"Sinfonia für Mexico City"

film screening

October 4, 2023, 7pm

Fonoteca Nacional, Ciudad de México, MX

In February 2015, Hermann Nitsch’s Sinfonia for Mexico City was premiered with the conductor Andrea Cusumano. On October 4, 2023, the artist and composer will be remembered in the Fonoteca Nacional in Mexico at the premiere of the film that was made as part of this concert.
The curator Michel Blanscubé and the filmmaker Julien Devaux will accompany the film screening.

Hermann Nitsch wrote about his symphonies (2009/2014):

“my music has sublimated itself more and more. the organ sound of the orchestra is becoming even more essential for me. all the same, it is fathomed again in the abysses of prelanguage and the soundless. it is taken for granted that an action is connected to sound and noise, only the true connoisseurs of my work knows that my music has its own specific values; that’s why the o.m. theater is performed in concert, separate from the actions. i usually use the classical form of the symphony, as its structure is closest to the scheme of tragedy.

1st movement: enormous exposition
2nd movement: meditative adagio
3rd movement: a scherzo often unloading into the daemonic
4th movement: large-scale, positive or tragic finale.

the monumental acoustic media and the enormous time dimensions are powered in the music of the o.m. theater all the same. the 6-day play, every day, every night, every minute is thoroughly composed. although i make use of other sound means, the models for my symphony would be the symphonies of mahler, bruckner, the music of scriabin and the monumental compositions of olivier messiaen.“

Fonoteca Nacional
Av. Francisco Sosa 383, Santa Catarina, Coyoacán
04010 Ciudad de México
México
rva.fonotecanacional.gob.mx