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AGP 10 features two works by one of the giants of 20th century music: Bernd Alois Zimmermann. The first two tracks comprise his Vocal Symphony for six soloists and orchestra, excerpted from his opera Die Soldaten (The Soldiers, 1959), based on the play by Jakob Lenz. His masterwork, this opera was at first declared unplayable, and so in 1963 Zimmermann prepared the Vocal Symphony from a set of linked scenes to demonstrate in concert performance that the music could be played. Thus, this was the first form in which music from Die Soldaten was presented to the public. The installment is filled out with Musique pour les Soupers du Roi Ubu (1968), a work consisting entirely of quotations from other compositions. This work was the culmination of a period in which Zimmermann used such quotations extensively. Apparently, he pushed this as far as it could go in this work, because he shortly thereafter moved on to a new style of composition. Most of Zimmermann's major works are available on CD, so check them out if you like what you hear in this installment. In fact, I'm bending my rules here, as both of these works have been released on CD, sort of. The complete opera Die Soldaten was released on CD in the early 1990s but is now out of print, and a live performance from 1989 is still available on DVD on Germany, but the historically significant Vocal Symphony has to my knowledge never been released on CD. Roi Ubu is available as part of an 8-CD set of concert recordings for over $200, but has never been available at a more reasonable price. Considering the significance of these works and the greatness of Zimmermann's music in general, I think it's worth including them in the Avant Garde Project. To download AGP10 files, right-click on each of the following links and select SAVE LINK AS.
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