Canberra International Music Festival: Gassenhauer

Popular music and street songs have evolved dramatically across eras and cultures. In Gassenhauer, we traverse continents and centuries to bring you a program of pop tunes in art-music settings, performed by the electrifying Ensemble Liaison. 

Gassenhauer translates loosely from German as a popular street song or “hit”. In the 1700s that included a Viennese earworm from Joseph Weigl’s opera L’amor Marinaro, which Beethoven famously re-imagined in his Trio Op. 11. 

Ensemble Liaison continues this journey through time with Manuel de Falla’s Popular Songs and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, first unveiled in the landmark 1924 concert An Experiment in Modern Music. Gershwin’s jazz-inflected masterpiece has since become a cultural icon, appearing in films and television from Manhattan and Fantasia to The Great Gatsby, The Simpsons, Family Guy and even Gremlins 2. The program also features Nat Bartsch’s pristine arrangement of Kate Ceberano’s Bedroom Eyes, the highest-selling Australian single of 1989.