Wilde Lieder Marx.Music

Given an open brief simply to ‘compose a work inspired by the life, work or ideas of Karl Marx’ from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Celeste Oram (New Zealand/ USA), Frédéric Pattar (France) and Robert Reid Allan (UK) each responded in contrasting and provoking ways: two hundred years since Marx was born his ideas resonate.

Celeste Oram’s Pierrot Laborieux [work & The Work] examines the idea of musical work – is a musician’s or composer’s artistry truly free labour? Is the music they create a ‘commodity’ we buy, sell and consume?

French composer Frédéric Pattar uses the phenomenon of economic Deflation to sculpt a vivid sonic interpretation of the rise – then fall – of wealth in a capitalist system.

And Robert Reid Allan collaborated with Gareth Mattey to imagine Terry Helenson’s Revolutionary Dreams: a man, once boldly protesting Marxist ideals, now confined to a humdrum life in the City. At night, his mind awakens...

Celeste Oram (b.1990) Pierrot Laborieux [work & The Work]SI(2018), 11?
Frédéric Pattar (b.1969 Deflation - Eine Kleine MarxmusikBCMG (2018), 10?
Robert Reid Allan (b.1991) Terry Helenson’s Revolutionary DreamsSI(2018), 21?

SI BCMG Sound Investment Commission BCMG BCMG Commission

Michael Wendeberg Conductor
Elizabeth Atherton Soprano

Speakers
Dr Johan Siebers Director Ernst Bloch Centre for German Thought
Dr Paul Archbold SAS Research Fellow (Music and Language) at School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Stephan Meier Artistic Director Birmingham Contemporary Music Group