Eduardo Fernández BERND ALOIS ZIMMERMANN Complete Works for Piano

COMPLETE WORKS FOR PIANO

Elisabeth Kufferath TWO

                                                                                TWO

Gülru Ensari / Herbert Schuch DIALOGUES

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970) is quoting Mozart and Debussy and others in his Monologues. This project album is trying to follow the ruts of Zimmermann, celebrating his 100th birthday.

“As students we had already been allowed to take a peek inside the Monologues, but we only had access to a couple of photocopied pages. When the 100-year-celebration of Zimmermann’s birth came around, we remembered the impression they had made upon us. When we finally got to see the entire score, however, we took a deep breath: it demands the most incredible acrobatic feats!

From the very beginning, we were particularly charmed by the way Zimmermann cites other composers: the quoted passages rise up in the midst of an agitated storm, like islands of tranquility and beauty. The works quoted by Zimmermann are not for piano duo, but we find that they have certain parallels with the other pieces on this recording.

The cocky, unpredictable, whimsical aspect of Mozart’s C Major Sonata is also present in Zimmermann. It is fascinating to note how he quotes Debussy’s prelude Feux d’artifice (Fireworks) in the 4th and 5th Monologues, thereby transplanting that shimmering French flair into his own musical environment.

Debussy, for Zimmermann, is more than just a source for quotes. The frothy, pastel sonorities in the Monologues are so untypically German, so much more beautifully poetical than anywhere else, except in Debussy. Etc.” (excerpt from an interview printed in the booklet)

GALINA USTWOLSKAJA Sinfonie Nr. 3 WOLFGANG RIHM Musik für Klarinette und Orchester BERND ALOIS ZIMMERMANN Photoptosis

This disc comprises three live performances from Munich’s Musica Viva Festival: the works by Ustvolskaya and Bernd Alois Zimmermann from the same concert in December 1998‚ the Rihm – a world première – from November 1999. The rather raw recorded sound reflects the constraints of these occasions‚ as do the rough edges of the orchestral playing‚ but the strong‚ and very strongly contrasted character of these compositions is arrestingly immediate. Zimmermann’s Photoptosis (1968) is the earliest piece‚ a reflection on the biblical phrase ‘and there was light’ which opens up an increasingly dazzling range of textures while – 1960s­style – incorporating a range of quotations and allusions on its way to a turbulently ecstatic conclusion.
Markus Stenz homes in on the music’s broad effects‚ and the result is far more than a mere revival. Photoptosis remains highly contemporary‚ and also offers the strongest possible contrast to the primitive yet forcefully characterised austerity of Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No 3 (1983).
Ustvolskaya’s music is unsparing in its refusal to elaborate‚ a quality which might earn it the label of ‘minimalist’ were the musical atmosphere less desolate. Named after the short‚ psalm­like poem which a reciter intones on two occasions during its 18­minute course‚ this plea to Jesus to ‘save us’ offers no spiritual consolation‚ but portrays a world from which salvation has been eternally withdrawn. The scoring is weird yet startlingly effective – five each of oboes‚ trumpets and double basses‚ a trombone and three tubas‚ various drums and a prominent piano – and‚ to me‚ the effect is the more unsettling for being utterly devoid of ambiguity.
Rihm’s music is rarely light­hearted‚ either‚ but this half­hour clarinet concerto‚ written in 1999‚ is constructed with skill and subtlety‚ the prevailing tone of lyric melancholy offset by more mercurial‚ agitated episodes. The tirelessly active solo line is challenged by the accompanying orchestra in various ways‚ creating a wordless drama that is all the more involving for Rihm’s characteristic tendency to evoke traditional shapes and modes of expression while leaving their precise provenance in doubt. Jörg Widmann is a charismatic soloist‚ and the evident tensions of the live occasion enhance the power of the experience on disc. All three compositions are guaranteed to get you thinking as well as listening. (Gramophone)

Cathy Krier PIANO - 20th CENTURY

“The early 20th century is a period that fascinates me. The prevalent musical aesthetic was disrupted by a new generation of composers who maintained their roots in tradition, but felt a great desire to expand music’s horizons: they formed a multitude of currents and embarked on a number of different paths, all driven by the idea of transfiguring everything they had previously known. For this disc I have chosen to retrace the path originally taken by Arnold Schoenberg. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg had an atypical career. Upon his father’s death, he had to leave school as the eldest sibling at the age of sixteen to take up a profession. As an autodidact he learned the essentials of composition by sight-reading great repertoire and by playing chamber music on the cello and the violin. Married to the sister of Alexander Zemlinsky, Schoenberg took some counterpoint lessons from that composer and soon started teaching harmony and counterpoint himself, from 1903 on. His teaching activity remained central throughout his life, both in Europe and after having immigrated to the US. Profoundly aware of the continual evolution of Art as a historical necessity, Schoenberg introduced an important change into composition at the beginning of the 20th century. He took it over the brink into the unknown by dissolving the classical functions of harmony, then by eliminating all familiar points of melodic and thematic reference. Schoenberg’s Op. 11 is the first truly atonal work for piano ever written….” (Cathy Krier)

Thomas Demenga / Thomas Zehetmair / Christoph Schiller J.S. BACH - B.A. ZIMMERMANN

Cellist Thomas Demenga continues his Bach project by juxtaposing the Baroque master’s d-minor Suite No. 2 with the work of Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970), one of the most important non-Darmstadters after World War II. As ever, Demenga makes a convincing argument for the pairing (interestingly enough, most of the criticism of Demenga’s project sees the Bach as filler). In this case, Zimmermann is something of an effortless choice, for his fondness of quotation and respect for tradition were at the heart of his artistry. His approach to time in this regard was particularly significant, drawing on intersections of influence through a wide range of trends and idioms.

Thus do we find ourselves in the comforting waters of Bach’s generative whispers from the moment we dive in. For this performance Demenga adopts the approach of a viola da gamba player (to greatest effect in his raspily inflected Courante). This sound draws out the music’s inherent gaseousness, in which one feels something dark and cosmic taking shape. Demenga’s notecraft ensures that every molecule feels connected through a legato of silence. He digs as deep as he can for those distinct Bach lows, plows double stops as if they were fertile fields, and maintains subtle independence of line in the Sarabande. He bows the Menuets as if with shadows, then elicits one of the finer renderings of the Gigue I’ve yet heard, striking a fine balance between jubilation and regret.

The boldness of this architecture may seem an ill fit to Zimmermann’s sonatas, which despite their meticulous scoring also call for an improvisatory approach. This puts the musician in a potentially compromising space, though if anyone is up to the challenge, it’s Demenga. Many of Zimmermann’s works were considered unplayable when first written, the Cello Sonata of 1960 not least of all. Drawing from his usual pool of spatial and temporal concerns, the piece moves beyond the Romantic notion of cello as vox humana and into the realm of speech, action, and embodiment. In his liners, Demenga notes a particularly difficult passage in the first movement, which encompasses three distinct time-layers: “while the upper voice, played on the bridge, produces a continuous ritardando, the middle one is the most striking, because of its very large range and numbers of notes played pizzicato, and then the lowest, played on the nut of the bow, sounds like a scarcely perceptible accelerando.” Despite its brevity, unpacking the finer implications thereof took Demenga weeks to perfect. (ECM Reviews)

Alison Balsom ARUTIUNIAN - MacMILLAN - ZIMMERMANN Trumpet Concertos

British trumpet player Alison Balsom has established herself as one of the leading performers on her instrument in the early 21st century. This 2012 album features three modern and contemporary concertos for trumpet. Balsom is phenomenally secure in her technique and in the musicality she brings to each of the pieces. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Renes, and the Scottish Ensemble, led by Jonathan Morton, provide colorful and energetic accompaniment. Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 1954 Trumpet Concerto is the standout work on the album. It is certainly one of the most distinguished, substantial, and immediately appealing trumpet concertos of the 20th century. It is subtitled "Nobody knows de troubles I see," and uses the melody of the spiritual as the basis for its sophisticated musical development. Like many of Zimmermann's works, its themes are political and he changed the title from "seen" to "see" to highlight the ongoing struggle for racial equality throughout the world, with pointed reference to the lingering racist attitudes of National Socialism in post-war Germany. It's an intensely dramatic and inventive piece; Zimmermann interweaves the original spiritual with jazz influences and modernist techniques in a way that's emotionally direct and thoroughly engrossing. Balsom negotiates its extreme demands with complete assurance. The Trumpet Concerto in A flat by Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian, written in 1950, bears the stamp of the Soviet demand that music be immediately entertaining for the proletariat. The concerto is tuneful and uses folk material and for the most part sounds like it could be the soundtrack for an "exotic" adventure film. What it lacks in musical sophistication it makes up for in the opportunities it gives the soloist to really shine melodically. James MacMillan's 2010 concerto Seraph, which Balsom premiered, is an inoffensive but not especially profound work, characterized by pleasant, lyrical note-spinning. EMI's sound is pristine, balanced, and nicely ambient. (Stephen Eddins)

Thomas Zehetmair / Thomas Demenga BERND ALOIS ZIMMERMANN Canto di Speranza

Three keyfigures from ECM’s contemporary music roster – Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, and Thomas Demenga – team up for an exceptional recording of three works by German post-war composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Zimmermann, almost half a generation older than the serialists such as Boulez and Stockhausen, integrated state-of-the-art compositional methods in his writing while constantly following his own independent, highly expressive musical language. The rhythmically energetic violin concerto (1950) which is partially based on twelve-tone models and cast in three movements, was soon hailed as a model for a post-war solo concerto, while “Canto di Speranza” (1953/57), a one-movement cello concerto, acccording to Zimmermann, emphasizes monologue and introvert meditation. “Ich wandte mich…” on the other hand is Zimmermann’s last work, finished only a few days before his suicide in 1970. Labelled by the composer as an “ecclesiastical action”, the 35-minute oratorio on biblical verse and the famous parable "The Grand Inquisitor" from Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” is a deeply pessimistic “performance art” work - of the kind that flourished in Germany’s ‘Fluxus’ scene around 1970 - involving recitation, singing, and both gestural and acrobatic action.