Berg and Zemlinsky at the Osterfestival

I’m jumping in for an ill colleague at Austria’s Osterfestival in the heart of the Alps. The program is Berg’s luscious Sieben frühe Lieder and Zemlinsky’s little-known and absolutely gorgeous Maeterlinck Lieder, performed in an arrangement for chamber orchestra by Reinbert de Leeuw. Reinbert (the founder and conductor of Asko|Schönberg, the Netherlands’ most storied new-music band) also conducts the performance, which features players of the Belgian ensemble Het Collectief. I wish my colleague a speedy recovery; my adrenaline is high as I dive into this gorgeous repertoire that evokes the world of Klimt and Art Nouveau. (It was almost exactly four years ago that I jumped in for a recital in the Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal in similar repertoire of Marx, Korngold, and Strauss; read the glowing review of that performance here.)