“A vision had seized hold of me, 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” - Herzog, The Conquest of the Useless, 2004

The Conquest of the Useless - Werner Herzog’s account of the making of his film Fitzcarraldo - has fuelled the creation of David Fennessy’s monolithic new work of the same name, which will be played in its entirely for the first time at New Music Dublin 2018.

“David Fennessy, Glasgow-based composer of deep sensitivity, style and a knack for doing imaginative things with old samples, has constructed his own kind of impossible Caruso obsession” The Guardian

This is the world premiere of the complete performance of this breathtaking composition about a musician’s obsession with the compelling vision of Werner Herzog. The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra perform David Fennessy’s iconoclastic Conquest of the Useless, with the composer himself playing electric guitar.

RTÉ NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Electric guitar David Fennessy

Electronics Peter Dowling

Singer Jennifer Johnston

Conductor Jean Deroyer