A fabric woven from threads so fine that they can only be seen where they are intertwined. Dots that seem to float freely, yet are connected – touching one makes the others react. The material of the threads is moods, associations, colours, memories and the note g (the red thread of the weave). On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Egon Wellesz, Adrian Eröd presents his new CD, which allows this important composer from Vienna to be seen as a link between the past and the present. Christoph Traxler, one of the Austrian baritone's trusted partners, is also present, playing the piano.
For years, Austrian baritone Adrian Eröd has been thrilling audiences and critics alike with his versatility as a singer of a wide range of roles at his home base, the Vienna State Opera. He has also performed in Bayreuth, Zurich, Cologne, Leipzig, Tokyo, Amsterdam and – under the direction of Christian Thielemann – in Dresden and at the Salzburg Easter Festival.
As a lieder singer, Adrian Eröd, for whom this art form is particularly close to his heart, has so far appeared at the Wiener Musikverein and Grazer Musikverein, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, the Liszt Centre in Raiding, the Tokyo Spring Festival and the Carinthian Summer Festival, among others. His discography includes, among other things, songs by Franz Liszt and Schubert's Winterreise; his latest solo album, entitled Berührungspunkte (Points of Contact), features works by Mozart and Schubert as well as songs by Egon Wellesz and Aribert Reimann.
Egon Wellesz, famous and much played in Austria and Germany in the 1920s, successful above all as an opera composer, was branded ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis, emigrated to England in 1938 and was eventually appointed to the University of Oxford. ‘On Time’ is one of his first works after the creative break caused by his flight; an intellectual examination of the inexorable march of time in three stages, musically surprisingly theatrical, muscular almost.