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There is no better-known illustrator
of children's books in our time than Maurice Sendak. Since the publication
in 1963 of his most popular picture book Where the Wild Things Are, which he both wrote and illustrated, his work has been almost as much in demand in France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and the Scandinavian
countries as it is in the United States. Sendak is credited by many critics, educators, and knowledgeable readers of children's books with being the first artist to deal openly with the feelings of young children. His
receipt in 1970 of the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the closest approximation to a Nobel Prize in the world of children's books, for the body of his illustration gave official confirmation to what his
admirers already knew: that his pictures had made and were continuing to make a major contribution to the literature of childhood. The artist has said of his work, if I have an unusual gift, it's not that I draw
particularly better or write particularly better than other people--I've never fooled myself about that. Rather, it's that I remember things other people don't recall: the sounds and feelings and images--the emotional
quality--of particular moments in childhood.With a production repertoire from children's literature (Where the Wild Things Are, Babar, Boîte a Joujoux) to an intense exploration into modern music and poetry (A-Ronne,
Novissimum Testamentum), Amy Luckenbach continues to break the barrier between the puppet and music worlds. Born in the United States, Amy Luckenbach came to Florence in 1964, where her background in theatre and
sculpture aided in her study of puppetry with the puppet masters of the Drak Theatre of Prague. In 1975 she founded "Butattini a Spasso", a puppet theatre based in Florence. With this group she went on to win
the Unima International Prize of Bulgaria with her 1978 production of Il Fannullone e il Pesce Magico. In 1996 she founded her current puppet theatre, "Teatro Minimo". The productions of Amy Luckenbach and her
theatres have been performed at the Ravenna Festival, the Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte di Montepulciano, Opera Barga, Ferruccio Busoni Center of Musical Studies of Empoli, Accademia Scarlatti of Naples, Accademia
Bartolomeo Crisotofori of Florence, Accademia Chigiana of Siena, Festival Pontito of Sermoneta, the International Festival of Poetry in Venice, La Scala (Milano), Settembre Musica at the Piccolo Regio (Turin), Santa
Cecilia (Rome), Maison du Radio France (Paris), the Festival Internazionale Musica y Escena di citta del Messico, and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas (New Haven, CT). Her puppets have also been seen in the
form of toys at the Children's Bookstores of the New York Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian Institute of Washington, and in 1991 an exhibition on her techniques of puppet and doll construction was held in Tokyo,
Japan. She has collaborated with such artists, composers and musicians as Luciano Berio, Lorenzo Ferraro, Lele Luzzati and Maurice Sendak. Her future plans include further collaborations with Luciano Berio and Maurice
Sendak as well as with Phillip Glass and Betty Olivero. The ensemble for glass music, Sinfonia di vetro (Munich-Germany) was founded in 1995/96. Their leader, Sascha Reckert, started to build and perform on
glass-music-instruments in 1985/86. He invented the Verrophon out of upstanding glass-tubes in a woodden frame with a very powerful sound. (The name "Verrophon" has been used since 1811 in catalogs for
glass-music-instruments made out of upstanding glasses.) Reckert has also reconstructed (glass-) harmonicas after the original plans from Benjamin Franklin and the models from Mozarts' time, as well as musical glasses
(also known as glassharp) and a Euphon, first known in 1791 as an invention of E.F.Chladni. The modern Euphon was developed in 1998/99 in cooperation with the inventor Harald Winkler and is now a
"glass-double-bass-instrument" made from glass rods, aluminium plates and resonance tubes. The idea of Sinfonia di vetro is to perform original compositions for glass instruments as well as their own
arrangements with 2-6 glass musicians that act as string quartet or sextet. Every glass musician can play cords as well as melodies. This concept of the glass ensemble was a world-music-premier and since then their
repertoire has expanded to contain music from the Renaissance to classical programs, film-music, and chansons. Composers have written for, and premiered pieces with Sinfonia di vetro, e.g. the concerto for
glass-harmonica and orchestra by C.M.v. Weber, the harmonica parts in the operas "Die Frau ohne Schatten" by R. Strauss (first time completely performed on the original requested armonica by Sascha Reckert in
1992 - Salzburger Festspiele) and "Lucia di Lammermoor" by G. Donizetti (1991-Munich), and the glasspart in the Cello-Concerto by B.A. Zimmermann (2001-Gewandhaus Leipzig). To enlarge their repertoire,
Sinfonia di vetro now consists of singers, a harp player, pianist Vincent Julien Piot and glass specialists, like Bruno Kliegl, performing on a reconstructed harmonica in original 430-tuning. The members of Sinfonia di
vetro have produced chamber-operas, musical comedies, experimental performances, a ballet, have taken part in the operas of Avignon, Dresden, Essen, Munich, Milano (Scala), Nagoya, Tokyo and Turin, performed with
orchestras in Berlin, Colone, Dresden, Hamburg, Stuttgart, recorded CD's with the Berlin Philharmonics, the Dresden opera, the RIAS-radio-orchestra Berlin, and performed in many TV-shows.
In 1996 Amy Luckenbach
created Teatro Minimo, a Florence based puppet theatre, whose work is a collaboration between the world of puppetry and that of music. In July of the same year the 52nd edition of the Settimana Musicale Senese saw the
debut of this theatrical company with A-ronne, the result of a collaboration between Luciano Berio and Amy Luckenbach. A-Ronne subsequently appeared at the Venice International Festival of Contemporary Poetry, the
Semoneta Festival, the Milano-Musica Festival (for La Scala), and the Festival Présences in Paris. The group's second production, Novissimum Testamentum: un ritratto di Edoardo Sanguineti based on Sanguinetti's poetic
self-portrait in verse, premiered at the Piccolo Regio of Turin for "Settembre Musica", and subsequently has been performed in conjunction with A-Ronne at Centro Tempo Reale (Florence), the Palazzo delle
Esposizioni (Rome) for the Association Amici di Santa Cecilia, the Festival of New Music of Macerata, and the Festival Internazionale Musica y Escena di citta del Messico. In 1999 the groups' production of Paisiello's
"Serva Padrona" was presented by Teatro Comunale of Florence at Teatro Goldoni. Their productions for children include Histoire de Babar, La Boîte a Joujoux , and Il Fannullone e il Pesce Magico. The Accademia
Bartolomeo Cristofori of Florence, "Artigianato e palazzo" in Florence, and Santa Cecilia's program of theatre for children have all played host to Teatro Minimo. In May of 2001 Fantasy Sketches, a
collaboration of Amy Luckenbach and Maurice Sendak with music by Wolfgang Mozart had its world premiere at Santa Cecilia in Rome. In June this production will move to New Haven, CT to participate in the International
Festival of Arts and Ideas. Future productions are currently being developed and include collaborations with Luciano Berio, Phillip Glass, Betty Olivero, and Maurice Sendak.
Part I
Early compositions for piano by Mozart
Scene 1
Minuetto & Trio in G Major KV 1e
Two pieces in E flat Major & B flat Major KV 15
Minuetto in D Major KV 7
Allegro in B flat Major KV 3
Scene 2
Contredanse in F Major KV 15h
Rondo in F Major K 15hh
Minuetto in A flat Major KV 15ff
Menuet in E flat Major KV 15qq
Arietta in F Major
Scene 3
Larghetto in F Major
Contredanse in G Major KV 15c
Menuet in F Major KV 5
Contredanse in G Major KV 269
Rondeau in D Major KV 15d
Part II
Compositions by Mozart and Haydn
Scene 1
Menuet a tre in B flat Major KV 10 - oboe, violin, violoncello
Flute-Aria from Die Zauberflöte - flute, verrophone
Adagio in C Major for the glassharmonica solo KV 617a
Scene 2
Serenade in C Major - flute, violin, violoncello
Duet in G Major - oboe & flute
Andante in C Major - glassharmonica solo KV 576
Scene 3
Joseph Haydn: "Stücke für ein Uhrwerk" (Clockwork music)
Hob. XIX/9 & 11 -
glassharmonica, verrophones, oboe, flute, violin, violoncello
Andante in F Major - violin, oboe, flute, violoncello, two verrophones
Intrada in G Major KV 50 - flute, oboe, violin, violoncello
Scene 4
Adagio e Rondo in C Major KV 617 - flute, oboe, violin, violoncello and two verrophons
Epilogue
Ave Verum
All chamber music
pieces have been specially transcribed for the teatro minimo/vincent julien piot.
The Andante in F Major has been transcribed by Benjamin Yusupov.
The Adagio in C Major for glasharmonika solo KV 617a is an
original work by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (May 1791).
Fantasy Sketches
is based on the drawings of Maurice Sendak. The first part (based on his earlier sketches) tells of the dreams, frustrations, and the overall emotional state of children accompanied by the first compositions of young Mozart. The second part, based on recent sketches is, in Maurice's own words, "A cockeyed life of Mozart, ending with not so much his death but a total melding with all things eternal."
When I was a little boy, I enjoyed making up little picture/stories to amuse myself and my brother and sister. These stories came spontaneously out of my head and the pictures seemed to jump out of my
pencil. I called them fantasy sketches or wide-awake dream pictures. Now that I am becoming an old man, I find I still enjoy scratching out my little picture stories. I put my pencil to the paper and let my head and my
hand run together to the end of the page. Sometimes they are about children doing real-life fantastic children things but most are about my favorite human being, Wolfgang Mozart. Having been denied any musical talent
whatsoever (I do, however, whistle on pitch) I chose instead to comment graphically on those Mozartian moments in his life and music that profoundly moved me and touched, like a live wire, my own creative energies.
These doodled commentaries do not pretend to literally tell or illustrate that life. Set to Mozart's music, they are fantasy sketches, pure and simple: daft takes on my hero's life. A Brooklyn Mozart as seen through the
tiny prism of my own soul.I love to mix his real life adventures into my fantasy picture stories--and now wonderful Amy Luckenbach comes along and makes delightful puppet picture shows based on some of my little
fantasy tales. Best of all, she adds wonderful bits of her own private fantasy world. Amy and I really like the insides of each other's heads! Amy Luckenbach seems entirely undaunted by the prospect of designing and
putting together a theatrical work that attempts to capture the fragmentary, purposely unspecific and very personal commentaries I have compiled over a long life, in the form of drawings, doodlings and fantasy sketches
relating to the life and work of W.A. Mozart. Amy and I enjoy conundrums, mysteries and fantasies. I have in her the perfect friend, playmate and collaborator. This has become our doodly life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Maurice Sendak |
