Page 404 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

5 May 2023

UK premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch's

exciting Phantasma in Liverpool

By Peter Connors,

Austrian composer Berndt Richard Deutsch’s Phantasma was given its UK premiere by the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko. Deutsch was inspired to
compose this piece (first performed in Germany last year) by the seeing Gustav Klimt's
1902 Beethoven Frieze on the Secession Building in Vienna. This was Klimt’s rendition in
art of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as viewed through Wagner’s concept of
the Gesamtkunstwerk. I am glad I had found a very good video on YouTube showing the
Frieze with an interpretation of its iconography. It really enhanced my appreciation of the
music, which I might otherwise have found confusing. The key point seems to be that it
represents a striving for joy (as in Schiller’s famous Ode) even if that striving might
ultimately prove illusory.