General

Gunnar Berg in the spotlight

"Almost forgotten" composer Gunnar Berg has received a number of performances recently – amongst them a concert by Steffen Schleiermacher at the Chiffren Bienalle: 

One owes the informative concert programming of the Bienalle and its artistic director much respect, since Sunday’s opening concert placed the “older” part of new music at the center – once again with an “outsider”. The pianist Steffen Schleiermacher presented the serial cosmos of the, unrightly so, almost forgotten Danish composer Gunnar Berg with virtuosity and humor. Cross-references to works by Messiaen and Cage that had an important influence on Berg's serialism made ​​it clear that this strictly mathematical form of composition nevertheless doesn’t completely do away with the emotional coordinates of music – even if in the form of an ironic and humorous deconstruction of itself. — Kieler Nachrichten

Videos of Steffen's performances can be viewed here. There's also a video of a beautiful performance of Gaffky's 2 by the Bulgarian pianist Galya Kolarova at the Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg: