Michael
Hersch ProgramNotes for Chicago and Boston premieres
sapped from me broken - three songs after texts of Anja Utler for soprano, violin, and bassoon
This cycle was commissioned by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. It was originally scheduled for premiere at the Lucerne Festival in 2020, but as with so many performances during that time the event was canceled due to the pandemic. Ms. Kopatchinskaja had worked several times in the past with soprano Ah Young Hong, most notably performing the complete Kafka Fragments of György Kurtág at the Ojai Festival in 2018 and the world premiere of my AGATHA with Camerata Bern in 2020. In 2018, Ms. Kopatchinskaja requested a new work for them to perform together. Over the past decade I had become increasingly interested in the bassoon and its remarkable expressive possibilities, something I had felt I had not fully explored prior. The beautiful and often brutal poetry of Anja Utler (b.1973) was something I had encountered not long before and had wanted to engage with musically. Utler's poetry often creates environments one may reflexively look away from, yet there is at once a disarming quality that lulls the reader in and, consequently, the reader may find themselves suddenly in the midst of shocking scenes; scenes of deliberateness and forthrightness housed within a poetical territory of, in my opinion, a stunning musicality. The combination of soprano, violin, and bassoon seemed the right tapestry of potential sounds to explore these texts with.
across...in grief and detail - eleven figures for bassoon and violin
The title "across...in grief and detail" comes from the poetry of Christopher MIddleton (19262015). Almost from the moment Middleton and I met in Germany in 2001, I have engaged with his poetry, and have done so more than with any other poet. Like Anja Utler, Middleton is cleareyed about the world around him and does not retreat or recoil from it. There is often a restrained assessment, an almost wistful, yet always fearless, processing of devastation. From the departure point of this fragmented text, I wrote a cycle of eleven pieces for bassoon and violin which attempt to engage the wide range of both technical and expressive potentials of this special combination, above all exploring sound possibilities of these instruments in performance together. Over the past decade, I have continued to augment the amount of vocalizations I ask for from instrumentalists, and this work takes that feature quite far, asking that the violinist utilize their voice consistently throughout the work.
Miserere mei Domine - Fantasia on Music of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and Robert Schumann for soprano, violin, and bassoon
I have always been drawn to the work of Jan Pieterszoon of Sweelinck (1562-1621). When recalling the beautiful music of his Miserere mei Domine, I quickly realized that various themes from the music of Robert Schumann fit remarkably (and unexpectedly) well within the winding elements of the Sweelinck - at once musically, technically and, especially, expressively. These musics included the haunting material from the third movement (Feierlich) of Schumann's Third Symphony, as well as material from the song Auf einer Burg from his Liederkreis. Material from Gustav Mahler's rendition of Frère Jacques (from the Symphony No. 1) also seemed both expressively apt and materially relevant. Once again, the combination of soprano (in particular Ah Young Hong's voice), violin (in combination with their requirement to additionally vocalize), and the bassoon (especially in its extreme high register) had an unexpected rightness.