NDR public radio livestream: German premiere of "Les Trois Cites de Lovecraft" - Audiolibro Gratis

This is an NDR public radio livestream recording of a 1st September 2018 performance.  Elbphilharmonie Hamburg/NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, performing a orchestral work by Guillaume Connesson.

This recording contains just the premiere in Germany of the Guillaume Connesson piece titled "The Cities of Lovecraft" (aka "Les Cites de Lovecraft", aka "Les Trois Cites de Lovecraft"). The livestream was originally online and public for about a week at NPR, then taken down.

Program notes in English for this audio work, translated and augmented:

Celephais: In the opening movement, Randolph Carter goes to meet his old friend Kuranes in the shining port city of Celephais. Brass fanfares describe the bronze gate through which he enters the dream-city, before a melody of violins evokes the weaving and bustling dream-life of the city's streets. In the section "The Temple of Turquoise" colourful trumpets express Carter's encountering of pagan celebrations, followed by a quiet chorale titled the "Rose and Crystal Palace of the Seventy Delicacies" as he enters ascends to more refined parts of the city. The "Seven Processions of the Orchid Crowned Priests" are then encountered, and given a great crescendo to end the first movement.

Kadath: In contrast to the radiant first movement, the scene then shifts to "Kadath", the gloomy outpost of ancient gods located in an icy region of Antarctica named "The Plateau of Leng". Lamenting violas emerge from the noise of the wind machine, then twelve-tone passages disseminate culminating chords (so-called "clusters"). Nyarlathotep, the eerie envoy of the ancient gods, approaches a throne room... He is given voice in a solo viola that sings and ripples in half and a quarter tones above kettle-drums and mad titterings.

The Golden Dream-City: Without a pause, a third short movement follows: Mr. Lovecraft begins to drift up from his nightmare slumber and the scene of his dream begins to change into his familiar dream-vision of a distant mighty city in the golden sunset. This is briefly evoked in the form of an intoxicating short dance, but some orgiastic overtones emerge in it at the very end.