Prague Spring to host unique concert for 50 pianos
For the third consecutive year, Prague’s DOX Centre for Contemporary Art is hosting Prague Offspring, a Prague Spring festival concert format dedicated to contemporary music. The legendary Klangforum Wien will again appear in the role of ensemble-in-residence and will also feature in a special concert featuring 50 pianos. I asked Josef Třeštík, Prague Spring’s programme director, to tell me more:
“Prague Offspring takes place for the third time this year and for the third and last time the ensemble-in-residence is Klangforum Wien, an excellent specialised contemporary music ensemble from Vienna. The composer-in-residence this year is Rebecca Saunders, a British-born Berlin-based composer.
“We will feature two of her major works, Nether and Scar. Nether is for a soprano and ensemble at it is based on Molly Bloom’s monologue from the Ulysses by James Joyce. It’s a rather complex work based on sonic qualities of language, which are interacting with the sounds coming from the ensemble.
“But part of the Prague of Spring are also commissions. We have commissioned five new works by Czech and Slovak composers. There will be also music by an Enno Poppe, an eminent German composer who is also conducting all the concerts. And an inherent part of Prague Offspring are also workshops for students and public interviews at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague’s Holešovice district.”
I also wanted to ask you about another highlight, the Concert for 11,000 strings, featuring 50 pianos playing simultaneously. Can you tell us a little bit more about this rather unusual composition?
“Yes. It sounds a bit outlandish, doesn’t it? It’s a work written by Austrian composer George Friedrich Haas, who was the guest of the Prague Offspring last year and who is coming back to Prague again this year.
“This composition is, as you said, for 50 upright pianos and a chamber orchestra. The orchestra is again Klangforum Wien and the pianists playing the pianos are volunteers who responded to the call from the Prague Spring.
“It’s a rather spectacular and special piece because the pianos are placed in a circle and the audience is both within and outside the circle. But also, each and every piano is tuned differently!
“Georg Friedrich Haas is famous for working with microtonal tuning, so it’s really small intervals, smaller than what you usually have on a piano scale. And the result is I would say really special. It sometimes can sound almost like electronic music, even though it is purely acoustic.
“I was lucky enough to hear the world premiere of it in Bolzano last summer. The second performance took place in Vienna and Prague Spring is the third promoter hosting the performance.”
I am also curious about the preparations. What do they entail?
“It’s rather difficult because 50 pianos is something rather unusual. There's actually one more thing which involves the preparations. You can’t actually see the conductor when playing upright piano because it's much taller than a concert piano, so every pianist has a tablet and the score on it is conducting, so to speak, the pianist. It turns the pages and shows the pulse.
“And yes, even to put together a rehearsal, which took place earlier this month at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory, and bring together 50 pianos or keyboards, was rather a challenge!”
The Concert for 11,000 Strings, featuring Klangforum Wien and 50 pianists, will take place on Saturday at Prague’s Forum Karlín at 6 and 9 p.m.
