Auf den Spuren der Freiheit

A musical day dedicated to inner freedom: in the early afternoon, we will continue the three-year series “Zwischentöne Polen” with a moving moderated concert. Before the Eliot Quartet pays musical homage to freedom with Beethoven, Lutosławski, and Shostakovich, we invite you to an intermezzo: either a bus excursion to the Beethoven location Gneixendorf or a concert in the Archives of Contemporary Arts.

2 pm
Moderated Concert with Kolja Lessing
Zwischentöne Polen: Works by Ignace Strasfogel
Pianist Kolja Lessing takes us into the sonorous universe of Polish composer Ignace Strasfogel, who studied with Franz Schreker in Berlin, fled from the Nazis to New York, and became a celebrated conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in emigration. Kolja Lessing places this fascinating composer at the centre of his moderated concert.

4 pm
Intermezzo A – The Archives of Contemporary Arts
Following the moderated concert, we will walk together with part of the audience to the Archives of Contemporary Arts for a literary-musical dialogue in memory of the great Austrian author Ilse Helbich, who died in January 2024 at the age of 100: Her texts are quests into the deepest layers of her existence, expressed in a language that radically liberated itself from all genres. Lisa Hofmaninger musically reflects Helbich’s text “Anderswohin”.

4 pm
Intermezzo B – Tracing Beethoven
At 4 pm, the bus takes us to Gneixendorf. Musicologist and Beethoven specialist Manfred Permoser guides us through the village where Ludwig van Beethoven created his last major works at Schloss Wasserhof, his brother Johann’s estate, in the fall of 1826.

Due to the limited number of participants, a binding registration for the bus excursion is required: tickets@klangraum.at or call +43 (0)2732 / 90 80 33
4 pm – Shuttle bus from Krems Ship Station parking area to Gneixendorf, round-trip

7 pm
Eliot Quartett
Ludwig van Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B major Op. 133 (1825–1826)
Witold Lutosławski: String Quartet (1964)
Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F major Op. 73 (1946)

Shostakovich’s string quartets represent a kind of refuge. Due to the dictatorship and reprisals of the Soviet regime, chamber music moved into the most intimate realms, into his own biography. His quartets became a diary of inner evolution. The idea of liberation can also be found in Beethoven’s quartets – perhaps most powerfully in the “detached” Grosse Fuge Op. 133 by which he wanted to introduce a “different, truly poetic element into the traditional form”. In his string quartet, Polish composer Witold Lutosławski abandons fixed structures, too. He frees up space for the performers and strips his quartet, a “fluid sculpture” of sorts, from any strict, predetermined form.

In cooperation with the Köchel Gesellschaft Krems, the Archives of Contemporary Arts, and the Polish Institute Vienna.