Ernst Helmuth Flammer's "Der Turmbau zu Babel"

[Modernistfan]

Next month, Ernst Helmuth Flammer's "Der Turmbau zu Babel" (The Tower of Babel), for 3 orchestral groups, 3 choirs, 2 solo voices (soprano and baritone), speaker, quadrophonic playback and live electronics, on texts by Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Niccolò Machiavelli and Kurt Tucholsky, is coming out on Neos. I've got to get this--it sounds like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" (Requiem for a Young Poet") on very heavy-duty steroids! (It was finished in 1983, so it was not inspired by Trump's tweets, no matter how appropriate it would seem.)

[barney]

Next month, Ernst Helmuth Flammer's "Der Turmbau zu Babel" (The Tower of Babel), for 3 orchestral groups, 3 choirs, 2 solo voices (soprano and baritone), speaker, quadrophonic playback and live electronics, on texts by Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Niccolò Machiavelli and Kurt Tucholsky, is coming out on Neos. I've got to get this--it sounds like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" (Requiem for a Young Poet") on very heavy-duty steroids! (It was finished in 1983, so it was not inspired by Trump's tweets, no matter how appropriate it would seem.)

I'm interested in the texts as well. No Bible, I note. I wonder what Wagner had to say about Babel?

[Modernistfan]

There is nothing that I love better than full blast, bombastic, wackadoodle, German expressionism. (The prototype for it, of course, is Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron").

[barney]

I couldn't find much about this via Google, at least not without a better knowledge of German...

[Modernistfan]

Well, I bought this recording and am listening to it. I was right--it does sound like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" (Requiem for a Young Poet") on very heavy-duty steroids, if you throw in some cocaine and methamphetamine as well! Very interesting, but I probably won't listen to it every day.

[barney]

Well, I bought this recording and am listening to it. I was right--it does sound like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" (Requiem for a Young Poet") on very heavy-duty steroids, if you throw in some cocaine and methamphetamine as well! Very interesting, but I probably won't listen to it every day.

That's as bad a review as I've ever heard you give a contemporary work. It might deter some of us, I'm afraid.

[maestrob]

Well, I bought this recording and am listening to it. I was right--it does sound like Bernd Alois Zimmermann's "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" (Requiem for a Young Poet") on very heavy-duty steroids, if you throw in some cocaine and methamphetamine as well! Very interesting, but I probably won't listen to it every day.

That's as bad a review as I've ever heard you give a contemporary work. It might deter some of us, I'm afraid.

Ya think?