Vykintas Baltakas’ Smokey Arnold will be performed in Munich on Sunday 8 November.
Smokey Arnold was commisioned by Het Collectief. Since I like to relate my work to a specific concert situation: a specific musician, location, or in this case a specific repertoire, I decided to take a close look at Pierrot Lunaire, which to me is the quintessential work of this ensemble. I decided to compose an alternative track for one specific part: “Heimweh” (Part III.15).
Alternative tracks, are more common in Jazz, where different versions of the same piece often appear in a single CD production, offering new and refreshing perspectives on an original idea. In much the same way I looked at this melodrama by Arnold Schönberg based on poems by Albert Giraud and felt triggered to place a comment of my own. One hundred years removed from the original composition, the melancholy, the drama of the viennese bourgeois, all seems odd and slightly theatrical to me, but I do in the end still relate to the notion of “Heimweh”.
Smokey Arnold is a slightly sardonic commentary on a great piece written one hundred years ago.
Vykintas Baltakas
This is a specially exciting performance, since for the first time Smokey Arnold will be indeed integrated to the Pierrot lunnaire as a commentary, alternative track.
Information about the concert follows below:
Sunday 8 November 2020, 20h (local time)
Schwere Reiter (Dachauer Str. 116, 80636 München)
Programme:
Michelle Agnes Magalhães (* 1979) | Lorca-Zyklus
Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951) | Pierrot lunnaire (1912)
Vykintas Baltakas (* 1972) | Smokey Arnold (2015)
Salome Kammer, Stimme
der/gelbe/klang
Leitung: Armando Merino
Tags: Pierrot Lunnaire, Schoenberg, Smokey Arnold, Vykintas Baltakas