http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/home daily 1.0 2025-08-11 http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/press-thumbnails daily 0.75 2017-09-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506452638578-DN1JRQ1KS1GUA5MWIM58/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - RISING STAR: THE WEEK'S 8 BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC MOMENTS ON YOUTUBE Anthony Tommasini | September 22, 2017 SUGGESTING CELESTA | One of the three (yes, three!) world premieres at Opera Philadelphia’s O17 festival is David Hertzberg’s “The Wake World,” a fantastical tale presented in a spacious court at the Barnes Foundation. Mr. Herzberg’s spiky, sumptuous opera reminded me of his chamber piece “Orgie-Céleste,” which I heard performed in 2015 on a Young Concert Artists program. In this score I hear echoes of Messaien, Schoenberg and Feldman, though the compositional voice is personal and quirky, at once mystical and wild. At times, true to its title, it suggests strange, tinkling celesta sounds. Catch the passage when the clarinetist, violinist and pianist seem to get swept up in their own spheres, but just calmly keep on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506452638578-DN1JRQ1KS1GUA5MWIM58/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - RISING STAR: THE WEEK'S 8 BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC MOMENTS ON YOUTUBE Anthony Tommasini | September 22, 2017 SUGGESTING CELESTA | One of the three (yes, three!) world premieres at Opera Philadelphia’s O17 festival is David Hertzberg’s “The Wake World,” a fantastical tale presented in a spacious court at the Barnes Foundation. Mr. Herzberg’s spiky, sumptuous opera reminded me of his chamber piece “Orgie-Céleste,” which I heard performed in 2015 on a Young Concert Artists program. In this score I hear echoes of Messaien, Schoenberg and Feldman, though the compositional voice is personal and quirky, at once mystical and wild. At times, true to its title, it suggests strange, tinkling celesta sounds. Catch the passage when the clarinetist, violinist and pianist seem to get swept up in their own spheres, but just calmly keep on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506452519933-ZMR4J33HVPLFNUHPN2Q8/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer_logo_wordmark.png Press - Thumbnails - PHILLY'S FIRST EVER 017 OPERA FEST WINS NEW FANS, NATIONAL ACCLAIM David Patrick Stearns | September 21, 2017 Composer David Hertzberg’s music in The Wake World inspired some of the best critical writing of the festival. Waleson: “The sheen and muscle of Strauss wedded to the diaphanous spirit of Debussy.” Tommasini: “The score, spiked with modernist elements, makes Mr. Hertzberg seem like a 21st-century Ravel.” Dobrin: “A half-remembered dream Szymanowski once had about Scriabin.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506451918906-RCT8SB0SC865ZCLWSU62/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - 5 OPERAS IN 72 HOURS: A PHILADELPHIA FESTIVAL IS A TEST OF SURVIVAL Anthony Tommasini | September 20, 2017 [ ... ] Just five instrumentalists produce wondrous colors and sonorities. The score, spiked with modernist elements, makes Mr. Hertzberg seem a 21st-century Ravel. The choral writing is eerily voluptuous. The performers, directed by R. B. Schlather, often walked amid attendees, who sat, stood and milled about. (Talk about engaging your audience.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506451830422-QL9I46WC267VBDA8K38N/the-wall-street-journal-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - AN OPERA FEST TO BINGE ON Heidi Waleson | September 19, 2017 [ ... ] Mr. Hertzberg’s music, conducted by Elizabeth Braden, has an early 20th-century aura, with the sheen and muscle of Strauss wedded to the diaphanous spirit of Debussy, but with a distinctly modern edge. His variety makes the orchestra of five sound like many more instruments, while the chorus of 16 creates a mystical underpinning for the arresting principal singers, soprano Maeve Höglund (Lola) and mezzo Rihab Chaieb (Fairy Prince). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506451470404-KO3SHW6T6JEN79J3Y4TL/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer_logo_wordmark.png Press - Thumbnails - O17 HITS THE BARNES WITH A HALLUCINATORY FAIRY TALE Peter Dobrin | September 19, 2017 [ ... ] The Wake World, by David Hertzberg, is music to draw up around you like velvet — or, to borrow from Hertzberg’s own libretto, “such soft violet glistens like this place.” The prose was purple, and so was the music, so thoroughly an antique musical language that it sounded like a half-remembered dream Szymanowski once had about Scriabin. A lesson in music theory isn’t necessary here, but suffice it to say that Hertzberg, with degrees from both Juilliard and Curtis, recognizes the mystical qualities of a harmonic world that constantly resists resolution. It floats. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506451314333-FIEBVLYJ3LWN99SIL0UN/bwwopera.png Press - Thumbnails - BWW INTERVIEW: BARNES-STORMING IN THE WAKE WORLD OF COMPOSER DAVID HERTZBERG Richard Sasanow | September 15, 2017 The last of the new operas at the center of Opera Philadelphia's O17 opera fest is THE WAKE WORLD, a chamber piece written by composer/librettist David Hertzberg and directed by RB Schlather. It opens on Monday September 18 at the Barnes collection in central Philadelphia and promises a one-of-a-kind experience for those savvy enough to snare a ticket. Its five performances are sold out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506452360355-7EVPCW620KLZ7D15L4UB/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer_logo_wordmark.png Press - Thumbnails - BERNSTEIN'S 100TH, PHILLY'S OWN OPERA FEST, AND 16 MORE TOP PICKS IN CLASSICAL MUSIC Peter Dobrin | September 6, 2017 Musically, I’m most intrigued by The Wake World, David Hertzberg’s one-act opera inspired by works in the Barnes Foundation (and performed there) and by British polymath Aleister Crowley (poet, occultist, mountaineer). Hertzberg’s musical language, to judge by past works, is atmospheric and highly sensitive to color — not bad qualities given the subject matter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1502918125597-93D7J1NIKD82V9JYCBFE/Screen+Shot+2017-08-16+at+2.07.32+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG'S THE WAKE WORLD: "A STRANGE AND SEXY SYNERGY." August 10, 2017 On the exciting line-up for this year's O17 Festival is the world premiere of Opera Philadelphia's Composer in Residence David Hertzberg's The Wake World, September 18-25. With director R.B. Schlather, Hertzberg's work is designed to give audiences a one-of-a-kind experience of the galleries of The Barnes Foundation, focusing on the fascinating lives of Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951) and Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). Hertzberg spoke with us about his unique new work, and the "beyond rad" experience of writing an opera to feature the Opera Philadelphia Chorus. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1502918003847-1E7RO6NO8RLDWLGCMDF7/wqxr_logo_NoFreq.png Press - Thumbnails - FALL PREVIEW: NEW OPERAS AND IMPORTANT REVIVALS ACROSS AMERICA August 9, 2017 Opera Philadelphia’s much-anticipated new festival includes an astonishing three world premieres and a Philadelphia premiere. [...] The Wake World, with music and libretto by David Hertzberg, is inspired by an Aleister Crowley story and the highly personal art collection amassed by Albert C. Barnes in Philadelphia. The opera will take place in the Barnes Museum. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1502918189785-LM5IS03QG75FACZELTNO/ONLogo2015.png Press - Thumbnails - ARTISTIC JOURNEY August 2017 David Hertzberg’s Wake World unfolds at Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1498760208324-0DHSGOGRMWVXKXUS7QKW/logo-vert.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: HEAR NOW FESTIVAL IS ALL ABOUT L.A. COMPOSERS May 8, 2017 At 27, David Hertzberg is one of the youngest composers at the festival. His “Méditation Boréale,” performed by the Lyris String Quartet, also on the April 29 program, unfolds in an uninterrupted 15-minute arc. “I wrote it on a trip to Sweden,” Hertzberg said. “It has an arctic flavor, conjuring a magical northern landscape.” The composer added that the score is melodic and “sounds like Gregorian chant from another planet.” Hertzberg currently is working on “The Wake World,” an opera that grew out of his thinking about the mystical and religious symbols in kabbalah. Commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, it opens in September. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1498760016633-MMFDWJ5IYT1O901CJH1H/Los-Angeles-Times.gif Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: WHAT TO HEAR THE REAL LA LA LAND? LEND AN EAR TO THE L.A. COMPOSERS OF THE HEAR NOW FESTIVAL May 1, 2017 The Lyris, the latest in a string of great L.A. quartets, filled every square inch of First Lutheran with rapturous sonorities in David Hertzberg’s “Méditation Boréale”. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1491341888445-GXQK628XPVYK11RUWKKY/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: AN AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA PAYS A BRACING TRIBUTE March 26, 2017 Speaking with Mr. Yim onstage before the premiere of his alluring Chamber Symphony, Mr. Hertzberg said that this single-movement work presents a series of contrasting ideas, almost as if different composers were talking to one another across vistas. The piece begins with seemingly distinct statements, with pauses in between: a mini-episode of pastoral-like sonorities with an ominous cello line lurking below; sustained, bustling high harmonies with squiggly flights from the piano; an episode of staggered drum bursts; a haze of dense, piercingly dissonant chords; and more. Over time the music tries to find commonalities among the contrasts, building to an ecstatic, slightly crazed culmination that sounded like modern-day Messiaen. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487988243007-5MCB6PQD0CKZWM9YZX8X/soundadvice_banner.png Press - Thumbnails - PAST FORWARD: COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT - DAVID HERTZBERG American Chamber Orchestra | February 22, 2017 David Hertzberg is currently Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia and Music Theatre Group and has been honored with the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, the Fromm Commission from Harvard University, and the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House. Past residencies include Tanglewood, Yaddo, IC Hong Kong, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Young Concert Artists. David's Spectre of the Spheres was selected for our 2015 Underwood New Music Readings, where it earned him the $15,000 Underwood Commission to write a new orchestral work. David's Chamber Symphony is this new work, and will be premiered by Maestro George Manahan and the American Composers Orchestra at “Past Forward” on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. David was kind enough to talk with us about the piece. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487986605872-UXPDQ4OE3XIC0RQHULUM/kansas-city-star-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY RELISHES HUMOR IN BEETHOVEN, PASSION OF PROKOFIEV Libby Hanssen | February 18, 2017   David Hertzberg was on hand to preface his “for none shall gaze upon the Father and live,” written in 2015, the young composer describing his intent behind the work’s mystical soundworld. Beginning with a fragile effect of air blown through the brass and rasping of near-silent strings, the seismic pulse developed from long, layered, decaying tones. Wide intervallic leaps, a two-note theme, were revealed from this atmosphere, which relied on a series of swell-and-release moments to proceed with the push of its expanding crescendo. At the final strike, Stern suspended the cut off to allow the work’s visceral effect on the audience to dissipate. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487986414630-VUL9A5SAL9NQ6ORA881Z/logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: ‘MASON BATES’ KC JUKEBOX: RAVISHMENT’ AT THE KENNEDY CENTER Ana Morgenstern | January 31, 2017   The next piece in the program was a short but wonderfully beautiful piece by Los Angeles-based composer David Hertzberg titled Ellébore, composed for a septet. Hertzberg also came to us in black and white video format to explain his inspiration for the piece, which was a blooming flower in the winter. Indeed, this was a delicate piece that was definitely edgy but kept a balance through strings that reminded me of melting snow and the slow moving water accumulating in a field getting ready for spring. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487988746325-LKLS9T5ZIJCCZ7OR1IE2/KC-Symphony-Logo-Medium.jpg Press - Thumbnails - MICHAEL STERN DISCUSSES DAVID HERTZBERG'S WORK Michael Stern | February 14, 2017 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487988115422-R6S9ODPQ6W760KIHQH7C/mw_logo-1.png Press - Thumbnails - OUT ON THE TOWN TOWN: D.C. AREA ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, FOR THE WEEK OF Jan. 26, 2017 Doug Rule | January 26, 2017 Mason Bates, the Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence, continues his reinvention of the classical music concert experience. Named after one of two works to be performed by composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa, Ravishment will be conducted by Fawzi Haimor and anchored by a performance of The Second Quartet by John Adams in celebration of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s 70th birthday. Also on the bill is Carrot Revolution, a work by one of Adams’ students, Gabriella Smith, plus an eerie electronica piece by Chris Cerrone and a dreamy whimsical work by David Hertzberg. All set within a warehouse-type top floor space, the concert is followed by a dance party featuring DJ Moose. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487986094276-D1O6XKJXE1T5IPYZJA3J/logo-vert.png Press - Thumbnails - 30 UNDER 30: THE REMARKABLE YOUNG PEOPLE CHANGING THE L.A. JEWISH COMMUNITY Eitan Arom | January 26, 2017 The son of San Fernando Valley State Sen. Bob Hertzberg is composer-in-residence for Opera Philadelphia and Music-Theatre Group. [David] Hertzberg has two degrees from Juilliard (where he studied under the tutelage of Jewish composer Sam Adler) and has been described as a “gifted young composer … with a vibrantly personal style” by The New York Times. His music has been performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, and by the likes of the New York City Opera, the Kansas City Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487988950138-B9YWDWGHANRYWCNM1NVZ/logo.png Press - Thumbnails - MYSTICISM AND INSTINCT: SPOTLIGHT ON COMPOSER DAVID HERTZBERG October 19, 2016 David Hertzberg is a Jewish American composer, currently living in Los Angeles, the city in which he was raised. He started playing music around age eight, studying violin, cello, and piano, and began composing soon thereafter with a love of Mozart and a deep feeling of kinship for classical music. Hertzberg reflects: “Composing was for me an immediately natural way of relating to music… I was fairly serious about piano for a while, but it was always second to composition.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785387367-7N53SWXRIIU54RNXWPA0/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - CLASSICAL MUSIC TO COME: A FINNISH STAR, MINIMALISM, AND WAGNER Zachary Woolfe | September 16, 2016 AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA The young composer David Hertzberg impressed last year with “Sunday Morning,” an unusually unshowy, memorably delicate cantata for New York City Opera. This indefatigable new-music band gives the premiere of his new symphony at Carnegie Hall [...] March 24.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785399153-EMDQSDJ26FGNLRQGKQ2G/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL BLENDS FREEDOM WITH RADIANCE Zachary Woolfe | September 11, 2016 Harking back to the suave songs of Lee Hoiby and Ned Rorem, David Hertzberg’s “Ablutions of Oblivion” sews together two Stevens poems with mellow lines for the singer and exuberant drizzles of piano (Milena Gligic).     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785406605-A6DNA77XWQUP0C2D6VZS/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL SHOWCASES CONTEMPORARY VOCAL MUSIC Zachary Woolfe | August 31, 2016 Among the highlights are the soprano Julia Bullock (fresh from her new evening of Josephine Baker arrangements at Lincoln Center), with works by Lukas Foss; John Cage; and the young, talented David Hertzberg.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785434351-MVQGLLQWXYXTKHPJGTWB/Screen+Shot+2016-10-29+at+4.36.06+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - GOINGS ABOUT TOWN: CLASSICAL MUSIC   The opening-night concert features performances by a true original, the young American soprano Julia Bullock (singing music by David Hertzberg in addition to classics by Foss and Cage); by the Australian flutist, soprano, and multimedia experimentalist Alice Teyssier; and by the Swedish composer and vocal improvisor Sofia Jernberg.     https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477799319431-28XGK82RSUZT5PAHHD8I/Screen+Shot+2016-10-29+at+8.48.03+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - NEW ENGLAND PHILHARMONIC CLOSES SEASON WITH TWO PREMIERES Aaron Keebaugh | May 1, 2016 The concert opened with the Boston premiere of [David] Hertzberg’s Spectre of the Spheres. Hertzberg’s star is currently on the rise with his music being performed on elite stages such as Tanglewood, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Spectre of the Spheres, winner of the NEP’s annual Call for Scores competition, is a musical depiction of the aurora borealis as told through a poem by Wallace Stevens. Hertzberg’s score, which clocks in at just over ten minutes, is wonderfully colorful and an evocative depiction of a striking natural phenomenon. The music develops glacially, unfolding from a veil of harmonics and wind flutters that shimmer in space like the northern lights themselves. As the piece progresses, dense clouds of descending passages and stark string and wind statements form, carrying the piece to a sudden conclusion. Pittman led the orchestra in a reading of bold commitment to give the piece a powerful performance.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785502855-1P25TMKFUL8WTJ9KPLB2/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: AT 20, IN MO YANG MAKES HIS NEW YORK RECITAL DEBUT Anthony Tommasini | April 27, 2016 He then gave the premiere performance of David Hertzberg’s “Daphne Unbound,” a 10-minute work for solo violin commissioned (by Concert Artists Guild in conjunction with the BMI Foundation) for Mr. Yang’s debut. Mr. Hertzberg, a young composer on the rise who has had several premieres in New York of late, wrote in a program note that this piece was inspired by myths and fairy tales of “natural transfiguration.” It begins mysteriously, as the violin plays cosmic-sounding harmonics that float high and low, like spectral arpeggios. Soon, tones swell and lines coalesce into a searching soliloquy. The piece gradually becomes agitated, though somehow this shift seems the expression of intensity that had been stirring from the start. Mr. Yang played with rhapsodic allure and wondrous colors.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487989880097-C0229PMDMPM1Q9K71FY5/site-masthead-logo%402x.png Press - Thumbnails - SYMPHONY PRESENTS ‘FIVE ON FIRE’ Traci Rosenbaum | April 5, 2016 Living composer David Hertzberg wrote “Méditation boréale” a commission for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In a recent news release, Cascade Quartet violist Maria Ritzenthaler explained that “Hertzberg uses extreme registers and unique timbres to create a shimmering and ethereal sound world for the string quartet.” Although young, Hertzberg is a rising star as a composer, and his works have been performed at several major music festivals and on the stages of Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785507617-XOV68M4MDC9PBGUSN7PV/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: NEW YORK CITY OPERA, A QUIET 'SUNDAY MORNING' Zachary Woolfe | March 18, 2016 “Sunday Morning,” a work for soprano and small ensemble by the young composer David Hertzberg, was originally commissioned by Gotham Chamber Opera. But when that company foundered last year before a planned performance could take place, the piece wasscooped up by New York City Opera, which was rising from the ashes of bankruptcy at just the same time. Mr. Hertzberg, who may well have doubted the fate of “Sunday Morning,” got to hear its belated premiere on Wednesday evening in the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where it was the final work on — and by far the highlight of — the new City Opera’s first concert program. “Sunday Morning” is, above all, unusual. Attend any new-music concert, and you hear works by composers in their 20s and 30s that may be good or bad but are almost always restless and frenetic, full of dramatic contrasts. Think Pollock, or Basquiat. Mr. Hertzberg here bears more resemblance to Robert Ryman: pale and unshowy, with flickers of color evident only on close inspection. “Sunday Morning,” a setting of an eight-part Wallace Stevens poem, begins with sunrise ethereality — held high notes in the strings and light plucks of a harp — and remains raptly restrained even as it condenses and blooms. The music is gently perfumed and unhurried — perhaps, at 40 nearly stationary minutes, to a fault. But the work’s long, quiet duration does make drama out of even slight shifts: a dark cello line that gives spine to a reflection on death, or the elusive harmonies in the penultimate section, just as glassily shimmering as earlier but now more velvety.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785572986-YVI3MEFD8A48ROL9ZHE9/static1.squarespace.png Press - Thumbnails - PIANIST STEVEN LIN PAINTS COLORFUL SCHUMANN AND RAVEL WITH A BROAD KEYBOARD Truman C. Wang | March 18, 2016 David Hertzberg’s new work “Notturno incantato” received an extraordinarily colorful and scintillating reading from Mr. Lin, its dedicatee. For the final showstopper “La Valse”, Mr. Lin seemed overly preoccupied with Ravel’s difficult transcription for the piano, which to his credit he played faultlessly, but showed little feeling for the romantic waltz. ... Also, more music from the very talented Mr. Hertzberg, please.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785594254-OE95UT0DN8C88ZKWX59Z/heraldtribune_logo.png Press - Thumbnails - MUSIC REVIEW: NEW MUSIC IN TOWN FROM ENSEMBLE SRQ Richard Storm | March 9, 2016 After an informative and informal introduction by the artistic directors, we heard a compelling reason for the creation of this initiative: David Hertzberg's "Meditation Boréale" – a depiction of the celestial forces which drive our universe, of the light and space in which we live, performed by Samantha Bennett and Micah Brightwell, violins; Steve Laraia, viola, and Jesse Christeson, cello. At once tonally rich and mysterious, the music – often at the edge of audibility — was at times tragically lyrical, employing familiar harmonic devices to wrap us in the wider universe, especially in Bennett's extended and soaring solo passages.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785529593-8NBS7FFL7MMHBS3ZT9C9/PlaybillArtboard+1%402x.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIVED NEW YORK CITY OPERA ANNOUNCES MAJOR PREMIERES Robert Viagas | February 23, 2016 New York City Opera announced that it will present “three major premieres,” including the world premiere of Sunday Morning by David Hertzberg on March 16, the New York City professional premiere of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas June 22-26, and the East Coast premiere of Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie’s Hopper’s Wife April 28-May 1.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785528198-0KWEXSPK5OVCEA9W8P5N/the-wall-street-journal-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - REBOOTED NEW YORK CITY OPERA PLANS THREE PREMIERES Jennifer Smith | February 22, 2016 NYCO will present a concert on March 16 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room that includes the world premiere of “Sunday Morning,” a work by David Hertzberg set to the Wallace Stevens poem of the same name.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477785534999-BIMYWS00HF5YWCNUGUY1/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - NEW YORK CITY OPERA UNVEILS REST OF SEASON Michael Cooper | February 22, 2016 And on March 16 it will inaugurate a new concert series at the Appel Room in Jazz at Lincoln Center with the premiere of David Hertzberg’s “Sunday Morning,” initially set to be performed by Gotham Chamber Opera, which closed last year.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487991174376-2NQTOXC6HA5IYM26LNWG/1280px-PBS_Logo.svg.png Press - Thumbnails - CHAMBER MUSIC BY CURTIS STUDENT COMPOSERS October 18, 2015 Chamber music by Curtis student composers. Their program includes Andrew Hsu: Violin Sonata; T. J. Cole: "Drifter;" and David Hertzberg: "notturno incantato." http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/press-thumbnails-1 daily 0.75 2017-02-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993498742-L60QZOA5UGZOLJE5IR1U/MilMag_Logo_Web_padding_558x74_v2.png Press - Thumbnails - PRESENT MUSIC’S TAILOR-MADE FINALE Paul Kosidowski | June 8, 2015 David Hertzberg’s Meditation Boreale for string quartet is true to its meteorological name, using harmonics and overtones to ethereal ends. After building to an intense climax, it ends with a plaintive viola solo, beautifully played here by Ritzenhaler. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993498742-L60QZOA5UGZOLJE5IR1U/MilMag_Logo_Web_padding_558x74_v2.png Press - Thumbnails - PRESENT MUSIC’S TAILOR-MADE FINALE Paul Kosidowski | June 8, 2015 David Hertzberg’s Meditation Boreale for string quartet is true to its meteorological name, using harmonics and overtones to ethereal ends. After building to an intense climax, it ends with a plaintive viola solo, beautifully played here by Ritzenhaler. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993467464-7DGVNYD6LWNWB3L2DM9F/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-02-24%2Bat%2B6.11.32%2BPM.png Press - Thumbnails - Live ON 4 - IC 2015 Concert 1 The Intimacy of Creativity | April 26, 2015 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993429568-PN5DYMWS0HVHTG96T0FP/bwwopera.png Press - Thumbnails - NEW YORK CITY OPERA CONCERT SERIES TO LAUNCH ON 3/16 AT LINCOLN CENTER'S APPEL ROOM Anthony Tommasini | February 18, 2015 This inaugural concert includes works of J.S. Bach, Zemlinsky, Korngold, and Golijov and features the much-anticipated world premiere of David Hertzberg's "Sunday Morning." Hailed as "opulently gifted" by Opera News, Hertzberg is among New York's youngest and most exciting new composers. David Hertzberg's "Orgie-Céleste" for clarinet, violin and piano. In this riveting work, Mr. Hertzberg, 24, demonstrates that a gifted young composer can be inspired by masters and still speak with a vibrantly personal style. The music abounds in echoes of composers Mr. Hertzberg seems to have had in his ear, especially Messiaen, Schoenberg and Morton Feldman. Yet the sound and dogged exploration of the work's ideas come across as utterly original. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993395784-2KIAOO4UA0ZR7P644J3I/whyymock_logo.png Press - Thumbnails - CURTIS RESIDENCY CONCERT BY EIGHTH BLACKBIRD AND THE DOVER QUARTET Music by Six Curtis Student Composers (played by the Dover Quartet) The Dover Quartet performs six new works by Curtis student composers, all supervised by the members of eighth blackbird. They include: You Shattered My Deafness II by Rene Orth; Meditation by Andrew Hsu; Scherzo (“Ach Wie Fluchtig, Ach Wie Nichtig”) by T.J. Cole; Moro Lasso by Alyssa Weinberg; unusta III by Riho Esko Maimets and Méditation boréale by David Hertzberg. The members of the Dover Quartet (all of whom are Curtis graduates): Joel Link, violin; Bryan A. Lee, violin; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola and Camden Shaw, cello. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993200838-DPUFWUH81FP0JVWAY8J0/NY1_New_Logo_2.jpg Press - Thumbnails - NEW YORK CITY OPERA BACK ON STAGE February 23, 2016 This year’s season includes the world premiere of David Hertzberg's "Sunday Morning" on March 16 at Jazz at Lincoln Center. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993167690-S6YJV48WZKMHB7LN1W60/wqxr-logo.png Press - Thumbnails - NEW YORK CITY OPERA SPRINGS FORWARD February 23, 2016 The company will present the world premiere of David Hertzberg's Sunday Morning at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Room in March. The following month, New York City Opera will stage the East Coast premiere of Hopper's Wife, which tells of an imagined marriage between the prickly artist Edward Hopper and L.A. Times gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. The opera, by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie, will be produced at the Harlem Stage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993103860-8D1CXTWJCC5GKD1UV3N3/Main-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - CONCERT REVIEW | PIANIST STEVEN LIN Michael Huebner | February 1, 2016 David Hertzberg’s “Notturno Incantato,” a work commissioned for Lin, wafted in atmospheric quietude, then thick atonal flourishes. Elements of Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” mixed with George Crumb’s “Makrokosmos” in an attractive build of ghostly harmony. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993072988-RTFHZGJATRH2MPNSU3BN/newbroadwayworld-logo-trans6-215-compressed.png Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG NAMED COMPOSER IN RESIDENCE AT OPERA PHILADELPHIA June 23, 2015 Opera Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group in New York, is proud to announce that composer David Hertzberg, whose music "demonstrates that a gifted young composer can be inspired by masters and still speak with a vibrantly personal style" (the New York Times), has been selected as its fifth Composer in Residence (CIR). Hertzberg was chosen from over 150 applicants for the position and now has the opportunity to follow a personalized development track focused on the advancement of his skills as an operatic composer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993362052-TOACIJ6KQ87JKA6C9JX5/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-10-29%2Bat%2B4.36.06%2BPM.png Press - Thumbnails - GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN: NEW YORK CITY OPERA CONCERTS: “SUNDAY MORNING” Like Opera Philadelphia (“Charlie Parker’s Yardbird”), he has picked up a project that was put in limbo by the demise of Gotham Chamber Opera: the world première of the young American composer David Hertzberg’s “Sunday Morning,” a setting of Wallace Stevens’s beloved poem, for soprano, strings, and harp. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993041156-2WGOD1TIH2KY3BWG1IRR/NewMusicBoxArtboard%2B1%402x.png Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG WINS ACO'S UNDERWOOD COMMISSION June 23, 2015 American Composers Orchestra (ACO) has awarded composer David Hertzberg its $15,000 Underwood emerging composer commission for a work that will be premiered by ACO in the 2016-2017 season. Chosen from seven finalists during ACO’s 2015 Underwood New Music Readings on May 6 and 7, 2015, David won the top prize with his work, Spectre of the Spheres. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487993012435-39BBMKP2E2QQQPCSQA3X/mad_logo_horiz.png Press - Thumbnails - THE NEW ENGLAND PHILHARMONIC ANNOUNCES DAVID HERTZBERG'S "SPECTRE OF THE SPHERES" WINNTER OF THE 30TH ANNUAL CALL FOR SCORES Dayla Arabella Santurri | June 10, 2015   David Hertzberg’s ‘Spectre of the Spheres’ is a beautifully written work with startlingly crystalline textures. It evokes a musical work that is both familiar and mysterious. It has a grand sweep to it, and achingly beautiful melodies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992970251-VUNJ4LIBLYPBK47EC7FF/PhillyArtboard%2B1%402x.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEWS: PRISM OFFERS A FESTIVAL OF PREMIERES May 26, 2015 It was valuable to hear David Hertzberg's strikingly original murmurations(2014). The Juilliard- and Curtis-trained composer establishes a soundscape in this longish piece that, in its harmonic language, grows out of non-serial Berg and Schoenberg but, in the ghostly way it reveals itself, resembled little else. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992938390-Y2Z0ZRPZ54FV3BOP1ATY/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-10-29%2Bat%2B4.28.31%2BPM.png Press - Thumbnails - A CELEBRATION OF THE COMPOSER WITH THE AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA Robert Leeper Of particular note was David Hertzberg’s Spectre of the Spheres. Inspired by the Wallace Steven poemThe Auroras of Autumn which uses the image of a thrashing serpent to represent the Northern Lights, the orchestra’s restless harmonies swirl around a chiming celesta, which is both at the center of and unattached to the sounds around it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992903605-ZMPWCW1CUPGMVJ2KTPLT/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - REVIEW: THE COMPOSERS CONCERT, WITH DAVID HERTZBERG AND OTHER YOUNG MASTERS Anthony Tommasini | February 18, 2015 The next piece was a premiere: David Hertzberg’s “Orgie-Céleste” for clarinet, violin and piano. In this riveting work, Mr. Hertzberg, 24, demonstrates that a gifted young composer can be inspired by masters and still speak with a vibrantly personal style. The music abounds in echoes of composers Mr. Hertzberg seems to have had in his ear, especially Messiaen, Schoenberg and Morton Feldman. Yet the sound and dogged exploration of the work’s ideas come across as utterly original. It opens with an episode in which the piano plays restless runs with hints of bird calls. The violin is consumed with cosmic harmonics, while the clarinet fixates on haunting two-note figures. The music goes through bursts of wildness, yet never loses its mystical aura. The eminent pianist Ursula Oppens, joined by the violinist Paul Huang and the clarinetist Narek Arutyunian, who were both featured in the Young Concert Artists gala concerto concert last year, gave an exhilarating performance.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992876234-B1GH8KLLHK39SMHL0JY7/washington-post-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - PIANIST STEVEN LIN SETS BAR HIGH FOR WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS' NEW SEASON Simon Chin | September 28, 2014 After intermission came the afternoon’s highlight: a new work by the talented young American composer David Hertzberg. “Notturno Incantato” is a 15-minute piece commissioned for Lin and premiered this year in New York. It is a darkly atmospheric work built on lithe undulations of sound punctuated by sharp moments of crisis. The piece’s mysterious tension was beautifully sustained in a supple and persuasive performance by Lin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992838496-KELI083U0HDA2B3DJTGI/Artboard%2B1%402x.png Press - Thumbnails - GOTHAM CHAMBER OPERA, DOCTOROW FAMILY ANNOUNCE DAVID HERTZBERG WINNER OF CATHERINE DOCTOROW PRICE Maria Jean Sullivan | August 8, 2014 Mr. Hertzberg is deserving of the reward because the prize jury found his music to be "an extraordinarily beautiful sound world with a unique and distinguishing vocabulary," with "deeply affecting emotional content.” The jury adds that Mr. Hertzberg has the potential to revamp the world of concert repertoire for voice. Here, you can hear his stunning “Nympharum,” a cantata for high soprano and orchestra after Ezra Pound. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992807671-3RMTQSPRO52LGRFVTCBL/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - GOTHAM CHAMBER OPERA HANDS OUT MUSIC AWARD Michael Cooper | August 3, 2014 The panel that chose Mr. Hertzberg found that his music offered “an extraordinarily beautiful sound world with a unique and distinguishing vocabulary.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992782468-XD2HVD26VF8F65VTG3H2/ONLogo2015-1.png Press - Thumbnails - JULIA BULLOCK & RENATE ROHLFING March 11, 2014 A new piece by the opulently gifted twenty-three-year-old David Hertzberg, the Young Concert Artists' Composer-in-Residence, used two Wallace Stevens poems as his text, and overflowed with a refreshingly explorative harmonic language that was an intriguing match for Stevens' dense, eloquent imagery. Bullock, for her part, sang as if in a state of unfolding amazement at the otherworldly musical and visual universe she herself was evoking. She sang this difficult but mesmerizing work from memory, as if it were a familiar repertory item, and pianist Renate Rohlfing showed similar mastery of the richly cascading, often cataclysmically dissonant accompaniment.   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992725565-6XWHIVBJGSTHD0ETNJAB/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - PERSONAL MIX OF FAMILIAR AND FRESH, WITH A SHOW-TUNE ENCORE Anthony Tommasini | March 12, 2014 She then presented the premiere of “Ablutions of Oblivion,” written for her by David Hertzberg, this year’s Young Concert Artists composer in residence. The piece is a 15-minute, through-composed setting of two elusive yet compelling poems by Wallace Stevens: “Banal Sojourn” and “The Snow Man.” The music unfolds in mostly slow-moving vocal lines that emerge from a subdued piano part thick with cluster chords in the style of Messiaen. At one point during the “Banal Sojourn” setting, the mood intensifies and takes the singer into powerful outbursts in the high register, an extreme and terrifying passage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992694158-NSYFCMJ58KYA8NC7M64D/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - WHILE EARTH MAY TREMBLE, THIS PIANIST IS UNLIKELY TO Vivien Schweitzer | February 12, 2014 As part of the Concert Artists Guild’s commissioning program, which has produced almost 100 new works since 1984, Mr. Lin offered the premiere of the “Notturno Incantato” by David Hertzberg. Given a committed performance by Mr. Lin, the appealing piece at times evoked Scriabin and Debussy. Agitated, hard-driving passages were interspersed with a quiet interlude; texturally alluring sections featured rippling, delicate figurations that unfolded enigmatically in the upper register. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992654616-WCZ3GYHH3S74TD77SESR/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - A FINALE, FIRSTS INCLUDED Zachary Woolfe | April 16, 2013 The ensemble finished its anniversary season on Friday evening at Alice Tully Hall with a concert dominated by American composers. Best was Mr. Hertzberg’s “femminina, oscura,” inspired by country nights and titled after lines from Wallace Stevens: Night, the female, Obscure, Fragrant and supple, Conceals herself. The work’s nightscape was calm yet eerie, starting with hushed chords punctuated by harp plucks. This led to a mournfully beautiful solo for the wonderful flutist Emi Ferguson that brought her from breathy bursts to lithe melodies. If scoring for both harmonium and celesta may have been a little much, they combined with shivers of strings to genuinely evocative effect. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1487992595149-M1GXX7YO6VYHJKM86ZOU/concertonet.jpg Press - Thumbnails - PRELUDES AND PREFACES April 1, 2011 The first composer, David Hertzberg, has spent all his life in music, including studies in Darmstadt. His Nympharum, from Ezra Pound’s line, Nympharum membra disjecta (The scattered limbs of the nymphs) has already garnered the prestigious Arthur Friedman Composition Prize, for good reason. The work for high soprano–taken unerringly by the familiar voice of Jennifer Zetlan–carried, in its three Pound poems, lines not unlike Lulu, reaching, soaring into the landscape against a loud but not intrusive orchestra. True, the three poems are aphoristic, almost haiku, and Mr. Hertzberg has clothed them in grandiose orchestral robes more fitting for an epic poem. But the lines were extravagantly good, the long epilogue to the tiny “Dawn Song” was lush and dreamy, the sounds themselves evoking auras.   http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/press-thumbnails-2 daily 0.75 2018-08-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529004069568-NS6B9R3T0Z4EOEF3KTH5/mad_logo_horiz.png Press - Thumbnails - A NEW OPERA, WELL-SUITED TO THE CATACOMBS OF BROOKLYN Bruce Hodges | June 11, 2018 "To etch this fanciful yet disturbing story, Hertzberg has written some crystalline, ravishing textures, glistening with percussion. But as the hour progressed, Hertzberg's shimmering score bloomed into passages of opulence that might have made Richard Strauss proud. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529004069568-NS6B9R3T0Z4EOEF3KTH5/mad_logo_horiz.png Press - Thumbnails - A NEW OPERA, WELL-SUITED TO THE CATACOMBS OF BROOKLYN Bruce Hodges | June 11, 2018 "To etch this fanciful yet disturbing story, Hertzberg has written some crystalline, ravishing textures, glistening with percussion. But as the hour progressed, Hertzberg's shimmering score bloomed into passages of opulence that might have made Richard Strauss proud. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997627200-5NK0G002NE8DSNXYZY52/Observer-Media.jpg Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG'S ‘THE ROSE ELF’ IS MORBIDLY ENCHANTING James Jorden | June 11, 2018 “...just about everything you want opera to be. The Rose Elf shocked, confounded, disturbed, and, in the end, exalted. Composer and librettist David Hertzberg creates fantastical soundscapes deftly contrasting the human world—mostly harsh dissonances and startling aleatory noises—and the pantheistic sphere of the Elf, a mist of impressionistic shimmer. The nine-piece chamber orchestra at the far end of the corridor, fluidly conducted by Teddy Poll, conjured a vast range of textures and volumes. Even more impressive was Hertzberg’s word setting, a fluid arioso style ranging from blunt single-note recitative for the brutal brother to wide-ranging melismas for the protean Elf. …for the next project by the Rose Elf team, I’ll be ready to climb Mount Everest.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997587153-NRH9YHKY88G1ST2DRML4/Forbes-logo.jpg Press - Thumbnails - CONCERT SERIES DEBUTS IN CATACOMBS OF BROOKLYN'S GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY TONIGHT Jane Levere | June 6, 2018 The season opens tonight with the world premiere of a new chamber opera, The Rose Elf, by composer David Hertzberg, whose The Wake World recently received the “Best New Opera Award” from the Music Critics Association of North America. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997547795-A1BL01OTG8AOLEOSUFPX/Screen+Shot+2018-06-14+at+10.32.18+AM.png Press - Thumbnails - A NIGHT OF OPERA IN GREEN-WOOD CEMETARY Charlie Herman | June 6, 2018 On June 6, 2018, the opera, “The Rose Elf” by David Hertzberg will premiere in the cemetery’s catacombs which are usually closed to the general public. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997693141-0MPFI85ZSP1V8X6P6P2L/download.png Press - Thumbnails - CAVE DWELLERS Joel Rosen | June 12, 2018 Composer/librettist David Hertzberg’s The Rose Elf, which gave its world premiere in the Green-Wood Cemetery Catacombs last weekend for a regrettably limited three-performance run, is indeed a marvel of elfin proportions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997511536-8ELE4JEL8GWDPT1BTHW2/cropped-rsz_ow1.jpg Press - Thumbnails - NEW YORK OPERA FEST 2018 PREVIEW: DON'T MISS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF DAVID HERTZBERG'S 'THE ROSE ELF' David Salazar | June 5, 2018 David Hertzberg is one of the great composers on the rise. He’s an award-winner that is slated for a major career in the opera world, which means that his upcoming work “The Rose Elf,” is a must-see for enthusiasts of new opera. And thanks to Unison Media, that production is a major part of this year’s New York Opera Fest experience. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997434564-MB4A058KQDCZQYS7P3IJ/large-logo.png Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG'S DARK CHAMBER OPERA OPENS JUNE 6 Damian Fowler | June 5, 2018 A new series of opera and chamber music opens June 6 with the world premiere of David Hertzberg’s The Rose Elf. The impressionistic piece is based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, in which a young woman mourns her murdered lover. The opera is staged in the catacombs at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn—a setting that is designed to enhance the dark theme of the story. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1528997489954-UP26KO1BWJ48D7DWXXIG/Screen+Shot+2018-06-14+at+10.30.59+AM.png Press - Thumbnails - THE ROSE ELF: AN INTERVIEW WITH LIBRETTIST, COMPOSER DAVID HERTZBERG Lauren Johnson | June 3, 2018 If you’ve yet to hear about New York Opera Fest, now is the time to tune in. Presented by Unison Media and Brooklyn’s famous Green-Wood Cemetery, The Angel’s Share concert series kicks off this week on June 6th with the world premiere of The Rose Elf, a new opera created by David Hertzberg, directed by R.B. Schlather, and starring award-winning mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey in the titular role. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1527880233809-UIF4GHJ9JK4O73WTQVXU/New-York-Times-Logo.png Press - Thumbnails - IS OPERA DYING? NO, BUT THIS ONE IS STAGED AMONG THE DEAD Arthur Lublow | June 1, 2018 A new series, opening with David Hertzberg’s “The Rose Elf,” will produce classical performances in the narrow catacomb at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1527967075256-IWVLXJ1OLVB81JY5EJKU/wqxr_logo_NoFreq_square.jpg Press - Thumbnails - MUST-SEE CLASSICAL CONCERTS THIS JUNE David Patrick Stearns | May 31, 2018 As perverse as it sounds in this first month of summer, the place to go for interesting new opera may well be underground — yes, in the kind of place dead people are buried. The increasingly acclaimed composer David Hertzberg, who tends to traffic in dreamy but dark-edge mythology, is following up the success of his opera The Wake World with an earlier work titled The Rose Elf, to be staged in a crypt catacombs of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery June 6, 8 and 10. After all, the subterranean venue has natural air conditioning that won’t destroy the ozone layer, and you’re sure to emerge with a heightened appreciation for all of the above-ground classical events that are happening in parks all around New York. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1527880061830-TQ26JDGH6HCJS3KWGVNH/bp-logo-globe-944x124.png Press - Thumbnails - 'ROSE' FROM THE DEAD: NEW OPERA DEBUTS BENEATH GREEN-WOOD CEMETARY Adam Lucente | May 29, 2018 A haunting opera about murder, love, and a gender-fluid elf will have an extra-spooky premiere in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery on June 6. The show’s composer said the narrow, morbid environment will make attendees feel like they are trapped by the story and the powerful vocals. “I love the claustrophobia of the catacombs,” said David Hertzberg. “It will try to make you feel like you’re being buried alive, but in a cool way.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1527880052943-M2DBG10PPX5L8QAVKPH6/The-New-Yorker-Big.jpg Press - Thumbnails - GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN | OPERA | THE ROSE ELF David Hertzberg’s new chamber opera receives its first full performances in sepulchral surroundings. The amorous and the otherworldly intertwine in R. B. Schlather’s production, for which the mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey originated the title role. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1527880045554-DBAQCGN04NCOURHGZEA3/NYMag-Logo-1024x265.png Press - Thumbnails - TO DO: MAY 30 - JUNE 13, 2018 May 28, 2018 See The Rose Elf Voices from the other side. From the people who brought you the romantically creepy Crypt Sessions comes a new opera by David Hertzberg, performed in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery. The performance inaugurates a (literally) underground concert series, “The Angel’s Share.” —J.D. Green-Wood Cemetery, June 6, 8, and 10. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1526162302904-XVZ1UY1IW3A9OYSZH0E8/The-New-Yorker-Big.jpg Press - Thumbnails - SUMMER CLASSICAL MUSIC PREVIEW Fergus McIntosh | May 21, 2018 And the idea of an underground venue takes on a new realism with the première of David Hertzberg’s opera “The Rose-Elf,” in the catacombs beneath Green-Wood Cemetery (starting on June 6). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150802926-UPUJZ7Q7WGUQQ2269EXZ/cropped-rsz_ow1.jpg Press - Thumbnails - UNISON MEDIA & GREEN-WOOD UNITE TO PRESENT THE ANGEL'S SHARE Francisco Salazar | April 26, 2018 The season will open in June with a World Premiere of a new chamber opera, “The Rose Elf,” by David Hertzberg, whose “The Wake World” received the “Best New Opera Award” from the Music Critics Association of North America. “The Rose Elf” will be directed by R.B. Schlather, starring award-winning mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150771092-2EXT3IC4ML55ZZ086VNR/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.46.25+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY IS HOSTING A SERIES OF EERIE CONCERTS IN ITS CATACOMBS Clayton Guse | April 26, 2018 Called The Angel's Share, the series is produced in conjunction with Unison Media, the same group that launched Crypt Sessions at the Church of the Intercession in Manhattan last year. During Green-Wood’s rendition, classical musicians will set up shop in the 19th century catacombs below the cemetery, providing more intimate performances than any other in the city. The series kicks off on June 6, 8 and 10 with the world premiere of “The Rose Elf,” a chamber opera from composer David Hertzberg and directed by R.B. Schlather. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150757393-2KJ93WYRK9R0XRYU1X5Q/cropped-rsz_ow1.jpg Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG WINS THE MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA Francisco Salazar | April 10, 2018 The Music Critics Association of North America is pleased to announce that its second annual award for Best New Opera has been given to composer David Hertzberg for “The Wake World.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506538189947-61Y3753VVKP39G9USW3V/bwwopera.png Press - Thumbnails - MCANA's SECOND ANNUAL BEST NEW OPERA AWARD GOES TO DAVID HERTZBERG'S THE WAKE WORLD Opera News Desk | April 10, 2018 The Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) is pleased to announce that its second annual award for Best New Opera has been given to composer David Hertzberg for The Wake World, which received its premiere on September 18, 2017, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia in a co-presentation with The Barnes Foundation. The award was created to honor musical and theatrical excellence in a fully staged opera that received its world premiere in North America during the preceding calendar year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150682297-6X7UAUMZXENWI0XQLYWD/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.42.28+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - HERTZBERG WINS NEW OPERA HONOR FOR THE WAKE WORLD James Bash | April 9, 2018 Described as “hallucinatory” and “psychedelic,” The Wake World cast a spell over audiences and critics last September when it received its premiere as part of Opera Philadelphia’s O17 Festival. Now the enigmatic and enchanting opera by David Hertzberg, who wrote the music and libretto, has captured the second MCANA Award for Best New Opera, presented by the Music Critics Association of North America. Established in 2016, the award recognizes musical and theatrical excellence at a time of heightened interest in presenting contemporary opera. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150659752-TCXLKM8FFU2Y53MWS9GP/pm-nbrand-lockup_3x.png Press - Thumbnails - OPERA PHILADELPHIA AND DAVID HERTZBERG WIN 'BEST NEW OPERA' FOR O17 COMMISSION Peter Dobrin | April 9, 2018 A new work premiered for Opera Philadelphia‘s inaugural festival has captured an honor for the company. The Wake World, with music and libretto by David Hertzberg and commissioned by Opera Philadelphia for its O17 debut at the Barnes Foundation in September, has won the best new opera award from the Music Critics Association of North America. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150643938-XBSYZJZA9CXQT8IHWJ5U/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.44.25+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG SHORTLISTED FOR NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1534535280390-RTLOYM13TMLUC4SCGH3X/ARGlogo-2.png Press - Thumbnails - THE NEW PHILADELPHIA OPERA STORY Lewis Whittington | January/February 2018 "The Wake World Music and libretto by David Hertzberg The premiere of The Wake World at the Barnes Foundation on Ben Franklin Parkway was on September 18. I saw the fifth performance on the final night of the festival, inventively staged by director RB Schlather on a runway that ran through the middle of the museum’s Annenberg Court. With a dizzying mash of characters portrayed by the chorus, it dealt with sex, love, torturous temptation, alienation, and dramatic (sur)realness. The music and libretto by Curtis graduate David Hertzberg concerns a central drama about Lola and a Fairy Prince, but is an untethered moveable feast of art rendered by the chorus in full-body color make-up and visual allusions from some of the pieces in the expressionist galleries. Hertzberg’s score is a torrent of classical and abstract ideas that charge forward and backward, like a gushing orchestral stream, as his libretto unfolds in fragments of plot, character exposition, and enchanting imagery. American soprano Maeve Höglund was electrifying as the tortured Lola; mezzo Rihab Chaieb was fiery as her volatile Fairy Prince. Best of all, it was a chance to see Opera Philadelphia’s brilliant Chorus Master Elizabeth Braden in front of her singers, conducting a thrilling score with a muscled sextet of violin, French horn, trumpet, piano, and percussion. It was indeed a high point of the festival. As the chorus moved around the crowd in the gallery, for a moment we heard each voice before they trailed, physically and aurally, back into an ensemble.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150564112-SQK0AJDFHBOZ9AHAZKW8/to-do-denver-logo.png Press - Thumbnails - OPERA'S ROAD TO THE FUTURE Ray Mark Rinaldi | October 2, 2017 "He is compared by critics to Ravel, and that was evident here, darkness and romance cobbled together into something quite beautiful and startlingly dangerous." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150541635-MK05I1COW5G3CEWW53UL/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.45.24+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - A TEMPO: 017 BRINGS PERFORMANCES INTO MUSEUMS, UNUSUAL SPACES Rachel Katz | September 16, 2017 Wandering around the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, composer David Hertzberg stares at the walls in wonder. He's been through the rooms many times, drinking in the works by Seurat, Modigliani, Renoir and other masters. It's not just paintings alone, or even the Asian and Egyptian sculptures and other artworks arranged around the rooms, or the doorhandles and other pieces of daily, everyday hardware that might have adorned a home a century ago. Rather, it's the way its all put together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150527917-LM8NQDTCVO1US5V23PUY/8c3dcd60-97ba-11e6-b6db-031bbfac8075.jpg Press - Thumbnails - OPERA PHILADELPHIA WANTS YOU, MILLENNIAL, TO RETHINK EVERYTHING YOU THINK ABOUT OPERA A.D. Amorosi | September 15, 2017 “I’m young. My friends coming to this show are young. They all like different kinds of art things... I just wish people would stop apologizing for opera, or for that matter, anything they love, and just do whatever it is they do with fire and gusto and openness.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150515182-PPJCFL5KC2YUAO1IEX76/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.44.13+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - 'THE WAKE WORLD' BRINGS A PHANTASMAGORICAL NEW OPERA TO PHILLY Shaun Brady | September 12, 2017 Composer David Hertzberg was a Curtis Institute student with a museum pass when he initially discovered the Barnes Foundation, and was immediately enchanted by Dr. Albert Barnes’ eclectic art menagerie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150496440-NEM8S86JGGTM7V9K5PJC/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.45.51+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - THREE MUST-SEE SHOWS AT OPERA PHILADELPHIA'S 017 FESTIVAL David Fox | September 11, 2017 Here’s your chance to experience two of Philadelphia’s preeminent cultural institutions in a new way. This O17 Festival world premiere one-act opera by composer-in-residence David Hertzberg and director R.B. Schlather takes audiences through the galleries of the Barnes Foundation. Featuring Opera Philadelphia’s chorus and soloists, The Wake World fuses the Barnes’s groundbreaking, peculiarly arranged art collection with the occult-fused works of writer Aleister Crowley. It should be quite the dreamlike journey. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150476922-Y5N81K9HUN425V89PDUA/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.46.11+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - OPERA PHILADELPHIA FESTIVAL TO INCLUDE BARNES-CENTRIC PERFORMANCE DEBUT Marissa Stern | September 7, 2017 Hertzberg, a Los Angeles native who at 27 is entering his third year as Opera Philadelphia’s composer-in-residence, was challenged with writing the opera, music and libretto for the festival and setting it in an unusual “theater”: the Barnes Foundation. He had previously written The Rose Elf, a one-act opera based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, as part of Opera Philadelphia’s Double Exposure project, in which two teams performed the opera to their interpretation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150350846-P8NLQYMVAFSGP3VU0E79/Screen+Shot+2018-04-30+at+9.45.39+PM.png Press - Thumbnails - EPISODE 41: THE WAKE WORLD Peter Szep | August 30, 2017 We have the most interesting conversation with David and R.B. about producing an opera at the Barnes Foundation, surrounded by an eclectic collection of world rebounded art, with a wondering audience, all part of Opera Philadelphia’s festival O17, which runs September 14 – 24. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506538107862-VJGP0JFGYOHR9YBQOI4I/Screen+Shot+2017-09-27+at+11.39.51+AM.png Press - Thumbnails - FANTASY IN PHILADELPHIA: THE WAKE WORLD James Sohre | September 23, 2017 Composer and librettist David Hertzberg’s magical mystery tour that is The Wake World opened to a cheering sold out audience that was clearly enraptured with its magnificent artistic achievement. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1506538189947-61Y3753VVKP39G9USW3V/bwwopera.png Press - Thumbnails - BWW REVIEW: OF FAIRY TAILS AND TRIALS AT OPERA PHILADELPHIA'S THE WAKE WORLD AND MAGIC FLUTE Richard Sasanow | September 27, 2017 Superficially, Wolfgang Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE (or DIE ZAUBERFLOTE for you purists) and David Hertzberg's THE WAKE WORLD couldn't seem less alike, written more than two centuries apart and with very different musical vocabularies. Taken together, they stretch the definition of what makes an opera. (And how...) Yet, as two of the main attractions of Opera Philadelphia's daring new O17 opera festival, they have a surprising amount in common--including spectacular scores that demand to be heard again and again. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1525150757393-2KJ93WYRK9R0XRYU1X5Q/cropped-rsz_ow1.jpg Press - Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG WINS THE MUSIC CRITICS ASSOCIATION OF NORTH AMERICA (Copy) Francisco Salazar | April 10, 2018 The Music Critics Association of North America is pleased to announce that its second annual award for Best New Opera has been given to composer David Hertzberg for “The Wake World.” http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/press-thumbnails-3 daily 0.75 2023-02-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1677302795262-N45S8Z1LJ3Y7LPO0444M/Screen+Shot+2018-06-21+at+8.05.20+AM.png Press Thumbnails - 23 for ’23: Composers and performers to watch this year Michael Andor Brodeur | January 20, 2023 This new class of artists is changing the sound of classical music. David Hertzberg This spring, Hertzberg heads from Los Angeles to Washington for a term as musician in residence at Dumbarton Oaks. Over the course of the pandemic, he released album versions of two of his operas, “The Wake World” and “The Rose Elf.” And while operas seem to be something of a comfortable wheelhouse, Hertzberg’s voice finds impressive variety in his orchestral pieces, chamber symphony, and cantata for high soprano and orchestra. While at Dumbarton, Hertzberg, 33, will continue work on “Grand Hotel,” a “beastly, sprawling fugue-of-a-thing” commissioned by experimental Los Angeles opera company the Industry. He’s also working on “HQ,” a “symphonic monodrama” inspired by “the strange life and death of America’s Premiere Picture-Man.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1677302795262-N45S8Z1LJ3Y7LPO0444M/Screen+Shot+2018-06-21+at+8.05.20+AM.png Press Thumbnails - 23 for ’23: Composers and performers to watch this year Michael Andor Brodeur | January 20, 2023 This new class of artists is changing the sound of classical music. David Hertzberg This spring, Hertzberg heads from Los Angeles to Washington for a term as musician in residence at Dumbarton Oaks. Over the course of the pandemic, he released album versions of two of his operas, “The Wake World” and “The Rose Elf.” And while operas seem to be something of a comfortable wheelhouse, Hertzberg’s voice finds impressive variety in his orchestral pieces, chamber symphony, and cantata for high soprano and orchestra. While at Dumbarton, Hertzberg, 33, will continue work on “Grand Hotel,” a “beastly, sprawling fugue-of-a-thing” commissioned by experimental Los Angeles opera company the Industry. He’s also working on “HQ,” a “symphonic monodrama” inspired by “the strange life and death of America’s Premiere Picture-Man.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529593544055-5Q9C2V563Q2OMECCF5MZ/Screen+Shot+2018-06-21+at+8.05.20+AM.png Press Thumbnails - Pittsburgh Opera captures the beauty and magic in David Hertzberg's The Rose Elf Rick Perdian | January 30, 2022 Pennsylvania has been good to composer David Hertzberg. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and was named Composer in Residence for Opera Philadelphia and Music-Theatre Group in 2015, a post he held through the end of the 2017-18 season. His first opera, The Wake World, which won the Music Critics Association of North America’s Best New Opera Award, premiered there in 2017. Pittsburgh Opera is now presenting his award-winning opera The Rose Elf, for which he wrote both the libretto and the music. The opera garnered universal praise when it premiered in the Catacombs at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in 2018. […] Hertzberg is a genius at creating rich complex sounds and scintillating orchestral colors from a small ensemble. Although he writes beautifully for the voice, many of the visceral thrills of The Rose Elf come from instrumental solos and the swirling sounds in the orchestra. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1616038004191-Z40RZJDI731ACBLFGWVA/image-asset.png Press Thumbnails - BEST OF 2021 Opera News | January 2022 5 BEST NEW WORKS: DAVID HERTZBERG: THE ROSE ELF CD. Ensemble, Kahn. Meyer Media “The endlessly swelling textures and iridescent color palette are evocative of Scriabin.” - Joe Cadagin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1616038004191-Z40RZJDI731ACBLFGWVA/image-asset.png Press Thumbnails - CRITIC'S CHOICE: HERTZBERG: THE ROSE ELF Joe Cadagin | March 2021 DAVID HERTZBERG’S comet-like ascent into the operatic cosmos was launched by his 2017 adaptation of occultist Aleister Crowley’s Wake World. A CD set of that breakout work, issued last year, confirmed that all the praises and prizes heaped on it were merited. This latest disc documents Hertzberg’s 2018 follow-up, The Rose Elf, which probes the same realms of the fantastic as his earlier success. He’s selected another dark fairy tale, this time a supernatural murder-mystery by Hans Christian Andersen. The composer is a skilled poet, his libretto steeped in the arcane language of fin-de-siècle Spiritualism and Symbolism. Moreover, his compositional style is indebted to the refined decadence of that period; the endlessly swelling textures and iridescent color palette are especially evocative of Scriabin. The standard star-cross’d-lover scenario is embellished with literary images that are both charming and unsettling, notably the cluster of jasmine that grows from a pot containing the Beloved’s decomposing head. Hertzberg’s score revels in this sinister allure, its eerier passages conjuring the bony-fingered imps and gnarled trees of Arthur Rackham’s illustrations. This uncanny quality may have something to do with the erotic energy the composer teases from Andersen’s ostensibly innocent children’s story. With her supple mezzo, Samantha Hankey transforms the meaning of the smothered Elf’s distressed cries from inside a rose placed over the Beloved’s (still-beating) heart. Her gushing consonants, fondling portamentos and libidinous low notes on the line “the white heat of his flesh makes me sweat” convey intense carnal—even sadomasochistic—desire. In a Liebestod on behalf of the dead couple, Hankey flits nymphlike through Hertzberg’s idiomatically graceful vocal writing, building up to the climactic “Apocalypse of Petals.” Mustering the nine-piece chamber ensemble, Robert Kahn unleashes this finale of symphonic proportions. A garden of instrumental sound effects—buzzing insect wings, sighing zephyrs, cascading blossoms, sparkling dewdrops—whirls around the ecstatically rising vocalise of soprano Sydney Mancasola and tenor Kirk Dougherty, positively apotheotic as the departed Girl and her Beloved. It’s a kaleidoscopic, narcotic vision that feels unnerving in its sheer excess, as if we were glimpsing some forbidden elven rite. The opera’s rainbow of sonic hues is appropriately wiped away for the Brother’s a cappella diatribe, delivered with hulking brutality by bass-baritone Andrew Bogard. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1593378223401-D5T8YLZVAXO5U8HZ6SUX/New+York+TImes.jpg Press Thumbnails - The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020 Anthony Tommasini | December 17, 2020 David Hertzberg: ‘Is that you, my love?’ “The Wake World”; Maeve Hoglund, soprano; Samantha Hankey, mezzo-soprano; Elizabeth Braden, conductor (Tzadik) With his playfully convoluted 2017 fairy tale opera “The Wake World,” David Hertzberg demonstrated that voluptuous, sweeping elements of grand opera could be reimagined for today. In the work’s swelling, shimmering climactic duet between a young seeker and her fairy prince, Ravel meets Messiaen, and Wagner meets Scriabin; the music is spiky, original and wondrous strange. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592698512323-KGE426K6FTZ8I5GHPRHN/operawire.jpeg Press Thumbnails - Off the Beaten Track: David Hertzberg's The Rose Elf Will Have You Checking Your Bouquets Chris Ruel | November 27, 2020 Hertzberg Continues to Push Boundaries Award-winning Composer/librettist David Hertzberg likes his stories dark and his music lush, and he’s back with another recording, this time “The Rose Elf,” a one-act opera that hews more to Andersen’s tale than Boccaccio’s. As I wrote in a previous Off the Beaten Track exploring Hertzberg’s MCANA Best New Opera Award-winning opera, “The Wake World,” the composer’s work is experiential and a sonic feast. Hertzberg’s libretto displays a sharp sense of poetic language that is rife with accessible beauty through an economy of words. And, as a composer, Hertzberg is masterful at using a minimal number of instrumentalists to create gargantuan sound. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1610259368395-YK3LYY35KGPEIA4PI8H4/image-asset.png Press Thumbnails - The Rose Elf Oussama Zahr | November 9, 2020 The musical language of fairies is well established. In a new recording of David Hertzberg’s one-act opera “The Rose Elf,” from 2018, the titular sprite darts about flowers and bowers to the sound of rolled piano chords and tinkling glockenspiel (played vivaciously by a chamber orchestra). Hertzberg adapted his poetic libretto from a particularly grisly Hans Christian Andersen tale: the rose elf witnesses a man’s murder and then breaks the news to the victim’s lover, who dies grieving. The carefree elf is changed by what he sees, and the mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey handles the rangy role beautifully. The elf’s music wilts in solemnity; in the finale, as he consoles the dying girl, it blooms with warmth and depth—the sound of someone who has learned compassion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1598128059864-C7ZGZ4DVNK8TDI69U85R/Logo_1.jpg Press Thumbnails - A New Recording of The Rose Elf is right in time for Halloween Steven Winn | October 23, 2020 Chimes clang. A piano sends up oscillating shivers. The strings weep and mourn. All the spooky musical atmosphere serves The Rose Elf, a chamber opera based on a Hans Christian Andersen tale (rooted in The Decameron), with music and libretto by Los Angeles composer David Hertzberg. Haunting, seductive, and strikingly well performed, the Swan Studios recording debuts, fittingly, on Halloween. Listeners can well imagine such effects from the vividly creepy score. Hertzberg — whose previous opera, The Wake World, won wide acclaim — writes equally well for voice and the nine-piece orchestra, under Robert Kahn’s direction here. Mired in single-note chants or sent off on lyrical swoops and frenzied melismas, the singers are at once intensely human and fantastical phantoms. Their transfixed calms and melodic spasms drive the opera, yet the characters seem helpless in the face of propulsive forces. They are free agents in fate’s grip. The composer’s flair for colorful and sometimes manic orchestration creates plenty of heat and light. But there’s a keen musical intelligence at work, evident in certain penetrating figures (a stepwise descent in the strings) that recur in different guises. Th music has a near medieval cast at times. Elsewhere it’s reminiscent of Debussy, Berlioz, or Philip Glass. The score turns bluntly theatrical, with traces of horror film scores. Yet all the variety serves a purpose. Every scene and plot point feel carefully, tellingly deployed. When, to choose one example, the brother taunts his near catatonic sister, he does so in short, clipped phrases offset by alarming, erratic percussion thunderclaps. The Elf’s aria at the top of Part II, by contrast, is gorgeous, wonderstruck, and empathic. Later on it turns piercingly anguished. Moods and emotions are labile, volatile, unstable. The performers, led by Hankey’s captivating turn in the dominant title role, are all first-rate. The singing radiates conviction, character, and a delectable psychosexual ripeness. The mounting crescendo of voices in the final scene is a kind of apotheosis, beyond language or rational comprehension. The Rose Elf becomes what it’s about — a full-body spirit possession https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1616039109252-V44WZN98WDJLOYF2MUE1/ONLogo2015.png Press Thumbnails - CRITIC'S PICK, HERTZBERG: THE WAKE WORLD Arlo McKinnon | August, 2020 The Wake World is based on an early short story by the English polymath occultist Aleister Crowley. At the time of its writing, in 1907, Crowley was a young man, still under the influence of the occult society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Written as a fairy tale for his young daughter, Crowley’s “Wake World” is an allegorical tale of a young aspirant’s initiation into the study of Kabbalah and occultism in general. Inspired by the story, Hertzberg wrote his own libretto. The music frequently and masterfully honors his influences. Hertzberg evokes early-twentieth-century culture; the music of Ravel and Scriabin are obvious touch points, as are the more mysterious movements of Holst’s Planets. Dramatically, this hallucinatory opera shares structural elements with Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, with its progression from room to room and the great importance given to colored lighting for each new chamber. Parallels to Lewis Carroll’s Alice novellas can be found, as well, in the phantasmagoric nature of the different characters encountered along the journey. The beauty of this opera is the virtuosity with which Hertzberg combines all these influences to create powerful, intoxicating music of his own, unique to him and to our current times. The score combines mystery, eroticism, vulgarity and euphoria, marshalling a few soloists, a small chorus and seven instrumentalists to create exciting, imaginative and kaleidoscopic timbral worlds. For once, one does not miss a full orchestra in a drama demanding continuous shifts of sound color. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1598128059864-C7ZGZ4DVNK8TDI69U85R/Logo_1.jpg Press Thumbnails - An Operatic Premiere Redolent of the Decadent Early 20th Century Joe Cadagin | August 10, 2020 Hertzberg pushes his predecessor’s style to decadent extremes — the score exhibits all the narcotic sensuality of an Alphonse Mucha poster. Vivid descriptions of flowers, gemstones, and perfumes are translated into luxurious instrumental equivalents: violin solos that curl and coil like art nouveau foliage; glittering piano flourishes wrapped in opalescent bowed vibraphone; the smoky-sweet incense of muted trumpet. These sonorities, unified by a recurring bell motive lifted from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, swell and surge in a kind of tantric lovemaking session that is always on the verge of rapturous eruption. Conductor Elizabeth Braden unleashes some powerful Wagnerian climaxes from the seven-piece chamber ensemble. Filling out the seven-piece “orchestra” is a sizable choir performing wordless vocalise, à la Scriabin’s Prometheus or Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. Their etheric harmonies cast a continuous glow — a soft halo of moonlight that lends the work its sylvan sense of mystery. For the couple’s final reunion, the composer has the Prince appear in female form, a change in pronouns announcing this transfiguration. Samantha Hankey — who has only a few lyric passages in her pants-role guise — suddenly bursts forth with an apotheotic aria set to sapphic verses from a Crowley Kabbalah manual. This homoerotic take on Isolde’s Liebestod is a supremely transcendent moment, Hankey’s crystalline mezzo spurting in jets to ejaculatory top notes before trickling down like the peach juice mentioned in the poem. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1594425595405-GHFUAQM6YLNAKESP9DCB/FT.png Press Thumbnails - David Hertzberg: The Wake World - sumptuous array of sounds Richard Fairman | July 10, 2020 Here is “a tale for babes and sucklings”. It is related by Lola, who is the key of delights, and describes how her Fairy Prince rides to her on a beautiful creature like a swan, or sometimes a lion or bull, with a woman's face and breasts, and unfathomable eyes. This is The Wake World, originally a short story by Aleister Crowley, free-loving poet, painter, occultist and magician, and now an opera by the young American composer David Hertzberg. First performed in Philadelphia in 2017, it won the Music Critics Association of North America award for best new opera and arrives here in a seductive recording. What kind of music could possibly invoke Crowley's universe of the senses? Hertzberg's music sets out to evoke a rapturous nirvana. Imagine an intoxicating mix of Szymanowski's ecstatic King Roger and Ravel's luminous Daphnis et Chloé. Offstage women's voices sing like sirens, the percussion glitters and perfumed harmonies hang in the air. Remarkably, Hertzberg achieves this sumptuous array of sounds with an ensemble of just seven players. A cast mostly associated with the Opera Philadelphia premiere includes Maeve Höglund and Samantha Hankey as Lola and the Fairy Prince and Elizabeth Braden conducts a suitably otherworldly performance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1594335490100-TO0IAKVCZPH0EYN18HH4/BBC.png Press Thumbnails - David Hertzberg: The Wake World Steph Power | August, 2020 David Hertzberg’s The Wake World takes the fairy tale written by occultist Aleister Crowley for his daughter into a realm as narcotically debauched as the sex magic he’s said to have indulged in- and as darkly gothic, as Lola undergoes a series of otherworldly tests before she can unite with her Fairy Prince. Like a carnal Bluebeard’s Castle with a happy outcome, Hertzberg’s libretto drips with with extreme, symbolist imagery, while his score conjures echoes of Debussy, Mahler, and Wagner - and especially Shreker - in its lush, opulent chromaticism. Yet his forces are worlds away from Shreker’s vast Die Gezeichneten. An ensemble of just seven players supports two principals and ten further characters - sung here by soloists who emerge from Philadelphia Opera Chorus - to tempt, beguile, aid, and torment Lola (sung by soprano Maeve Höglund) as she traverses depraved scenes in the palace of the Fairy Prince (mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey). Human sacrifice, cannibalism, vampiric seduction: all are described in orgiastic waves as Lola follows her of lust and animal instinct in pursuit of inner truth[…] Hertzberg’s score is astonishingly imaginative and well-written, and the musicians on this recording prove fine advocates under their conductor Elizabeth Braden. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1594335517414-FS715F6508DHZ9QV4ZQR/Opera+Mag.png Press Thumbnails - DISC OF THE MONTH: THE WAKE WORLD, HERTZBERG John Rockwell | August, 2020 One of the great joys of writing about the arts is stumbling across something previously unknown and strikingly new. Such was my happy experience in September of 2017 when I attended a performance as part of Opera Philadelphia’s autumn festival of mostly new work. The opera in question was called The Wake World and its composer and librettist was David Hertzberg. He was still in his 20s and had something of a track record in new-music circles. But this was his first opera and I had never heard of him. The Wake World was thrilling, full of musical and poetic allusions to the past, basically tonal harmonically, yet utterly original. Not everyone was thrilled: some found it confusing or overwrought. But enough of us loved it that it easily won the opera committee of the Music Critics Association of North America’s award (I am a committee member) as the best new opera of 2017. Hertzberg immediately vaulted into the small but expanding circle of prized young North American opera composers and librettists[…] The fin-de-siècle era before World War I saw not only the flowering of the impressionist and modernist artists Barnescollected, but a dizzying assortment of occult movements. Prominent among them was the English-based Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, offshoot of the Rosicrucians, who in turn derived from the Freemasons. Hertzberg wrote his libretto based on the works of Aleister Crowley, the mystic and black magician, and in particular his story The Wake World, published in 1907 in a collection called Konx Om Pax but written a few years earlier. To that Hertzberg included an erotic effusion from Crowley’s The Temple of Solomon the King, from 1909. But the libretto emerges as remarkably original. Crowley’s The Wake World has its erotic elements, but was intended as a children’s fable about an adept’s progress toward enlightenment for his daughter Lola, with Crowley as her Fairy Prince. The opera libretto transforms that into a highly sensual, not to say sexual love story, with Lola being led through her prince’s palace from sleepy illusion to wide-awake fulfilment. Hertzberg’s poetic text is positively lurid; it makes Wilde’s Salome sound downright prosaic. Hertzberg ties this eager pilgrim’s progress together with recurrent verbal (‘a woman arched for love over the hourless sky’) and musical motifs (a cooing downwards step-like line that serves as Lola’s leitmotif). Score and text echo the past: the lushness of Ravel (Daphnis) and Debussy (Mélisande’s dream-state); Wilde and Strauss’s Salome, of course, but also the Emperor of Die Frau ohne Schatten turning to stone, and the loving writing for the female voice; Wagner with the Venusberg sirens and the Flowermaidens and especially the Rhinemaidens; Lulu; Alice in Wonderland (falling down the rabbit hole); Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, with the prince’s magical transformation into a woman; and not least Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, but with a happy ending. Yet for all that, Hertzberg’s opera sounds completely original. What operas does Hertzberg have in store? In the meantime, here is The Wake World, shorn of its staging but eminently listenable. Anyone interested in the future of opera should seek it out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592700524014-7DKFOAB1R0O7L1AWCZFI/musicalamerica.png Press Thumbnails - No Concerts, But Plenty of New Music Recordings, Part II Clive Paget | June 16, 2020 The Wake World, an opera by the preternaturally gifted composer David Hertzberg receives a stunning premiere recording. […] it’s a ravishing score. Orchestrated for five instruments, it’s surprisingly sumptuous, richly romantic, and magically delicate, full of graceful instrumental lines (think Szymanowski, Ravel, even early Messiaen, and then project that forward a century). Soprano Maeve Höglund is quite extraordinary as Lola, bold, fearless, and sensual all at once. Samantha Hankey is a warm Fairy Prince with Jessica Beebe making up a trio of female voices that endlessly seduce the ear. Conductor Elizabeth Braden corrals her ensemble with enormous skill and the brilliantly engineered recording is out of this world. Watch it win awards. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592703244123-7BU6JCGZT7CUF59MNMX9/CVNA.jpg Press Thumbnails - Opera's Mysticism, Vibrant On Stage, Rings True On CD Margaret Darby | May 27, 2020 David Hertzberg’s fanciful opera The Wake World was premiered at Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O in 2017 and received the 2018 Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera. The work, co-commissioned by the Barnes Foundation and Opera Philadelphia, is based on a fantastical tale by occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). How could this mystical experience be reproduced without the visual aspect? I was happily surprised that the sound on the two-CD set, recorded at the Curtis Institute’s Gould Rehearsal Hall in 2018, is lush and focused. Elizabeth Braden, who also conducted the premiere, uses a slightly larger chorus (24 singers instead of the premiere’s 16) and hones the choral sound into an orchestral instrument. The smooth harmonies that Hertzberg scored for the chorus come through vividly. After a single voice traces descending fourths at the start of the first CD, the chorus sings the same motif in canon, blending with chimes, glockenspiel, crotales, and wind gong, and supported by the impressive playing of pianist Grant Loehnig, who also performed at the premiere and is head of Opera Philadelphia’s music staff. Hertzberg’s original score for five instrumentalists – violin, French horn, trumpet, piano/keyboards, and percussion – was rich and sonorous in the original performance, but the CD is enhanced by a Fender Rhodes keyboard supplementing the bass without creating overwhelming volume. Even with a second percussionist to help deploy an arsenal of instruments – chimes (with upper extension), crotales (two octaves), large thunder sheet with claw, glockenspiel, wind gong, vibraphone, two melodicas, soldering iron, vibrator, electric toothbrush, musical saw, ratchet, two suspended cymbals, inverted cymbal (into which nuts, bolts, screws, etc. were dropped), and an assortment of bows, brushes, beaters, sticks, mallets, and chains – the sound never gets messy. Hertzberg’s score manages to weave ribbons of sound into a rich tapestry that retains clarity through Braden’s clean conducting and the outstanding recording quality. […] Maeve Höglund’s Lola has both a delicate soprano and the ecstatic quality of her character’s awakening to the sensual revelations of the Fairy Prince’s palace. […] The booming voice of Andrew Bogard as the Bone Man, new in this role, is striking. His resonant bass is perfect for the tortured characters he performs with great expression: “I used to be whole, then the cannibals undid my flesh.” George Somerville, as Morbus, and John David Miles, as Pestilitas, infuse amazing energy, giving special inflection to their voices in the wild lyrics of the libretto. Jessica Beebe’s agile soprano and ability to negotiate the difficult part of Luna reminded me of her superb performance in the 2017 premiere. Parthenope (Maggie Finnegan), Ligeia (Veronica Chapman Smith), and Leucosia (Joanna Nelson Gates) maintain very tight harmonies in their triadic chorus of wisdom – guiding Lola through her journey. Both trio and chorus sound more intense in the recording than in my memory of the Opera Philadelphia performance. Anthony Creamer’s production creates a permanent record of David Hertzberg’s inventive endeavor. The score has the flavor of Debussy, Ravel, and Scriabin with added crunches, crushes, and other noises that never mar the crystalline experience of the music. While it is tempting to label Hertzberg a post-impressionistic composer, he is blazing an entirely new trail. He uses Ravelesque sounds in his score, but also includes discordant, expressionistic passages to create a mixed palette of harmonic color. He draws lines with delicate trumpet (Steve Franklin), uses the pastels of soft and mournful horn (played masterfully by Bryn Coveney), and outlines voices and harmonies with violin (Eunice Kim). This recording, engineered by Andreas Meyer and mastered by Scott Hull, is an impressive first opera release for John Zorn’s Tzadik label and a vivid aural encapsulation of the premiere. The Wake World will be given a new production by Mary Birnbaum for Catapult Opera’s 2021-22 season, presented by Peak Performances at Montclair State University in New Jersey. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592698512323-KGE426K6FTZ8I5GHPRHN/operawire.jpeg Press Thumbnails - Off the Beaten Track: David Hertzberg's Hallucinatory 'The Wake World' Serves Up a Sonic Feast Chris Ruel | May 20, 2020 Lurid, strange, wild, frightening, and weird are supreme compliments. “The Wake World” is hands-down one of the most atmospheric pieces I’ve encountered thus far. A cinematic quality reigns from the get-go. How do you take five instruments and make them sound as profound as 120? I have no idea, but somehow Hertzberg got all the lushness and bombast of Wagner or Strauss from one horn, one trumpet, one violin, percussion, one Fender Rhodes, a piano, and 16 chorus members. Moving beyond the technical and into the score, Hertzberg has written music that is, at times, as profound as Wagner in both the big and little moments. When the five-member orchestra opens up, (it sounds weird just writing that), the lushness rivals that of film composers who looked to Wagner and Strauss as their models–think John Williams, Hans Zimmer, or Howard Shore (who scored also scored a Ring saga). Hertzberg infuses “The Wake World” with other-worldliness normally reserved for futuristic cinematic landscapes—sparkling and grand as well as post-apocalyptic. “Lilith Arrives, Aeons Late,” shimmers with repetitive bell tones backed by the chorus before growing, surging, and spilling out, uncontainable by the bounds of earthly reality. The listener is continually brought from grandiosity to chaos to sublimity and back around for another go. “Is that you, my love,” shares qualities with that of lieder—albeit on a bit of acid or hashish, Crowley’s recreational drug of choice—in both word and style with the opening lines of “She’s dancing,” sung in a gravelly, monstrous shout, not unlike vocal lines spun up by the eclectic and wonderfully strange singer/songwriter Tom Waits. Hertzberg grabbed incongruent styles, perhaps said a few of Crowley’s incantations and poof! “The Wake World,” appeared, its disparate parts forming a miraculous whole. I’ll close out my thoughts on “The Wake World” with a look at Hertzberg’s world-building prowess. His use of color words is phenomenal, and the manner in which he weaves the sexuality into the poetic nature and imagery is akin to passages found within the biblical book of the Song of Solomon, relating the body using images of fruit and color. As a writer, I was in heaven reading such beautiful poetry and it inspired me to explore and look for ways to enhance my fiction with similar poetic flourishes. To get as close to the full, immersive experience as possible, take some time to dig into “The Wake World.” It’s well worth the energy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592700322466-9HRNKOGV9GMWVCJEZ9KQ/artsjournal.png Press Thumbnails - 'The Wake World' comes from somewhere, but where? David Patrick Stearns | May 20, 2020 David Hertzberg’s opera The Wake World arrives on a new recording with a lot of praise already behind it. Though written in a matter of months by a composer who was then hardly known, the piece was a curious success at Opera Philadelphia’s O17 festival and won the 2018 Best New Opera Award from the Music Critics Association of North America. But time and again while listening to the Tzadik-label release, I asked myself, What zeitgeist did this arrive from? What cultural phenomenon contributed to why it was written now? And why have audiences responded to it so readily? Here are the pieces that don’t even begin to add up. The story comes from the deeply enigmatic Aleister Crowley (1875-1947, author, occultist, spy and God only knows what else), whose sensibility might described as J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan on acid – lots and lots of acid, with creepy overtones as the child heroine Lola is led on a dream journey that strips her of everything, including flesh and bones. The musical language is post-Debussy, in the realm of late Szymanowski: shamelessly lush, opiated, over-ripe and gothic. Few scores, recent or not, are so sensually inviting yet ultimately so disturbing, as if you’re experiencing something that has been secret (for good reason) and possibly forbidden. I say this as someone who didn’t get to see the O17 staging. As a purely audio experience, The Wake World holds up far better than the more lavishly acclaimed operas of George Benjamin and Thomas Adès, which demand to be seen before they can be properly heard. Though Hertzberg’s music has too many obvious antecedents to be called innovative, his synthesis is so convincing that the music achieves its own originality. “It’s so over the top and lurid that it makes Salome read like something out of the telephone book,” declared critic John Rockwell, who was part of the MCANA panel that named it opera of the year. “It uses five instruments that sound like an orchestra of 40 not just in terms of volume but color and variety,” said Heidi Waleson on the same panel. So, with the close scrutiny allowed by the studio recording masterfully led by Elizabeth Braden, how are that color and variety achieved? The Wake World‘s landscape arrives in seven sections that are variously titled Ritual Procession, Preludium, The Beginning, The Palace, Treasure House of Gold, Mistress of It All, and Out of Doors. The ultimate contradiction is stated close to the beginning: “The language of The Wake World is silence.” (Oh, sure.) The main characters are the innocent young girl Lola (sung by Maeve Höglund) and her enigmatic Fairy Prince (Samantha Hankey), who was costumed, in the original R.B. Schlather production, in a natty business suit with a mid-century British smoking pipe. Amid this ostensibly benign dreaminess appear ultimate nightmares — including a giant being consumed by cannibals (Lola included) but still conscious enough to sing a lament about his predicament. The Fairy Prince refers to Lola’s “sweet supple flesh” and asks her to remove her clothes — and also her skin. “And when all these happy husks are shed, you will find yourself crouched beneath the canopy of light …” That, plus language that is extravagantly affectionate or mystical rather than blatantly sexual, keeps the opera out of the pedophile zone. A sense of ominous eternity often hangs in the air. When Lola is abandoned, she fears that she’ll “lose myself in foreverness.” A choral entity known as the “they” sing about romantic pledges “until the end of time and space … and you writhe underground … besidest the worms wherein all co-mingle…” The dramatic structure is a bit like Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. Lola seems to go from one phantasmagorical realm to another, kind of by choice but propelled by the momentum of her dream. If it’s possible to an opera to float decisively, this one does. The remarkable sense of sonority isn’t achieved entirely by the tiny orchestra. The 24-part mixed chorus plays a major role, though this isn’t a choral opera in the Boris Godunov sense of the term: the voices are often used for textural purposes, more like Ravel in the full-ballet version of Daphnis et Chloé. The sonority’s foundation is provided by the keyboard, the edge by the trumpet: sometimes muted, sometimes soaring above the rest, delivering the closest the opera comes to a traditional melody. Not that the score is un-melodic. It seems too preoccupied with otherworldly matters to deal with anything so mundane as a tune. The vocal lines are parlando style — singable, sometimes challengingly so. This sort of vocal writing has a somewhat bad name in contemporary opera: pacing often gets weighed down in the name of conversational verisimilitude. Strangely, pacing is not an issue The Wake World. The opera seems to proceed with its own kind of amorphous confidence, suggesting that the major missing piece of the antecedent puzzle here is the time-suspended quality of Morton Feldman. One passage has a kind of ominous ding-dong tolling bell effect that suggests somebody is about to pay — but for what? Certainly, there’s something sinful here. And when you think it can’t go any further on any number of fronts, whether saturated sonorities or dramaturgical weirdness — it does. And does so again and again. Musical shock arises from the unexpected. And now that I’ve failed to locate any zeitgeist for The Wake World, I can only conclude that its shock value comes from its lack of context. Nobody will ever be able to point to this score and say that this came out of the era of Donald Trump, the gritty horrors of the national opioid addiction, the flagrant disregard for the truth that has become so common, or the unchecked bigotry that has so far afflicted the 21st century. Yet The Wake World is not an escape from all of that. The opera is what it says it is: an alternate world that is like our unconscious mind, with all of its non-linear irrationality, yet only two closed eyelids away from reality. After a piece so singularly entrancing as The Wake World, it’s hard to know what to expect from Hertzberg in the coming years. Will he go further into the ozone or, like the filmmaker Alain Resnais, pull back from the tuxedoed surrealism of Last Year at Marienbad and into something more accessible but less distinguished? I can’t call it either way. Which is what makes Hertzberg so intriguing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592700011501-K6YFW4YRIE9TCAWE7X4F/CTEBCM%3F.png Press Thumbnails - David Hertzberg - The Wake World (Tzadik) Dæv Tremblay | May 13, 2020 The Wake World is a new contemporary opera work by composer David Hertzberg. It’s a surreal and hypnotizing musical journey on two discs that starts up relatively slowly, but ends up being quite astonishing and gripping. It’s difficult to put such a massive and ethereal piece into more words, so I strongly suggest you watch this video and listen to the whole thing for yourself. Sit down comfortably, put your headphones on or plug in a good sound system, and let yourself sink into this magical experience. I’ll end with a quote. I think the opera is pretty whacky. — David Hertzberg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592700132035-Z00QKEUJI21P71M7XR8E/DMG.png Press Thumbnails - 'The Wake World' on Tzadik Frank Meadows | May 8, 2020 DAVID HERTZBERG “The Wake World” (Tzadik 4030; USA) “Tour-de-force” is a descriptor that I frankly feel gets thrown around in the world of creative music, but for David Hertzberg’s mesmerizing chamber opera “The Wake World”, it resonates fittingly. This is not just an ambitious and forcefully dramatic extended work; it is strangely simple, colorfully complex and fully engaging throughout its massive length. On many levels, it forges a melismatic thru line from the Downtown canon to the antique avant-garde canon of Strauss’ “Salome” and Berg’s “Wozzeck”. First premiered to wide acclaim 2017 at the Barnes Foundation under the aegis of Opera Philadelphia, it offers no surprise to longtime Tzadik fans as to why this is a perfect pick for the label. The libretto is an adaptation of Aleister Crowley’s short Beckettian fantasy of the same name which was written whilst under the influence of The Golden Dawn. Zorn has long composed and championed works with heavy reference to magick and its many paths, and while it is clear that Hertzberg’s piece offers many layers of meaning to the arcanely experienced, the pure sonics and poetic texts offer a rich and rewarding world to the uninitiated. The expert orchestration and recording quality offer an enormous dynamic range, and while many of the vocal parts are doubled, it is still astounding to understand that this is music written for only 5 instruments and 9 singers. The instrumentalists, particularly the percussionist, cover a staggering range of sound, and the choral writing is thoughtfully staggered to create vast sheets of dreamy hallucinations, that sometimes reduce down to fragmentary whispers. The soloists are sinister and yearning, and while I still need to read up on the magical context meaning of houses, colors, and love, the emotional range and intensity translates universally. This is the “other world” that so much music on the fringe strives for, but is rarely channeled into something so gripping. The harmonic language offers an uncluttered density, with a spectral palette studied in Scriabin, Debussy, Ravel etc. Moments of aggression are acutely punctuated across an organic landscape that breathes. Highly recommended for deep cerebral transportation. Look forward to seeing what else comes from this startlingly young mastermind. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592699615209-PHXT3FP2G18FFSZQODUH/blogcritics.jpg Press Thumbnails - Music Review: Award-Winning Opera by David Hertzberg John Sobel | April 30, 2020 Opera Philadelphia premiered David Hertzberg’s stunning new opera The Wake World in 2017. Based on a mystical fairy tale by occultist Aleister Crowley, it’s an exercise in glorious, phantasmagorical excess, both story-wise and musically. In 2018 the Music Critics Association of North America awarded it Best New Opera in North America. In anticipation of a Fall 2021 tour-ready production by Catapult Opera, Tzadik Records has released a world premiere recording that leaves me anxious to see the work live. If you glance at the libretto (included in the CD booklet) on and off, but keep your eyes closed the rest of the time, the music plunges you into Crowley’s mystical world. Lola, sung by soprano Maeve Höglund (from the Opera Philadelphia cast), undergoes an epic journey toward eventual bliss with her Fairy Prince, who is essayed with bold fluidity by Samantha Hankey. As Barnes’ eccentric juxtapositions make the arrangements say something beyond what the individual items do, the vivid wholeness of the opera likely also relates to Hertzberg’s having written the libretto and the score simultaneously. Words and music share an impressionistic, dreamlike quality that corresponds to the original story from which its main images and incidents derive. Especially on a recording, the music is all. Here it’s a vivid mix of French romanticism, a downtown avant-garde vibe (from the heavy reliance on keyboards and percussion), and Hertzberg’s own distinctive hallucinatory modernism, alternately propulsive and atmospheric. A band of only seven musicians creates orchestral walls and curtains of sound ranging from the gossamer far-away to percussive smashes and howls that are almost painful. I really like Hertzberg’s controlled yet surprising approach to melody, as well as his theatrically paced sense of rhythm. A large (in context) chorus of 24 singers, which includes members of The Crossing and the Opera Philadelphia Chorus, provides rich backdrops. In fact some of the most powerful effects and moments arise from the choral passages, culminating in the eloquent and forceful “Things both strange and true.” The music packs a sustained and even overflowing emotional wallop. Though this is a love story, only at the very end do Lola and her Fairy Prince duet, and only when they come to sing of the “joy of dissolution.” But the opera does not leave one with a feeling that anything has dissipated. Though it puts aside reason in favor of mysticism, its artistic effect is unambiguously solid. Naturally, an opera performance lacks important dimensions on an audio recording. But the press announcement’s description of The Wake World as a “hallucinatory choral fantasy” is a good one too. As Hertzberg says, “The Wake World represents a deeply personal vision, an attempt to render in lurid detail the strange, frightening, inarticulable mystery of the imagination, into which I poured every iota of my creative being.” Every iota of this audio recording leaves no doubt he’s speaking the truth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529593544055-5Q9C2V563Q2OMECCF5MZ/Screen+Shot+2018-06-21+at+8.05.20+AM.png Press Thumbnails - Need to escape reality? Enter into the magical world of composer David Hertzberg Rick Perdian | April 30, 2020 […] Hertzberg turned to a fairy tale by the British poet, magician and occultist, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who dabbled in practices such as sex magic, for the source of his libretto. Although later published in a collection entitled Konx Om Pax: Essays in Light, Crowley’s ‘The Wake World’ was originally conceived as a bedtime story for his daughter, Lola Zaza, in which he portrayed himself as the Fairy Prince who leads the child through an ecstatic journey of initiation that ends with her attaining enlightenment in a magical palace. Hertzberg’s libretto, however, is as lush and erotic as his score. The mysticism and exoticism of the story not only fueled Hertzberg’s musical and literary gifts, it made him aware of the synergies that existed between two world-class eccentrics who were exact contemporaries. […] Writing for an orchestra of five instruments, Hertzberg crafted a score of exceptional complexity and depth in The Wake World. His libretto is full of color, and the orchestrations capture images such as ‘the vermillion of pomegranates’ and ‘amber scarlet-flecked gold’ in scintillating, jewel-like tones. Hertzberg injects the same sonic splendor into the opera’s vocal lines. Stylistically, Hertzberg is hard to peg. There are traces of Hollywood film music from the 1930s (think Shirley Temple); rich, colorful orchestrations that some have likened to Ravel; and Straussian climaxes that create a sense of awe and ripple with sensuality. The latter are remarkable for their clarity and spaciousness. One has to suspend belief that five instruments can produce such sounds. We tend to think our current situation is unique, but it has played out on local and global levels countless times before. In August 1892, the thirty-two-year-old Mahler was on his way to Hamburg, where he was chief conductor at the Stadttheater, when a cholera epidemic hit the city. Defying orders that he report to work, Mahler instead retreated to Berchtesgaden, one of the Alpine Mountain retreats that he favored, to ride it out. He was single, making his living as an opera conductor and barely known as a composer: his next major composition would be the Resurrection Symphony. Escape, whether physical or mental, is a luxury at present. Many of us are cut off from society, and all of us from the live musical performances that entertain, sustain and nurture so many. Drawing any comparisons between 1892 and the present is folly, as are predictions for the future, but I can offer you a means to escape reality for a brief while. Just enter into an exotic, mesmerizing place where goodness and perseverance triumph – David Hertzberg’s The Wake World. It’s every bit as stunning as the mountains of Southern Bavaria where Mahler sought refuge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1592698512323-KGE426K6FTZ8I5GHPRHN/operawire.jpeg Press Thumbnails - David Hertzberg's Award-Winning Opera to Get Debut Recording David Salazar | April 8, 2020 Tzadik Records has announced that it will release David Hertzberg’s “The Wake World” on April 24, 2020, making the debut recording of the work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1593378223401-D5T8YLZVAXO5U8HZ6SUX/New+York+TImes.jpg Press Thumbnails - A New Company Rises From the Ashes of Gotham Chamber Opera Michael Cooper | January 9, 2019 The following fall, the company will perform David Hertzberg’s “The Wake World,” which had its premiere at Opera Philadelphia in 2017, in a new production by Mary Birnbaum. (Before Gotham closed, it had awarded Mr. Hertzberg, whose music Mr. Goren described as “wildly ecstatic and erotic,” a prize and commission that it could not see through.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1543817709421-BQXDAQ89588CQ56LQG79/wqxr_logo_NoFreq_square-1.jpg Press Thumbnails - The Sixth Annual Excellence in Opera (aka The Freddie) Awards Fred Plotkin | December 17, 2018 BEST NEW OPERA: The most impressive new opera I saw in 2018 was THE ROSE ELF, with music and lyrics by David Hertzberg based on a dark and frightening tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It was part of a nighttime series in a catacomb at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery. It was superbly performed by a cast of four (Samantha Hankey, Alisa Jordheim, Kyle Bielfield, Andrew Bogard), played by a nine-member orchestra led by Teddy Poll, and produced in terms of costumes, lighting, makeup and stage direction. I think this work could have a rich life outside of a cemetery. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1543817709421-BQXDAQ89588CQ56LQG79/wqxr_logo_NoFreq_square-1.jpg Press Thumbnails - NEW YORK'S MOST MEMORABLE CONCERTS OF 2018 David Patrick Stearns | December 1, 2018 MUSIC UNDERGROUND “In June, The Rose Elf sealed David Hertzberg’s reputation as one of the most notable up-and-coming composers with his lush, dramatically alert Hans Christian Andersen adaptation.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1616039279796-JYYIIRJORENHT35E5B1B/ONLogo2015.png Press Thumbnails - THE ROSE ELF Arlo McKinnon | September, 2018 THE ROSE ELF “In early June, The Angel’s Share presented what was billed as the “world premiere” of David Hertzberg’s The Rose Elf, a compelling and welcome addition to the operatic canon. Hertzberg’s music is vital, colorful and dramatic.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1530231590913-G32JTVAK13QVBI9JUAA8/wqxr_logo_NoFreq_square-1.jpg Press Thumbnails - THE BEST CONCERTS OF 2018 (SO FAR) David Patrick Stearns | June 27, 2018 OPERA EVENT OF THE HALF YEAR “…The Rose Elf, a long-in-the-works opera by David Hertzberg, opened the new concert series The Angel’s Share in June at the unlikely environs of the Green-Wood Cemetery catacombs. But the venue novelty was the least of it: The opera is based on a Hans Christian Andersen tale of a murder-avenging elf that sounds potentially silly. But Hertzberg is a masterful dramatist with a particular ability for building long dramatic arcs with saturated harmonies — like some imaginary, phantasmagorical flower. Even more than his much-acclaimed opera The Wake World (which I've only heard on recording), this one signals the arrival of a major compositional personality. The opera was directed with up-close intensity by R. B. Schlather.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529593362954-EJ2QKVLMJDGHKU6CWGGB/CVNA-Logo.jpg Press Thumbnails - AN OPERA TRAGEDY UNFOLDS GLOOMILY - INSIDE A CATACOMB David Patrick Stearns | June 15, 2018 “Much in line with harmonically lush, neo-Impressionistic past works by Hertzberg, this adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Elf of the Rose,” with a self-authored libretto, was compelling on every level throughout its one-hour running time. Hertzberg (born in 1990 in Los Angeles) wrote and workshopped The Rose Elf prior to writing The Wake World – in record time – for the O17 Festival of Opera Philadelphia, where Hertzberg has been a composer in residence. I didn’t see The Wake World, though I have heard sound files of the piece that left me not only enthralled with the composer’s dreamy post-Impressionist, Kaija Saariaho-influenced harmonic language but also wondering about his storytelling acumen. No such reservations were possible with The Rose Elf, whose score had exactly the right touch at every turn with an unerring sense of pacing. The lushness (often reminding me of the little-known Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock) provided the basic dramatic canvas for the story, conveying the story’s extensive floral life – intoxicating but often emotionally neutral, as is the plant life it portrays. From there, the well-crafted, dramatically apt vocal lines rode the piece’s waves toward some sort of resolution but were constantly hijacked by new harmonic avenues. Yet never did the piece meander. Hertzberg is a master of the slow dramatic buildup that starts gathering force almost imperceptibly, until you realize the music has insinuated itself into your soul. A passage about grief, for example, began with what sounded like repeating tubular bells, and then climaxed with a more relentless percussive piano in a similar musical gesture. You wonder how a composer so young achieves such psychological depth. Each of Hertzberg’s slow buildups has a distinct character, though sometimes with a kinship suggested by recurring motifs. Also, below the music’s surface luster is a Puccinian streak. In contrast to, say, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, which implies more than it states, Hertzberg isn’t at all afraid to be more frankly passionate or to write effusive, rhapsodic vocal lines in a genuine love duet. Some of the opera’s more arresting moments, though, came with dramatic excursions into musical starkness that felt harmonically naked, with loud, slashing gestures. The smartly orchestrated ensemble sounded at least three times bigger than it was. [...] As the couple, Kyle Bielfield and Alisa Jordheim sang a love duet that convinced me that this music is at least the equal of Puccini.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529593544055-5Q9C2V563Q2OMECCF5MZ/Screen+Shot+2018-06-21+at+8.05.20+AM.png Press Thumbnails - COMMUNING THE DEAD AT THE PREMIERE OF DAVID HERTZBERG'S THE ROSE ELF Rick Perdian | June 15, 2018 For a young composer deemed ‘opulently gifted’ and ‘a twenty-first-century Ravel’, David Hertzberg is a rather modest fellow, cheerful and friendly, but then he has a lot to smile about. He was the Composer in Residence with Opera Philadelphia and Music-Theatre Group for the 2017-2018 season, commissions seem to flow his way, and his works are performed in major venues across the country. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529593358890-7NDT52GM7BM89VA7L170/9764437_300x300.jpg Press Thumbnails - IN REVIEW: THE ROSE ELF Vivien Schweitzer | June 10, 2018 “Stories featuring murder, suicide, necrophilia, and cannibalism have inspired both staples of the operatic repertory and contemporary works: a grisly legacy continued by the gifted young American composer and librettist David Hertzberg. His engrossing chamber opera The Rose Elf is based on a grim fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, about an evil brother who murders his sister’s lover and buries the decapitated body, the horrors witnessed by a tiny elf sheltering in a rose. The sister unearths her beloved’s head and plants it in a flower pot. Where better to stage such a bone-chilling work than a cemetery? Teddy Poll deftly conducted a kaleidoscopic score whose luxuriance contrasted with the spartan surroundings. Flickers of arpeggios and soft filigree alternated with luminous Messiaen-like piano chords and darts of percussion color. A whispered, mournful cello line morphed into voluptuous outbursts. The expressive vocal palette ranged from the gruff declamations of the brother, portrayed with sinister conviction by the bass-baritone Andrew Bogard, to the soaring vocal lines that concluded the work. The music stopped as the brother dragged his victim’s body along the floor, his contorted movements riveting in the silent, close quarters. While recent operas by George Benjamin and Charles Wuorinen have seemed too chilly and cerebral for their gruesome and tragic subject matters, Hertzberg has turned a morbid fairy tale about a shattered love affair into a suitably full-blooded and passionate opera. The catacombs were cold, but the music and singing certainly generated plenty of heat.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1529603027394-00949ME2RLPWVTDPYJW9/Screen+Shot+2018-06-14+at+10.30.59+AM.png Press Thumbnails - DAVID HERTZBERG'S ROSE ELF LEAVES HAUNTING, EVOCATIVE IMPRESSION Rebecca Richardson | June 11, 2018 "Powerful, disturbing, and clocking in at just an hour in length, The Rose Elf was captivating and intoxicating from start to finish, fueled by the lush orchestration and illustrious singing. This succinct opera holds an enormous amount of weight and splendor. Hertzberg’s soaring vocal lines and orchestral richness as well as the cast’s commanding performances have stuck with me since departing the catacombs last night, and I expect that they will continue to do so for some time.” http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/about daily 0.75 2025-05-19 http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/opera daily 0.75 2023-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848137822-MZUGHLZ14IWE5RUJ199N/21OPERAPHILA2-master768.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848442145-8ZM1FKTK6VYTV5KLUA0W/DSC_5286.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848734729-WHMWV80STTG0IUKPHD71/IMG_1319.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848440610-D4WU34GEK795E73EJWWB/DSC_5463.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848440534-45VSCBOS0HKWSVIRD44A/DSC_5467.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848439566-HQMFF8ORVJ3LKJ2ACDFZ/DSC_5584.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848441530-25I1EO4H6EFDNDYUDKGE/DSC_5433.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848443049-V5IX4IAED3R9KWVFO582/DSC_5125.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848439563-XFWBXR5SQB6TN4XPVYF0/DSC_5564.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848442483-YQMQURHNFML6U3UBGSGG/DSC_5251.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848441386-DH3FKTMF2DG7LN30GHZ2/DSC_5448.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848442807-3OJV8GHERCM0LPRDH10X/DSC_5182.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848443486-IUB01OHVO7IB8G8KPGMT/DSC_5108.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848443717-F3DJMD9AXZCYAJTBHZ5P/DSC_5028.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542848782238-62GYXE2T9HDB3FG2COEH/20170917-img_8157.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542847223464-VOPEJR1KBZV30UAR5HC4/t9msf--A.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542847321590-CCD3KSJVZPP9LT7VZP4V/2ATnjZmw.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542847408470-ZD5O6D4EGO0SY9HUHE9K/PIjyx_VQ.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542847588388-XLO6QFYDIPCJZK1RTNOI/wxtvZ1eA.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542847588422-2K7MIET64RAH6PF7IWER/W7NtlbDg.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542857097500-1DOZYUO1DHDN3LJYGPS5/0zCxGvfWg.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542857098918-LXU5P3HMQNOBSWBUS75F/0hQn_C-Ig.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542857397988-7NZ5YDBA1MJFSZVE2185/vpjjtHEQ.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542857353520-WLDJZYEMRHI9341IQFUG/b15XKDog.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1542857098083-R659F4EPZ3M6YQF7YE03/0NJpHod8A.jpeg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477102853403-DJG3YSTJACEC46Z8WRM2/DSC_0345-2.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477358734543-IZBKXSICD7P8YZQ8CZS7/14805647_10153843907521956_545687319_n.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477102867367-PJOCVKR2EDWL1UWKRYW3/DSC_0342-2.jpg Opera https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1477102860540-GAPRL5T6V924XXKXJM5N/DSC_0321-2.jpg Opera http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/chamber daily 0.75 2017-02-25 http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/press daily 0.75 2021-03-18 http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/contact daily 0.75 2023-05-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57f5ed0fff7c50936ae44355/1584526199177-YJP1S79S05TQRZO339SM/Hertzberg+-+catacombs.jpg Contact http://www.davidhertzbergmusic.com/orchestra daily 0.75 2020-04-05