Composer Festival HK Gruber – Grand Finale

Like none other, HK Gruber has the capacity to imbue music with a humorous dimension while always retaining a spirit of the deepest earnestness. He played double bass in the avant garde ensemble Die Reihe in the early 1960s and in the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1998. He is also a singer and has appeared in both his own and others’ work, including Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and in music by Hanns Eisler and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

Gruber has guest conducted many of the major orchestras in the US and Europe, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and both the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics. He has also had a close, multi-year relationship with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, which we will hear in this concert.

“The cello’s range exceeds all other string instruments. It can sing from the lowest register to the highest,” says Gruber. He uses the instrument in his highly acclaimed Cello Concerto, which also has elements of popular music. He also concedes to the musical kinship between himself and Stravinsky, illustrated here with Danses concertantes.

Manhattan Broadcasts is one of Gruber’s early works, which in opposition to the 60s avant garde movement sounds most like an American dance orchestra, but with an unmistakable touch of Gruber. The second movement of Timescapes is also swinging, while the solemn and lyrical introduction is reminiscent of Gustav Mahler.