Remember Michael Hersch? Pittsburgh Symphony patrons and musicians had a love affair with him after Mariss Jansons started championing his music in 2000, and I poured in some big articles, too. 
Of course, not everyone liked his music here as much as I and others did, which is to be expected with new music. He came back as a PSO composer of the year, but has not been programmed in Heinz Hall since. Here is the latest on this talented and still young American composer who now teaches at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore:
Composer Michael Hersch Presents Two World Premieres
Vanguard Classics Begins Survey of Hersch’s Complete Solo and Chamber Music for Strings With New Recording of Sonatas for Unaccompanied Cello
Composer and pianist Michael Hersch has rapidly won the attention and praise of music critics and new music aficionados around the world. He recently performed the world premiere of his own work The Vanishing Pavilions (a composition more than two hours long), entirely from memory, in Philadelphia. David Patrick Stearns, music critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote of the premiere that Hersch “conjured volcanic gestures from the piano with astonishing virtuosity.” Stearns continued:
“The evening felt downright historic. Overtly or covertly, The Vanishing Pavilions is about the destruction of shelter (both in fact and in concept) and life amid the absence of any certainty. And though the music is as deeply troubled as can be, its restless directness also commands listeners not to be paralyzed by existential futility.”
Hersch’s boxed-set recording of The Vanishing Pavilions on the Vanguard Classics label has garnered a great deal of attention. Andrew Clark of the Financial Times wrote that “Hersch is one of the most fertile musical minds to emerge in the U.S. over the past generation, and this two-hour work for piano solo is his magnum opus. ... Its powerful imagination and poetic mood compel attention.” The label will issue another CD of Hersch’s works in October. This release of his Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 for Unaccompanied Cello is the first in a survey of Hersch’s complete solo and chamber music for strings, to be released over the next three years.
Performances of several major works by Michael Hersch are scheduled this fall in New York and Philadelphia, including world premieres of his newest work, Last Autumn, in two different versions.
On September 8, as part of the Transit Circle contemporary music series at New York’s Mannes School of Music, Miranda Cuckson performs Hersch’s 14 Pieces for Unaccompanied Violin (2007) alongside works by Ralph Shapey and Elliott Carter.
At Philadelphia’s historic St. Mark’s Church on October 17, Jamie Hersch (horn) and Daniel Gaisford (cello) will give the world premiere of Hersch’s massive new work, Last Autumn, for horn and cello. A different version of Last Autumn, this time for alto saxophone and cello, will receive its world premiere at New York City’s intimate Merkin Concert Hall on February 27, 2010. The work was commissioned by the Washington Performing Arts Society and by saxophonist Gary Louie, who will be joined by Daniel Gaisford for the performance.
The composer comments:
“Last Autumn for horn and cello is the sister work to The Vanishing Pavilions. Like The Vanishing Pavilions, it is intended to comprise an entire concert program. Together, the two pieces required almost seven years to complete. Completed in 2008, the work is built around poetic fragments of the late W.G. Sebald. The work was written for two extraordinary musicians, my brother and horn player Jamie Hersch, and cellist Daniel Gaisford.”
After learning about Hersch’s Last Autumn, virtuoso saxophonist Gary Louie immediately approached the composer about the possibility of commissioning a version for saxophone and cello. Hersch substantially reworked the original score, essentially rewriting the work for this remarkable but vastly underutilized instrument and one of its finest contemporary players. Daniel Gaisford will join Louie in the world premiere of the complete work at Merkin Concert Hall under the auspices of the Transit Circle contemporary concert series.
Next April 9, an ambitious new work – a septet entitled A Forest of Attics – will be given its world premiere by Philadelphia’s Network for New Music, which commissioned the composition for its 25th anniversary season. The work is scored for clarinet, horn, percussion, and a string quartet comprising violin, viola, cello, and double bass. It, too, is built around text fragments, this time by Bruno Schulz, a Polish artist and writer who was shot and killed during World War II.
Written over a 15-year period, Hersch’s works for solo strings represent a significant yet relatively unknown portion of the composer’s output. The first in Vanguard’s series of CDs dedicated to these works, scheduled for release this October, will feature the two sonatas for solo cello, both written while the composer was still in his 20s. The second volume in the series, to be released in 2010, will feature his works for violin, including 14 Pieces, Five Fragments, and the wreckage of flowers. The third installment, scheduled for 2011 release, will present Hersch’s unaccompanied works for double bass and viola.
Posted
Oct 16 2009, 10:51 AM
by
Andrew Druckenbrod