On 1 July a world premiere at the Opera Stuttgart is hoping to be ground-breaking in the true sense of the world: Toshio Hosokawa’s Erdbeben. Träume (“Earthquake. Dreams”) is based on Heinrich von Kleist’s novella The Earthquake in Chile. Marcel Beyer, winner of the Kleist Prize in 2014 and Büchner Prize in 2016, transforms this parable about the instability of humanity in the face of threatening situations into a libretto in which the corruptibility of the masses also plays an important role. This inspired Toshio Hosokawa to create a leading role for the Staatsopernchor Stuttgart, nine-time winners of the “Opera Choir of the Year”. Intendant Jossi Wieler will bring Toshio Hosokawa’s work to the stage with director Sergio Morabito and stage design by Anna Viebrock, and with this production bids farewell to the city, as too does long-standing music director Sylvain Cambreling, who leads the premiere on the eve of his 70^th birthday....

Antje Weithaas’ latest escapade is just a little bit crazy; in May with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra she will perform three violin concertos by Bruch, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky. The violinist is attempting this “solo triple” for the first time, but such a mentally and physically ambitious undertaking is nothing new to her. “I very often do very challenging projects, like playing the complete Bach for Violin solo in one concert, or leading entire Chamber Orchestra programs including a solo concerto without conductor,” she explains.  Also challenging is the fact that this trip to Japan falls at the end of a residency in Schwetzingen, where she presents chamber music, solo works and leads the Camerata Bern....

Congratulations to Sini Simonen, Daniel Roberts, Charlotte Bonneton and Christopher Graves: the four young members of the London-based Castalian String Quartet have won the first Merito String Quartet Award and the Valentin Erben Prize, which will be awarded to them on 23 April at the Vienna Konzerthaus. “It was impressive, how clear the decision was for the Castalian String Quartet,” commented the award’s founders, Wolfgang Habermayer and Valentin Erben. The decisive factor for the jury, who anonymously observed the quartet over a long period, was the quartet’s outstanding instrumental abilities and impressive interpretation. The Castalian String Quartet has previously received acclaim at competitions in Lyon, Banff and Hannover. The musicians introduce themselves in the following video:...

An outstanding soloist, chamber musician, pedagogue, artistic director and essayist – and in all these things a musical bridge-builder and partner to musicians, composers and artists alike from various fields: Anssi Karttunen forges his own path. His journey started in Finland at a very special time. “I was born into a lucky generation,” he explains. “This was a time when the windows to the world were more open than before and perhaps even more so than later on. There were many like-minded people my own age who were interested in being more than just one thing; the cellist, the pianist or the conductor. We saw that being a musician can mean many things.” This lucky generation includes Anssi Karttunen’s contemporaries Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho, with whom he started his voyage of discovery....

The story of Livre pour quatuor begins in 1948. Originally planned as a six movement work, Pierre Boulez never finished the fourth movement. The composer wrestled with the quartet, creating various drafts – a process which took a long time. At the same time he was also working on other pieces and had no time to prepare the string quartet to be typeset, let alone get it ready for performance. In 1955 movements Ia, Ib and II were premiered in Donaueschingen by the Marschner Quartet. On the composer’s 60^th birthday in 1985 the Arditti Quartet performed all the published movements together for the first time. The completion of Livre is a project that Irvine Arditti has been pursuing for years, and now reaches a successful conclusion with the help of Philippe Manoury and Jean-Louis Leleu. Here, Philippe Manoury explains his work as a musical reconstructor, a story that includes significant challenges, a good deal of detective work, and a stolen suitcase....