Voices from inner emigration

Totalitarianism, whether fascist or communist, forced many people into exile. For those who stayed in their homeland, a possible solution was self-imposed internal exile. Chamber music and poetry are the supreme forms of expression of artists in this sort of "inner emigration". For Weinberg, Akhmatova and Shostakovich these genres were a respite from the strictly guarded public utterances of artists living in totalitarian regimes; for others, like Beethoven and Smetana, chamber music was a voice from an inner island amid the sea of deafness surrounding them. Chamber music concerts are not normally a feature of the Bregenz Festival programme, but in the case of Weinberg, his powerful, intimate and passionate chamber music makes up an important part of his extensive oeuvre, and a festival celebrating his music simply cannot leave it out. The chamber music section of the festival has been programmed by our friends and partners, the members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and it is a great opportunity to experience these excellent musicians close at hand – with music whose every note illustrates the motto of the Festival in 2010: "In foreign lands".

Ralph Dutli reads – in Russian and German – texts by four great Russian poets of the 20th century: Ossip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky, who today are regarded as classic figures of modernism. Two of them – Tsvetaeva and Brodsky – were exiles in Paris and New York, while the other two – Mandelstam and Akhmatova – were significant representatives of inner emigration. Mandelstam died in the Gulag camps, Tsvetaeva committed suicide; all four suffered political repression and a ban on publication. In their poems they created a "portable fatherland", as Heinrich Heine called it, a precarious security in language, a final possibility of freedom and a breathing-space.

25 July – 7.30 p.m., Lake Studio

EOS-Quartett Wien
Willy Büchler, violin
Christian Blasl, violin
Roman Bernhart, viola
Andreas Pokorny, cello
Doris Adam, piano
Talia Or, soprano

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Piano Quintet op. 18
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Three Palms op. 120, a setting of verses by Mikhail Lermontov for string quartet and soprano
  
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Jewish Songs op. 13 Songs

Texts by Ossip Mandelstam, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro

8 August – 11 a.m., Lake Studio

Luca Monti, piano
Kana Matsui, violin
Johannes Flieder, viola
Christoph Stradner, cello

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Trio op. 48 for Violin, Viola and Cello
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Sonata No. 2 op. 63 for Cello and Piano

Texts by Joseph Brodsky, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro

15 August – 7.30 p.m., Lake Studio

Ensemble Dolby’s Around
Claire Dolby, violin, voice
Nicolas Geremus, violin
Vera Reigersberg, viola
Luis Zorita, cello
Ernst Weissensteiner, double bass

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 op. 145
• Works by Claire Dolby and Nicolas Geremus

Texts by Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro