"Fatal" - Musikfestival Bern

Suddenly we are swept into the festival. With fresh pieces by Thomas Kessler and Helmut Lachenmann, played by an ad hoc ensemble under Peter Rundel. And Cage is still good for a surprise after 70 years. 

If you want to open a festival abruptly, the music of the American composer John Cage is ideally suited for this, because with some of his pieces no one knows in advance what is going to sound. Thus we have included his famous and infamous "Concert for Piano and Orchestra" from 1957/58 in the program, which once caused a lot of fuss and incomprehension. There was no one there to mediate. Even the conductor was not one - and will not be one with us. 

In addition, a new piece by Thomas Kessler will be heard, whom we will meet again in the concert of the Bern Symphony Orchestra. And in between there is a real shocker by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann: instead of the expected highly differentiated noises, a solid march. What had gotten into him? The avant-garde scene no longer understood its world after the premiere.