Iannis Xenakis: Rebonds pour percussion solo
José Manuel Lopez-Lopez: Calculo secreto pour vibraphone
Matthias Pintscher: nemeton for solo percussion
Jacob Druckman: Reflections on the nature of water for
solo marimba · Vinko Globokar: Toucher für einen Schlagzeuger
(Text von Bertolt Brecht)
Johannes Fischer, SchlagwerkAt the 2007 International ARD Music Competition in
Munich, he made a clean sweep of almost all prizes:
in addition to the First Prize for Percussion, he was
awarded almost all special prizes as well as the audience
prize. Many found him to be the outstanding personality
of the 2007 competition. Last but not least,
German percussionist Johannes Fischer also won the
OehmsClassics Special Prize, following which his first
CD now appears in the OehmsClassics Debut series.
The percussionist and composer – born in 1981 – put
together a program of works written between 1973 and
2007 which are key compositions of modern music. In addition, the recording includes the composition
nemeton of German composer Matthias Pintscher
(* 1971). Written in 2007, this work was commissioned
by the ARD as a required piece for all contestants.
Fischer caused a sensation with this work, which also
brought him the prize for the best interpretation of the
commissioned work.
Gravity … where would
a percussionist be without gravity!
This is the art of leaving the greater
part of the active movement to the
dead weight of our drumsticks, or
sometimes of our hands, almost without
using any muscle strength, in order
to advance into the sound of each of
our instruments. Such playing with
gravity thus becomes a game we play
with and around sound itself. Gestures
and choreographically organised movements
are not an end in themselves,
but exclusively aim to structure and
realise
the sound of our scores. The
repertory of sounds and gestures the
performer makes use of may be as
diverseas
those scores might be. One
continually re-learns, learns something
new, because a beat is not just another
beat.
In Iannis Xenakis’ Rebonds (1987 –
89), a two-partite piece, the compositional
idea centres on just this phenomenon
of the beat or its rebound
afterhitting
the skin. Each individual
gesture of the stick as it hits the skin is
expanded into a model of form in a
greater context of structures. It is interesting
to see that (similar to the movement
of a rubber ball rebounding off
the floor), impulses continue to grow
and develop a kind of accelerating
form. This eventually leads to the performer
being brought to his limits in
terms of technical demands. The work
achieves a fascinating, almost transcendent
aura due to this “growing
beyondyourself”.
In contrast to many of
his compositions, this percussion solo
does not, however, include associations
with ancient mythology; althoughXenakis
creates a powerful, virtuoso
work full of ritual power particularly
through his disciplined compositional
strategies and stringent organisation
of time.
The title alone is enough to convey a
kind of mysterious atmosphere at the
bottom of Matthias Pintscher’s nemeton
(2007). The term “nemeton” comes
from Celtic mysticism and refers to
those magic places where druids would
hold their ceremonies. According to
Pintscher, a “place of captivated energy”.
This energy first surrounds some
isolated points of music that slowly
forge links to each other and combine
into cascades of sound, eventually to be
released in loud peaks. The work is
looking for the utopia of “legato” in the
different, briefly resounding wood instruments,
examines the vocal potential
of those sound sources that initially
seem so very dry and selective. The
most beautiful and tender passages in
this piece, however, are found where
the sounds dissipate into a timeless
state of silence once they have lost
their gravity, to the limits of what is audible.
Then, coalescing once more, they
lead into an apotheotic finale for which
they summon all their strength. Nemeton
was written in close collaboration
with percussionist Rainer Römer. It is a
commission for the 56 th International
Music Competition of the ARD in Munich.
Silence, movement and meandering
flow of time are some of the characteristics
also found in the Reflections on
the Nature of Water (1986) for solo marimba
by Jacob Druckman. His six miniatures
present different characteristics of
water. For me, it is a particularly fascinating
element, the basis of all life,
present in such different forms as gas,
ice or liquid. However, not only the
water’sphysical
features have inspired
artists of all eras, it was also its poetic
and associative potential. An example
of this could be composers of the impressionist
age whose tonal language
Druckman most certainly feels a certain
affinity for. Lithe, fluid, and yet able to
shape and change even a stone in its
unrelenting, uncompromising attitude.
Scottish landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy
repeatedly pointed out how
much working with water, especially on
river banks, taught him to better comprehend
the sequence of time. Jacob
Druckman expertly manages to express
such different associative sound images
in a most concise way by reducing his
compositional means. Repeated
motifs
are reminiscent of cyclical
sequences, of
things returning although they have,
naturally, changed with time. And thus,
those miniatures seem ideally suited to
the marimba. The tonal range the instrument
has is skilfully explored; the
very detailed score still offers a great
area for playful and inventive development.
Calculo Secreto (1995) by Spanish
composer José Manuel López López demands
a full, occasionally almost orchestral
vibraphone sound. Once again,
the listener must rely on what we are so
familiar with – gravity. The piece was
written in 1992 for Spanish percussionist
Miguel Bernat. From a chord arpeggio
whose harmonic structure turns out
to be a central sound leading through
the entire piece, we find the development
of a kaleidoscopic labyrinth of
form whose strongly contrasting extremes
are only held together by the
shared harmonic substance. López
López is particularly interesting in playing
with resonances. Harmonious colouring
through sounds that are played
into the acoustic “resonance shadow”
of the preceding one. The music elegantly
vanishes like a lingering scent
aftera
final set of sound cascades like
waterfalls that rise up to a virtuoso
peak.
Vinko Globokar’s imaginative and inventive
works for percussion are distinguished
by a kind of “micro-virtuosity”.
Quite decisively set against combining
a huge battery of sound, his music
insteadconcentrates
on exploring the
range and poetry of individual instruments.
Toucher (1973) for a narratorpercussionist
permits this protagonist
to select seven instruments of his own
choice. The only instruction to follow is
that the sound of the instruments must
agree with the vowels and consonants
of the text to be recited. The musician
furthermore has to realise the tonal
subtleties of language by means of
many different and special techniques
(with their hands only). The text forming
the basis of this work is the French
translation of “The Life of Galileo Galilei”
by Bertolt Brecht. Six passages have
been put into a sequence without
chronological basis, and separated by
short interludes. The performer therefore
has to be an actor, narrator, observer
and percussionist, and all this in
a very fast interplay of different roles
and characters. During the piece, the
dominance of language diminishes, and
the instruments take over narrative responsibility
in the middle parts.
Each work in this recording shows
very different facets of the percussion
repertoire. All of them written between
1973 and 2 007, i. e. in a period of about
30 years in the history of our young
repertoire, each one is a very individual
and personal compositions whose history
is frequently linked to an intensive
collaboration between musician and
composer. The percussionists of the
first generation paved the way for many
of the masterpieces that were to come,
and they were able to reap a rich harvest;
passed on to younger generations
after different processes of fermentation.
From them we have inherited a
store of music which we have to maintain,
develop and add to and supplement
with new ideas and works – part
of our responsibility
as performers.
Johannes Fischer
Composers
Iannis Xenakis (1922 – 2 001) was born
to Greek parents in Romania. Fighting
as a partisan during WWII, he lost
his left eye and, in absence, was sentenced
to death in Greece. Xenakis
spent most of his life in France. After
studying mathematics and composition
at the Conservatoire in Paris, he worked
as an engineer in the studio of legendary
architect Le Corbusier. Xenakis’
music is dominated by his interest in
mathematical and acoustic rules.
Stochasticphenomena
(e. g. rain,
crowds of people, swarms of bees) can
be found in musical structures.
José Manuel López López was born in
Madrid in 1956. He was educated in
Madrid and Paris and attended courses
with Luis de Pablo, Luigi Nono and
Franco Donatoni. His oeuvre includes
solo works as well as full-length operas
and electro-acoustical music. A frequent
award-winner, this composer is
generally regarded as one of the most
important representatives of contemporary
music in Spain; and his works are
regularly performed, most frequently in
France. His music is published by Ricordi
and Editions Transatlantique.
Born in Marl (Northrhine-Westfalia) in
1971,
Matthias Pintscher studied composition
with Giselher Klebe and Manfred
Trojahn. Encounters with Hans
Werner Henze, who invited him to
Montepulciano in 1991 and 1992 as
well as with Helmut Lachenmann,
Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös left their
trace. Pintscher received many important
awards, among them a first prize
at the composition competition in
Hitzacker (1992), the Rolf Liebermann
Prize, the Prix de Monaco (1999), the
composition prize of the Salzburg
Festival and, in 2 002, the Hans Werner
Henze Prize. Since the premiere of his
opera Thomas Chatterton, he has been
making a name for himself by writing
major compositions for important musicians
and orchestras worldwide. Since
2007, Matthias Pintscher has held a
chair for composition at the Academy
of Music and Theatre in Munich.
American composer
Jacob Druckman
(1928 – 1996) was born in Philadelphia.
After completing his education at the
Juilliard School, he continued to study
with, among others, Aaron Copland at
Tanglewood and in Paris (1954 /55). In
addition to electronic music, he wrote
many pieces for orchestra and smaller
ensembles. In 1972, he won the Pulitzer
Prize for his first large-scale orchestral
work, Windows. He taught at the Juillard
School, at the Aspen Music Festival,
at Tanglewood and at Yale University.
Vinko Globokar (*1934 in Anderny,
France) is a Slovenian trombonist and
composer. He first studied the trombone
in Ljubljana, then with André Lafoss
at the Conservatoire de Paris where
he also took composition lessons with
René Leibowitz. From 1969 to 1982, he
performed with the improvisation
ensemble
New Phonic Art, together with
Michel Portal and Jean-Pierre Drouet.
His talent as a trombone player became
part of many newer works of music
(e. g. by Luciano Berio, Maurcio Kagel,
Karlheinz Stockhausen and Louis Andriessen)
which he first performed.
Some elements of the theatre as well as
of improvising are important components
of his comprehensive and versatile
oeuvre.