ConcertPulse
musica viva: Jörg Widmann
The clarinetist, composer, and conductor Jörg Widmann is one of the shining lights of contemporary music. His credo is to combine tradition with new developments, resulting in timbres whose virtuosity, intensity, and directness both surprise and oftentimes confront the listeners, but also challenge them with quiet, fragile moments. The transparent, ethereal orchestral piece Armonica seems to defy the laws of gravity as it emerges out of nowhere. In the Trumpet Concerto, composed for Håkan Hardenberger, the sounds wander through space – like the trumpeter through the orchestra. A labyrinthine journey extending from wild and rugged orchestral abysses all the way to an open, utopian state of suspension.