Munich: ‘Musica Rediviva’

Extract

At least one institution of Germany's contemporary music scene looks likely to survive the government's current austerity schemes: Munich's Musica Viva series. The second concert of its 2003–4 season, held in Hercules Hall on 7 November, remained true to the great tradition of this venerable series by treating a packed auditorium to two world premières and the first German performance of a ‘modern classic’. Presiding at the rostrum with the Bavarian RSO was Musica Viva's current director Udo Zimmermann, himself a composer of note and an open-minded champion of the pan-European avantgarde. In a talk broadcast in the interval, Zimmermann emphasized the series' new alignment on co-operative ventures with other state broadcasting companies, specifically in France and the Baltic countries. Besides allowing radio orchestras to pool their straitened resources, this tactic also has the highly desirable advantage of giving further hearings to new works after their premières. The size and attentiveness of Zimmermann's audiences suggest that he has found the right tack to steer Musica Viva out of its doldrums of previous decades and through the cost-slashings of the new millennium.