Rubble Music.

After the catastrophe of the Second World War and the Holocaust, Europe was broken. Its cities in ruins, and the souls of its survivors irrevocably altered.

What art could arise from this rubble? Can anything of the old world be salvaged?

Forest Collective explores the incredible music and poetry birthed from the immediate aftermath of these horrors - the so-called Trȕmmerliteratur - and its long artistic shadows cast through the 20th and 21st centuries. 

The defiant poetry of holocaust survivor Paul Celan, and the bitter anguish of returned conscript Wolfgang Borchert’s play The Man Outside, are combined with music from 20th century masters Aribert Reimann, Isabel Mundry and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Yet bastions of the old world remain among the rubble – the sweet lyricism of Jewish-German composer Franz Schrecker, whose works were branded ‘degenerate’ by the regime. Likewise, pillars of high German culture, like Robert Schumann’s lieder settings of Heinrich Heine (who was himself Jewish), stand out as bittersweet reminders of a romanticism, now gone.

Forest Collective’s bold vision and virtuosity brings this world to life in a one-night-only performance that shines a light of courage into dark places.

"There is nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even when he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German."  - Paul Celan.

The performance features Aleise Bright (soprano), Danaȅ Killian (piano), Kim Tan (flutes), and Daniel Szesiong Todd (spoken word), and the full Forest Collective ensemble, led by conductor Evan J Lawson.

Church of All Nations

180 Palmerston Street
Carlton

Friday 27 March
7pm

Aleise Bright (voice soloist)
Danaë Killian (piano soloist)
Kim Tan (flute soloist)
Daniel Szesiong Todd (spoken word)

Alex Macdonald (viola)
Evan J Lawson (conductor)
May Zeng (violin)

Presented by Forest Collective.

Part I

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) Fantasiestück: Des Abends, Op. 12 No. 1, für Klavier (1837)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) Klavierstück V (1954)

Aribert Reimann (1936–2024)Fünf Lieder after poems by Paul Celan (1920–1970), for voice and piano (2006)
i Komm | Come
ii Das Leuchten | The Glowing
iii Ein Ring | A Ring
iv Es wird | It will
v Wir | We

Wolfgang Borchert (1921–1947), transl. Daniel Szesiong Todd The Man Outside: Prelude—spoken word between God, Death, the Old Man, and an Undertaker (1946)

Aribert Reimann (1936–2024) März, after a text by Günter Grass, for solo bass flute and narrator (1966)

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) Balsatzar, Op. 57, for voice and piano (1840) Text by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)

Part II

Isabel Mundry (*1963) If: Song, with and without words after a poem by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) (from “Belsazar”), for soprano and piano (2006)

Lied for mezzosoprano and piano (2017) Text by Inger Christensen (1935–2009)

Suite for piano, Op. 25 Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

i Präludium
ii Gavotte – Musette – Gavotte
iii Intermezzo
iv Menuett – Trio – Menuett
v Gigue

Ypsilon for a melodic instrument with microtones (version for flute) (1989) Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)

Five Songs, Op. 4, for high voice and chamber orchestra (arr. from the piano version) Franz Schreker (1878–1934), arr. Evan J Lawson (*1989)
i Unendliche Liebe | Endless Love (Leo Tolstoy)
ii Frühling | Spring (Karl von Lemayer)
ii Wohl fühl ich wie das Leben rinnt | Well Do I Feel How Life Trickles Away (Theodor Storm)
iv Die Liebe als Recensentin | Love as Critic (Julius Sturm)
v Lenzzauber | Spring Magic (Ernst Scherenberg)