Musik versus Barbarei

The œnm . œsterreichisches ensemble fuer neue musik is one of the most established European ensembles for the interpretation of 20th and 21st century music. With its concert program “Music versus Barbarism”, the ensemble will be performing an impressive and admonishing program on 14 February. In addition to Rudi Stephan’s Music for Seven String Instruments (1911), the program includes works by Schönberg, Ullmann and Regamey, which were composed in close proximity to each other during the darkest years of the 20th century: Schönberg’s “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte” (1942) is a commitment to democracy and against tyranny, Viktor Ullmann composed his Third String Quartet (1943) in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The confrontation with persecution and terror also left deep marks on Constantin Regamey’s life. His quintet was composed between 1942 and 1944 during the most difficult years of his life, when he was active in the anti-fascist resistance. Rudi Stephan’s music is a testimony to early modernism, created by a composer who was one of the strongest talents of the dawning 20th century and who died in the trenches of the First World War near Tarnopol in Galicia in 1915 at the age of 28.

Photo portrait: Zilli Schmid as part of the photo series “Against Forgetting” by Luigi Toscano