HK Gruber's SHORT STORIES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS Premieres in Boston

In January, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of HK Gruber's symphonic suite pulled from the composer's acclaimed 2014 opera, Tales from the Vienna Woods.

Viennese composer HK Gruber's new symphonic suite Short Stories from the Vienna Woods is premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Andris Nelsons on January 6-8, 2022. The 30-minute orchestral work, co-commissioned by the Boston Symphony orchestra and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, is cast in seven movements featuring music drawn from his opera Tales from the Vienna Woods, such as "Song from the Wachau," "Splintered Waltzes," the "Nachspiel" set of chorale variations, the "Prayer" and a final "Polka infernale."

The opera Tales from the Vienna Woods is based on Ödön von Horváth's play about a broken engagement, set against the disintegrated Viennese society of the late-1920s just before the Austrofascist takeover. Gruber's opera has been staged at the Bregenz Festival, the Theater an der Wien, the Komische Oper in Berlin and the Theater Hagen.

Reviewing the opera, Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote: "The piece goes straight to the heart ... superb craftsmanship." Neues Deutschland wrote: "Gruber has created a score from the best that new music can offer ... It is thanks to this most original of Austrian composers, that an opera has been created out of the play, and one of such impressiveness that it deserves to be performed on every operatic stage from New York to Tokyo."

This world premiere comes on the tails of the US premiere of another Gruber operatic suite, Northwind Pictures, drawn from Der Herr Nordwind, which the composer himself conducted in November with the New World Symphony.

For more information visit bso.org.