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World Premiere of David Fennessy's Conquest of the Useless

Feb. 01, 2019

World Premiere of David Fennessy's <em>Conquest of the Useless</em>

On February 28, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, led by Jean Deroyer, perform David Fennessy’s Conquest of the Useless, a breathtaking, multi-movement composition about a musician’s obsession with the compelling vision of Werner Herzog. The Conquest of the Useless – Werner Herzog’s account of the making of his film Fitzcarraldo – inspired David Fennessy’s monolithic work of the same name, played in its entirety for the first time in the opening concert of New Music Dublin. The composer himself will play electric guitar with the orchestra, and is joined on stage by Peter Dowling (electronics), singer Jennifer Johnston and actor Aaron Monaghan.

Fennessy describes his work:

A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong.”

Pretty much all the music here finds its origins in this short passage of text taken from the prologue to Conquest of the Useless, Reflections from the making of Fitzcarraldo, by the German director Werner Herzog. Little did I know that when I encountered that iconic image on the pages of a movie magazine ten years ago, it would lead me down my own path of obsession and immersion culminating in an hour-long cycle of pieces which I have also named Conquest of the Useless."


(David Fennessy on Fitzcarraldo and Conquest of the Useless)

To learn more about David Fennessy, visit universaledition.com.
 

David Fennessy
Conquest of the Useless (2017)
for actor, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra
Prologue - Caruso - Gold is the sweat of the sun, silver are the tears of the moon
70'

 

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