The Hub, Edinburgh
4 stars
As a composer, Stefan Wolpe is the third point of a German triangle that also included Hans Eisler and Kurt Weill. Crucial to both was a working relationship with Bertolt Brecht, with whom they helped forge a grenade-lobbing music of opposition that was part junk-shop cabaret, part Hollywood tat. So it was too with Wolpe, whose work is given a rare airing in Muziektheater Transparantﾒs loose-knit compendium of sixteen pieces drawn from 1929-47. Performed by pianist Johan Bossers and tenor Gunnar Brandt, Viviane De Muynck acts as mine host, providing contextual snippets of the artistic torrent he was part of.
With De Muynck retrieving notes from a small wooden table and Bossersﾒ piano set against a forwards-leaning wooden flat, what emerges is a kind of Song By Song By Wolpe thatﾒs the perfect book-end to the greater formalities of EIFﾒs opening concert of Weillﾒs The Rise And Fall Of Mahoganay. The work here, though, is rough-shod agit-prop and onomatopoeic in its sense of unrest. Brecht himself provides lyrics for Ballad Of The Widows Of Osseg, while the solo piano of all seven Battle Piece Movements is busy and propulsive.
Much of this sounds like a template for much German avant-garde music since, from the obvious affinity with Eisler and Weill to post-punk provocateurs Die Todliche Doris, Deutsche-Amerikanische Freundschaft and Einsturzende Neubaten. Nowhere is this more evident than in his setting of Kurt Schwitters Dadaist love poem, To Anna Blume, on which Brandt swoops and soars like a demented Billy Mackenzie. With Wolpe an affiliate of the original Bauhaus, in which different art-forms co-existed, as a show, Wolpe! is a fascinating and vital pointer to festival futures to relish.
The Herald, August 30th 2008
ends
4 stars
As a composer, Stefan Wolpe is the third point of a German triangle that also included Hans Eisler and Kurt Weill. Crucial to both was a working relationship with Bertolt Brecht, with whom they helped forge a grenade-lobbing music of opposition that was part junk-shop cabaret, part Hollywood tat. So it was too with Wolpe, whose work is given a rare airing in Muziektheater Transparantﾒs loose-knit compendium of sixteen pieces drawn from 1929-47. Performed by pianist Johan Bossers and tenor Gunnar Brandt, Viviane De Muynck acts as mine host, providing contextual snippets of the artistic torrent he was part of.
With De Muynck retrieving notes from a small wooden table and Bossersﾒ piano set against a forwards-leaning wooden flat, what emerges is a kind of Song By Song By Wolpe thatﾒs the perfect book-end to the greater formalities of EIFﾒs opening concert of Weillﾒs The Rise And Fall Of Mahoganay. The work here, though, is rough-shod agit-prop and onomatopoeic in its sense of unrest. Brecht himself provides lyrics for Ballad Of The Widows Of Osseg, while the solo piano of all seven Battle Piece Movements is busy and propulsive.
Much of this sounds like a template for much German avant-garde music since, from the obvious affinity with Eisler and Weill to post-punk provocateurs Die Todliche Doris, Deutsche-Amerikanische Freundschaft and Einsturzende Neubaten. Nowhere is this more evident than in his setting of Kurt Schwitters Dadaist love poem, To Anna Blume, on which Brandt swoops and soars like a demented Billy Mackenzie. With Wolpe an affiliate of the original Bauhaus, in which different art-forms co-existed, as a show, Wolpe! is a fascinating and vital pointer to festival futures to relish.
The Herald, August 30th 2008
ends
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