Over to Strasbourg this week for a concert performed by the Luxembourg Philharmonic, conducted by Peter Hirsch and featuring Pascal Meyer and Xenia Pestova, piano and recorded by Radio France on October 10th.

Going into adventuresome territory again this week. Bernd Alois Zimmermann is probably a name most people have never heard of. Unless you're familiar with the Avant Garde composers of the mid-twentieth century, Zimmermann won't mean anything to you. But he was certainly one of the most individual composers to come out of the postmodern generation. He was primarily active after World War 2 up until his death by suicide in 1970. He is primarily known for his operas, Die Soldaten from 1965 being his best known.

Because the concert is a bit short (a little over 70 minutes), it's all on one player today. The program of what's being played is as follows:

Festival Musica : Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu (1962-66)
Dialoge (1960 , Révisée en 1965). Première française*
Metamorphose , Ext. de la BO du film de Michael Wolgensinger (1954)
Stille und Umkehr (1970)

Pascal Meyer, Piano*
Xenia Pestova, Piano*
Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg
Peter Hirsch, Direction
Concert donné le 9 octobre 2010 en la Salle Erasme du Palais de la Musique et des Congrès de Strasbourg

Announcements are in French but are only about a minute, so you non-French speakers don't have to dig out translation books.

This one might spark some road-rage so . . .maybe best not to play it in the car.

At any rate - try it and see if you like it. If not at least you tried and some things are just not for all tastes. If you do - there's a whole world out there.