general information

composition date
2010
revisition date
2012
duration
50 min
editor
Schott
Commission
Mahler Chamber Orchestra avec le soutien d’Ernst von Siemens Foundation for Music
Libretto (details, author)

texte (en japonais et en allemand) : Georg Trakl, Gershom Sholem, Masao Masunishi (en allemand), Lothar Metzger, Angela Gill (en japonais et en allemand) 

type

Vocal music and instrument(s) (2 solo voices, choir(s) and orchestra)

detailed formation

Soloist
solo soprano, solo mezzo-soprano, narrator

2 flutes (also piccolo, alto flute), 2 oboes (also English horn), 2 clarinets (also bass clarinet), 2 bassoons (also contrabassoon), 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, 3 percussionists, harp, piano (also celesta)

information about the creation

date
October 2, 2010

Allemagne, Baden-Baden

interpreters

Sally Mathews, Mihoko Fujimura, WDR Rundfunkchor, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, direction : Kent Nagano.

Program note

Sternlose Nacht consists of nine movements combining two contrasting elements: a cycle of the seasons with poetry by Georg Trakl (in the movements I, IV, V and IX) and a reflection on the two major tragedies of the Second World War: the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima in the winter and summer of 1945. In the third movement ’Grabstein in Dresden’, two narrators provide an account of the events of February 1945 accompanied by choir and orchestra. In the seventh movement ’Grabstein in Hiroshima’, a mezzo soprano sings the report of a young boy who survived the atomic bomb attack in the summer of 1945. The text of the eighth movement, the emotional poem ’Gruß vom Angelus’ by Gershom Scholem, is a pessimistic summary of these reports of man’s inhumanity to man and is sung by a soprano accompanied by two trumpets and percussion.




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This entry is encyclopaedic in nature and does not reflect the collections of the Ircam media library. Please refer to the "scores" entries.


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