Det Norske Kammerorkester
Sentralen, Marmorsalen
17/9, 19.30
395 – 150 NOK
Georg Philipp Telemann: Don Quixote Suite (1761)
Henry Purcell: Bess of Bedlam (17th cent.)
John Coprario: Tom of Bedlam (17th cent.)
John Eccles: Restless in Thought, Disturb’d In Mind (17th cent.)
Olav Anton Thommessen: Fra Nijinskijs dagbok (2019, WP)
Peter Maxwell Davies: Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969)
Terje Tønnesen – artistic director
Nils Harald Sødal – tenor
Silje Aker Johnsen – soprano
Det Norske Kammerorkester takes you on a historical tour of the musical asylum, from the baroque era to the present day. In the age of Telemann, John Eccles and Purcell, the crazed idealism of Don Quixote was admired as a ‘holy fool’, while the inmates of the famous mental hospital Bedlam in London are commemorated in pieces by Purcell and John Coprario.
Olav Anton Thommessen’s interpretation of the extraordinary diaries of Nijinsky brings out the absurdities and suffering of the ballet dancer’s life, while Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King is a ‘monodrama’ based on George III, the English king whose temporary insanity became the subject of the film The Madness of King George. Based on themes found in a mechanical organ owned by the king himself, and featuring a vocal part full of extended techniques, this is one of the most wild and energetic depictions of madness in musical history.
Produced by Det Norske Kammerorkester.
This concert also marks the first in the Kammerorkester’s new season Hørbar (Listenable) – a series of concert presenting classical music in a more informal setting.
(Photo: Liv Øvland)
