyer’s floor, head bent in concentration, conducting an imaginary orchestra as she reads a score. Inside the auditorium sit another four young composers, one eye also on their own scores, the other on the young man on stage tentatively conducting the Tonkünstler orchestra’s wind and percussion sections as they rehearse his own composition. This young conductor/composer is only 16 and it’s his first experience of conducting a professional orchestra. Indeed it’s his first time of even using a baton. At his side Lothar Zagrosek watches intently and shows the gloriously named Franz Ferdinand August Rieks how, say, to bring the musicians in with a more decisive upbeat, how to communicate with the orchestra and establish exactly what he wants from them and from his piece. | |
| Ricks and his five fellow composers are participants in Grafenegg festival’s Ink Still Wet scheme, presided over this year by the festival’s composer-in-residence Jörg Widmann. Taking place over the second (of four) weekends of the festival, the scheme comprises a series of workshops enabling composers to rehearse and conduct a new work with a professional orchestra, culminating in a public performance of each short composition conducted by the composers themselves. This year’s six participants (two women, four men) are aged from 16 to 33, and come from Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Spain and South Korea. No conditions are imposed on entry levels, although it does invariably attract young and relatively inexperienced composers. What sets this scheme apart though is its emphasis on conducting. | Ricks and his five fellow composers are participants in Grafenegg festival’s Ink Still Wet scheme, presided over this year by the festival’s composer-in-residence Jörg Widmann. Taking place over the second (of four) weekends of the festival, the scheme comprises a series of workshops enabling composers to rehearse and conduct a new work with a professional orchestra, culminating in a public performance of each short composition conducted by the composers themselves. This year’s six participants (two women, four men) are aged from 16 to 33, and come from Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Spain and South Korea. No conditions are imposed on entry levels, although it does invariably attract young and relatively inexperienced composers. What sets this scheme apart though is its emphasis on conducting. |
| Which makes it, Widmann admits, particularly tough. “It’s painful - you’re exposing yourself in front of everybody, you’re standing in front of the orchestra, you’re hearing your piece for the first time, you’re nervous, and then you have to conduct!” But, “even if a composer, at a later stage in life, will not conduct his own work, this will have helped him know it’s not his thing,” says Widmann, who believes that perhaps the most important thing for a composer is simply to hear their own music. | Which makes it, Widmann admits, particularly tough. “It’s painful - you’re exposing yourself in front of everybody, you’re standing in front of the orchestra, you’re hearing your piece for the first time, you’re nervous, and then you have to conduct!” But, “even if a composer, at a later stage in life, will not conduct his own work, this will have helped him know it’s not his thing,” says Widmann, who believes that perhaps the most important thing for a composer is simply to hear their own music. |
| Widmann is in huge demand as a performer as well as as a composer, and his hectic schedule meant that he asked Zagrosek to assist him on the scheme’s conducting duties. Not that Widmann is shirking. He sits, too, watching the morning’s workshops from the stalls, offering feedback and advice after each composer’s 30-minute session. Over three days, the composers work with the string and then the wind sections finessing their compositions, they then get to conduct the full orchestra, and are videoed, and their work on the page and the podium are analysed at a further workshop. On the third final day they conduct their short pieces in a public concert. | Widmann is in huge demand as a performer as well as as a composer, and his hectic schedule meant that he asked Zagrosek to assist him on the scheme’s conducting duties. Not that Widmann is shirking. He sits, too, watching the morning’s workshops from the stalls, offering feedback and advice after each composer’s 30-minute session. Over three days, the composers work with the string and then the wind sections finessing their compositions, they then get to conduct the full orchestra, and are videoed, and their work on the page and the podium are analysed at a further workshop. On the third final day they conduct their short pieces in a public concert. |
| “I take very seriously and literally the term composer in residence. I’m not somebody who accepts something like that and then turns up just one time and then disappears,” says Widmann. “Ink Still Wet is a great scheme. To work with a professional orchestra, there’s no better way - no theory book, no teacher - for a young composer to learn.” Widmann might not have had access to such schemes when he was still wet behind the ears, but he did have the advantage of musician friends and a violinist sister. “I would always be asking my sister stuff like ‘what happens when you turn the violin upside down and scratch it?’ he smiles. “She would look at me and say ‘it’s not possible’, but then the next morning she’d have came up with an idea about it and together we’d discover something new!”. | “I take very seriously and literally the term composer in residence. I’m not somebody who accepts something like that and then turns up just one time and then disappears,” says Widmann. “Ink Still Wet is a great scheme. To work with a professional orchestra, there’s no better way - no theory book, no teacher - for a young composer to learn.” Widmann might not have had access to such schemes when he was still wet behind the ears, but he did have the advantage of musician friends and a violinist sister. “I would always be asking my sister stuff like ‘what happens when you turn the violin upside down and scratch it?’ he smiles. “She would look at me and say ‘it’s not possible’, but then the next morning she’d have came up with an idea about it and together we’d discover something new!”. |
| “The most difficult thing for a composer is to find your own voice. It’s to do with trusting yourself,” he says. “The majority of these young composers have written traditional pieces. They’re writing rhythms that have existed for 100, 150 years which is understandable as there you can find security, but while what Lothar is trying to do is to give them more security in their conducting, my task in a way is to give them less security - to tell them to take risks. Create your own rhythm. Don’t write what already exists!” | “The most difficult thing for a composer is to find your own voice. It’s to do with trusting yourself,” he says. “The majority of these young composers have written traditional pieces. They’re writing rhythms that have existed for 100, 150 years which is understandable as there you can find security, but while what Lothar is trying to do is to give them more security in their conducting, my task in a way is to give them less security - to tell them to take risks. Create your own rhythm. Don’t write what already exists!” |
| Widmann’s works and his own virtuosic and exquisistely lyrical clarinet playing form the backbone of this year’s festival. Over its four weekends, he performs in six concerts, his compositions feature in seven; his specially composed fanfare opened the festival itself on 14 August. Over the next four weeks a dazzling array of world-class orchestras and soloists are visiting, and the festival concludes this weekend with a visit from the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. Most concerts - weather permitting - are in the Greek-style ampitheatre the Wolkenturm (tower of clouds) built in 2007, the year the festival began. “When architects were bidding for the contract to build the outdoor stage,” the estate’s owner Tassilo Metternich-Sandor says, “we told them they would have to work with an acoustician, and warned that in the event of disputes, the acoustician would always have the last word!” | Widmann’s works and his own virtuosic and exquisistely lyrical clarinet playing form the backbone of this year’s festival. Over its four weekends, he performs in six concerts, his compositions feature in seven; his specially composed fanfare opened the festival itself on 14 August. Over the next four weeks a dazzling array of world-class orchestras and soloists are visiting, and the festival concludes this weekend with a visit from the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. Most concerts - weather permitting - are in the Greek-style ampitheatre the Wolkenturm (tower of clouds) built in 2007, the year the festival began. “When architects were bidding for the contract to build the outdoor stage,” the estate’s owner Tassilo Metternich-Sandor says, “we told them they would have to work with an acoustician, and warned that in the event of disputes, the acoustician would always have the last word!” |
| Metternich-Sandor is a descendant of the famous 19th century Austria diplomat Prince Metternich, his family lived in the castle until 1945. It’s an eccentric mix of styles (some as early as the renaissance), with a predominantly 19th century exterior, modelled on the faux-gothic Strawberry Hill. It was occupied by Soviet troops from 1945-1955 who stripped it of most of its furniture and valuables when they left Austria, taking 12 wagonloads-full back east, but they did leave the library furnished with books of Soviet 50s propaganda, include 12 volumes of the Life of Stalin, all still on display today. | Metternich-Sandor is a descendant of the famous 19th century Austria diplomat Prince Metternich, his family lived in the castle until 1945. It’s an eccentric mix of styles (some as early as the renaissance), with a predominantly 19th century exterior, modelled on the faux-gothic Strawberry Hill. It was occupied by Soviet troops from 1945-1955 who stripped it of most of its furniture and valuables when they left Austria, taking 12 wagonloads-full back east, but they did leave the library furnished with books of Soviet 50s propaganda, include 12 volumes of the Life of Stalin, all still on display today. |
| The festival has given new life and purpose to the estate, its parklands are now beautifully landscaped, and the futuristic ampitheatre feels an organic part of the landscape, and several rooms on the ground floor have just this year been converted to state-of-the art rehearsal spaces. (Just continuing the castle’s traditional hodge-podge of styles, Metternich-Sandor laughs.) In 2008 an indoor concert hall was built (capacity 1,400) to which performers are relocated in the event of rain. Not all 1,700 ticket holders for the outdoor stage can then be accommodated, but as well as the option of full refund, you can opt to watch a live relay of the performance in another large indoor hall next to the auditorium. But you’re not just buying a ticket to a concert, but, Glyndebourne-style, entry to the beautiful and tranquil grounds of the 32-acre estate where on a sunny day, I can think of no more idyllic place to while away several hours, lazing in one of the yellow deckchairs that dot the lawns, picnicking and gently exploring. Seek out the “composer trees” - each year’s composer-in-residence is given a tree planted in his (or her, but its only been his so far) honour. Penderecki (purple indian bean tree) still asks about his, says Metternich-Sandor, and adds that all the trees are flourishing although one - he won’t say which, did have to be discreetly replaced when it succumbed to disease. | The festival has given new life and purpose to the estate, its parklands are now beautifully landscaped, and the futuristic ampitheatre feels an organic part of the landscape, and several rooms on the ground floor have just this year been converted to state-of-the art rehearsal spaces. (Just continuing the castle’s traditional hodge-podge of styles, Metternich-Sandor laughs.) In 2008 an indoor concert hall was built (capacity 1,400) to which performers are relocated in the event of rain. Not all 1,700 ticket holders for the outdoor stage can then be accommodated, but as well as the option of full refund, you can opt to watch a live relay of the performance in another large indoor hall next to the auditorium. But you’re not just buying a ticket to a concert, but, Glyndebourne-style, entry to the beautiful and tranquil grounds of the 32-acre estate where on a sunny day, I can think of no more idyllic place to while away several hours, lazing in one of the yellow deckchairs that dot the lawns, picnicking and gently exploring. Seek out the “composer trees” - each year’s composer-in-residence is given a tree planted in his (or her, but its only been his so far) honour. Penderecki (purple indian bean tree) still asks about his, says Metternich-Sandor, and adds that all the trees are flourishing although one - he won’t say which, did have to be discreetly replaced when it succumbed to disease. |
| Widmann (lime tree) meanwhile is heading to London as soon as the final notes of this year’s festival sounds. He’s got two UK premieres in the Proms, with the Cleveland Orchestra pairing his music with Brahms’. “What an orchestra!” he says. “It’s a great honour. I was their composer-in-residence for two years, they really know my music well. Franz Welser-Möst is not a man of many words, but when he believes in something he just does it!” | Widmann (lime tree) meanwhile is heading to London as soon as the final notes of this year’s festival sounds. He’s got two UK premieres in the Proms, with the Cleveland Orchestra pairing his music with Brahms’. “What an orchestra!” he says. “It’s a great honour. I was their composer-in-residence for two years, they really know my music well. Franz Welser-Möst is not a man of many words, but when he believes in something he just does it!” |
| He wrote his flute concerto for their principal flautist Joshua Smith, who plays it on Sunday evening’s concert. The next evening brings Teufel Amor, inspired by Schiller’s lost poem. Widmann also reveals tantalising glimpses of future UK plans, including a 17/18 Wigmore residency, and that he’s in ongoing talks with Covent Garden about a new opera. “But I want to find a librettist first and a subject I’m interested in,” he says. “That’s a better way than accepting a commission and waiting and waiting for inspiration that maybe does not come.” | He wrote his flute concerto for their principal flautist Joshua Smith, who plays it on Sunday evening’s concert. The next evening brings Teufel Amor, inspired by Schiller’s lost poem. Widmann also reveals tantalising glimpses of future UK plans, including a 17/18 Wigmore residency, and that he’s in ongoing talks with Covent Garden about a new opera. “But I want to find a librettist first and a subject I’m interested in,” he says. “That’s a better way than accepting a commission and waiting and waiting for inspiration that maybe does not come.” |
| Plus his head, he admits, is still full of 2012’s Babylon, whose revival under Daniel Barenboim is currently being discussed, and whose music formed the basis for the Babylon Suite premiered at the festival the day before. “For me, Miles Davies was, along with Picasso and Stravinsky, the artist of the 20th Century,” he says. “As a player, the notes he didn’t play, are the most wonderful I’ve ever heard! The silence he created in between notes is just… fantastic.” | Plus his head, he admits, is still full of 2012’s Babylon, whose revival under Daniel Barenboim is currently being discussed, and whose music formed the basis for the Babylon Suite premiered at the festival the day before. “For me, Miles Davies was, along with Picasso and Stravinsky, the artist of the 20th Century,” he says. “As a player, the notes he didn’t play, are the most wonderful I’ve ever heard! The silence he created in between notes is just… fantastic.” |
| “And, like a snake, he always got rid of his skin. When people thought they knew what he was going, say cool jazz, he was always somewhere else. That’s what I very much believe in. I don’t want to repeat myself.” | “And, like a snake, he always got rid of his skin. When people thought they knew what he was going, say cool jazz, he was always somewhere else. That’s what I very much believe in. I don’t want to repeat myself.” |
| The Cleveland Orchestra give the UK premiere of Widmann’s Flûte en suite on 7 September and of Teufel Amor on 8 September. The Grafenegg Festival runs until 7 September. | The Cleveland Orchestra give the UK premiere of Widmann’s Flûte en suite on 7 September and of Teufel Amor on 8 September. The Grafenegg Festival runs until 7 September. |