born in Vienna in 1943, was a member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik studied composition with Erwin Ratz and Gottfried von Einem, theory with Hanns Jelinek and double bass with Ludwig Streicher. From 1961 he played double bass with the ensemble ‘die reihe’ and from 1969 with the ORF-Symphony Orchestra. Since 1997 he has devoted himself only to composing, conducting and performance as chansonnier.

In 1968, along with fellow composers Kurt Schwertsik and Otto Zykan, Gruber was involved in the founding of the ‘MOB art and tone ART’ ensemble, taking on the role of singer and actor for the first time. Gruber’s international career became established when in 1978 Simon Rattle and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra gave the premiere of Frankenstein!! The work has since been performed throughout the musical world - in the orchestral version, the ensemble version, and as a ballet.

Gruber is particularly noted for his concertos, including Aerial for trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, which has received over 70 performances since its premiere in 1999, two concertos for violinist Ernst Kovacic, the Cello Concerto written for Yo-Yo Ma and premiered at Tanglewood in 1989, the percussion concerto Rough Music in the repertoire of Evelyn Glennie and Busking for trumpet, accordion, banjo and string orchestra, premiered by Hardenberger in 2008. Orchestral scores include Dancing in the Dark, premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Simon Rattle in 2003, the orchestral suite Northwind Pictures premiered in 2011 and into the open... for percussion and orchestra, premiered with Colin Currie as soloist at the 2015 BBC Proms. His most recent work is a Piano Concerto for Emanuel Ax, premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 2017 with subsequent performances scheduled in Berlin, Zürich, Stockholm, Vienna and Paris.

As a featured composer, conductor and cabaret artist, Gruber has travelled widely. He regularly performs the chansonnier role in Frankenstein!! internationally and his music theatre repertoire also includes Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King, and works by Kagel. His association with the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern has included a series of widely acclaimed concerts, opera performances and recordings, and he has worked closely with the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, holding the post of Composer/Conductor from 2010 until 2015. He continues to be much in demand as conductor with the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles and music festivals.

HK Gruber is published by Boosey & Hawkes. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes. Poems by HC Artmann (G,E,F). English translation by Harriett Watts

A pan-demonium for chansonnier and orchestra after children’s rhymes by H.C. Artmann

The origins of this ‘pan-demonium’ go back to the Frankenstein Suite of 1971 – a sequence of songs and dances written for the Vienna ‘MOB art and tone ART Ensemble’, which was then active in the field of instrumental theatre. Although the Suite was a success, I was unhappy about its improvisatory structure, and also needed the resources of a full orchestra. So in 1976/77 I completely recomposed the work in its present form. It was first performed on 25 November 1978 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Simon Rattle, with myself as soloist. For the 1979 Berlin Festival I wrote an alternative version for soloist and 12 players (first performed that year by the Vienna ensemble ‘die reihe’ under Kurt Schwertsik, again with myself as soloist). Since then, the two versions have happily co-existed; and in 1983, at the Espace Cardin in Paris, Frankenstein!! entered the theatre for the first time – an unforeseen development, but one that proved suited to Artmann’s multi-layered fantasy.

The title of the volume from which I took the poems of Frankenstein!! – Allerleirausch, neue schöne kinderreime (Noises, noises, all around – lovely new children’s rhymes) – promises something innocuous; but Artmann himself has described the poems as being, among other things, ‘covert political statements’. Typically he refused to explain what he meant. But his reticence is eloquent: the monsters of political life have always tried to hide their true faces, and all too often succeed in doing so. One of the dubious figures in the pandemonium is the unfortunate scientist who makes so surprising an entry at mid-point. Frankenstein – or whoever we choose to identify with that name – is not the protagonist, but the figure behind the scenes whom we forget at our peril. Hence the exclamation marks.

Artmann’s demystification of heroic villains or villainous heroes finds a musical parallel in, for instance, the persistent alienation of conventional orchestral sound by resorting to a cupboard-full of toy instruments. However picturesque or amusing the visual effect of the toys, their primary role is musical rather than playful – even howling plastic horses have their motivic / harmonic function. In order to do justice to the true significance of the texts it would be enough to provide some extra exercises in structural complexity. By analogy with Artmann’s diction, my aim was a broad palette combining traditional musical idioms with newer and more popular ones, and thus remaining true to the deceptive simplicity of texts whose forms at first glance suggest a naive and innocently cheerful atmosphere.

-HK Gruber

is widely regarded as the leading Dutch composer of his generation who played a pivotal role in the international new music scene. From a background of jazz and avant-garde composition, Andriessen evolved a style employing elemental harmonic, melodic and rhythmic materials, heard in totally distinctive instrumentation. His range of inspiration was wide, from the music of Charles Ives in Anachronie I, the art of Mondriaan in De Stijl, and medieval poetic visions in Hadewijch, to writings on shipbuilding and atomic theory in De Materie Part I.

Andriessen’s compositions attracted many leading exponents of contemporary music, including the two Dutch groups named after his works De Volharding and Hoketus. Other eminent ensembles who commissioned or performed his works include Asko|Schoenberg, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, London Sinfonietta, and the Bang on a Can All Stars.

Collaborative cross-discipline works included the theatre piece De Materie, created with Robert Wilson for the Netherlands Opera; three works created with Peter Greenaway (the film M is for Man, Music, Mozart, and the stage works ROSA Death of a Composer and Writing to Vermeer); and collaborations with filmmaker Hal Hartley, including The New Math(s) and La Commedia, an operatic setting of Dante.

Commissions in the last decade before Andriessen’s death in 2021 included Mysteriën, premiered by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Mariss Jansons; Agamemnon for the New York Philharmonic, premiered in 2018; and The only one for Los Angeles Philharmonic, premiered in 2019. His final opera, Theatre of the World, about the 17th-century polymath Athanasius Kircher, received first performances in Los Angeles and Amsterdam in 2016, and was released on disc by Nonesuch in 2017. His last work was May, for choir and orchestra, a tribute to Frans Brüggen which set texts from the classic Dutch impressionist poem by Herman Gorter and was premiered in the NTR ZaterdagMatinee series at the Concertgebouw in 2020.

Louis Andriessen held the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, and was awarded Composer of the Year Award by Musical America in 2010. He won the 2011 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his opera La Commedia and in 2016 was awarded the Kravis Prize for New Music including the commission of his orchestral work Agamemnon.

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

I wrote De Staat (The Republic) as a contribution to the debate about the relation of music to politics. Many composers view the act of composing as, somehow, above social conditioning. I contest that. How you arrange your musical material, the techniques you use and the instruments you score for, are largely determined by your own social circumstances and listening experience, and the availability of financial support. I do agree, though, that abstract musical material - pitch, duration and rhythm - are beyond social conditioning: it is found in nature. However, the moment the musical material is ordered it becomes culture and hence a social entity.

I have used passages from Plato to illustrate these points. His text is politically controversial, if not downright negative: everyone can see the absurdity of Plato’s statement that the mixolydian mode should be banned as it would have a damaging influence on the development of character.

My second reason for writing De Staat is a direct contradiction of the first: I deplore the fact that Plato was wrong. If only it were true that musical innovation could change the laws of the State!

-Louis Andriessen, 1994