Continuing the commemoration of the centenary of World War I, the Music Theatre and T:24 Drama Societies come together for a production of Oh, What A Lovely War! from 19th-21st November.
Click to viewKat Edmonds
‘I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the new spin that UKC MTS and T24 Drama Society will bring to this classic production!’ enthuses Katharine Edmonds, Publicity Officer for the Music Theatre Society, almost beside herself with excitement about the project. ‘The collaboration between the two societies is very exciting in itself and I can’t wait for the song and dance numbers! People should come and see the show simply because it’s going to be a lot of fun, and if that’s not enough reason then it’s also extremely topical right now, it being the centenary of WW1. It’s a great opportunity to reconsider our history and get to experience a show that will make the audience feel just as involved in the action!’
The production comes to the Gulbenkian Theatre, tickets and further details can be found online here, and you can follow the production on Twitter @OWALW.
Exactly one hundred years ago tonight, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was premiered at the Theatre du Chatelet, conducted by Pierre Monteux.
Here’s part of ‘Riot at the Rite;’ a BBC dramatisation of events surrounding that first, notorious performance, with Stravinsky in a rage at the orchestral rehearsal.
Today marks the centenary of the first performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, a pre-serial masterpiece from the King of the Second Viennese School.
Here’s Pierre Boulez conducting Ensemble InterContemporain, with Christine Schäfer bringing the soprano line vividly to life.
It’s almost hard to believe that this year is not just the centenary of Cage’s birth, but also the sixtieth anniversary of Cage’s noiseless yet sound-rich, notorious masterpiece, 4’ 33’’. Premièred by David Tudor on August 29 in 1952, the piece has gone on to cause controversy wherever and whenever it continues to be performed.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra performed the UK’s first orchestral version of the piece in a concert dedicated to the music of Cage in 2004.
The original programme cover
Cage himself reflected on the first performance:
There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.
Cage’s piece draws to the fore the interaction between performer, audience and environment, raising the significance of the non-directed elements present during the piece’s performance; ambient, unintentional noise, aleatoric sounds, events outside of the performer’s control and yet deliberately included as part of the experience. The piece makes room for all those surrounding elements over which the performer has no direct control, and makes them a part of it; it makes us listen not to an arranged series of controlled auditory events, but to whatever sonic incidents happen to occur during that defined time-period during which the piece is ‘performed.’ In fact, the only controlled element of the piece is the time during which these events unfold, defined by the raising and lowering of the piano lid in the piece’s original incarnation. Aside from dictating the beginning and end of each of the three movements, everything else is left to chance.
Tuesday marked the centenary of Cage’s birthday, and there have been events marking the occasion worldwide throughout the year including a special BBC Prom dedicated to Cage’s work (for which the back-up system on Radio 3 had to be turned off, a system which kicks in when it detects ‘dead air;’) yet it’s 4’ 33’’ that remains his most notorious, most thought-provoking piece, and arguably one of the most significant works of the twentieth-century. For a piece with no prescribed sound, its impact continues to resonate still.
Because it does. Doesn't it ? Blogging about extra-curricular musical life at the University of Kent.
