IOSIS. Zu Gesualdo

IOSIS. A Cross-Media Opera on Gesualdo (1997/98) is conceived as a scenic-musical collage, revolving around themes of love and passion, violence, pain, and death. The starting point was a simultaneous commission to six composers to explore this thematic realm, juxtaposing the resulting pieces with five madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo—those anguished exclamations of a prince-turned-composer, fluctuating between depression and willful exaltation, driven by a yearning for expressive suffering.

 

IOSIS is a series of reciprocal approaches to the expressive qualities of both old and new music. As a musical recollection, a projection into the contemporary, it either takes on the aura and gesture or shifts the expressive focus of the music: each piece unfolds the relationship between traditional and contemporary music in a new direction.

 

IOSIS is also an experiment, as it brings together works that traverse musical languages and times; they not only adhere to an external thematic reference but also demonstrate an independence in terms of content, style, gesture, and expressive substance. This independence connects them into a cohesive whole, especially in their juxtaposition of diversity.

IOSIS. Zu Gesualdo

Cross Media Oper (1997/98)

 

01_Carlo Gesualdo/Ecco morirò

02_Carlo Gesualdo/Hai, già mi discoloro

03_Cornelius Schwehr/enigme

04_no name/»h«

05_Carlo Gesualdo/Moro, lasso

06_Caspar Johannes Walter/L’Infinito

07_Carlo Gesualdo/Io tacerò

08_Isabel Mundry/Ohne Titel

09_Carlo Gesualdo/In va, dunque

10_Matthias Hermann/Iosis

11_Nicolaus A. Huber/Sein als Einspruch

12_Andreas Dohmen/Portraits und Wiederholung

 

total lenght: 56:40

 

Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart

conductor: Manfred Schreier

Recording, editing and mastering: Thomas Angelkorte

Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart 1998

a production by Musik der Jahrhunderte Stuttgart

design: Jürgen Palmer

 

col legno

WWE 1 CD 20031