March off!

In the Beethoven Year 2020, the Music School Hamm in cooperation with the Münster ensemble consord is organizing a concert program in Hamm, Münster and Duisburg, in which works by Beethoven are related to New Music. The focus will be on wind music. Advanced students of the music school will be involved in the performance and prepared by consord's professional musicians.

Beethoven's music for military orchestras is certainly not among the most famous of his works. However, an anniversary year is a good occasion to present these smaller works of the important composer as well.

In Beethoven's time, striving for freedom was often enforced by force. The French Revolution, for example, of which Beethoven was a follower, was just as unable to get along without violence as was the resistance to the Napoleonic campaigns. If a work like Wellington's Victory celebrates military success over Napoleon, Mauriocio Kagel, with his "10 Marches to Miss Victory", questions in his usual humorous way the meaning of marching in step in the service of the military and thus probably also the meaning of military force.

Kunsu Shim's "Happy for no reason" is divided into two parts: The first part with very short and loud actions is followed by a very quiet, continuous ensemble sound while the unrolling of an adhesive tape in the room happens with a delicate sound and also visually changes the place.

The third work in the concert program is Gerhard Stäbler's "DreiZehn". "DreiZehn" is a piece that appeals to all the senses beyond the sound, while at the same time providing space for the bizarre and carnivalesque.