Carmina Quartet, Aequator Ensemble & Aria Quartett
Release Date: 25 May 2009
Label: ECM New Series
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 028947632610
Description
This ECM debut album introduces Swiss maverick-composer Alfred Zimmerlin to the international public with excellent performances from three leading Swiss chamber groups.
Alfred Zimmerlin (born 1955), who won an early international reputation as an improvising cellist, has long been known in his native Switzerland as a prolific composer of strong sonic imagination, assured technique and resourceful talent. His catalogue of more than 70 compositions includes solo pieces, music with live electronics alongside works for radio and film.
The ECM debut album introduces him with three attractive works for small forces, all of them in performances both energetic and sensitive. "Euridice singt", a 35 minute "Szene" for soprano, oboe, cello, piano and tape is based on a libretto by Swiss poet, rapper and free improviser Raphael Urweider. Not Orpheus himself is the central character in this intelligent rendering of the much-used operatic subject matter from Greek mythology but Euridice, whose death is shown here as the very catalyst for Orpheus' artistic awakening. A most diverse array of musical elements makes for unsettling listening.
The interest in a formally elastic integration of heterogenous materials lies at the heart of Zimmerlin's aesthetic in which the concept of the "column of time" plays a central role - the awareness that many layers of the historical past are communicating with each other while providing the fundamentals for a genuinely "contemporary" music. In Zimmerlin's strangely sensuous compositions there is space for expressive cantabile, the sound of prepared instruments, noises of musique concrÞte and even rap.
Personnel: Ensemble Aequator, Aria Quartet, Carmina Quartet
Tracklisting
Anna Gourari, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana & Markus Poschner
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute
Arvo Part
Thomas Larcher
John Holloway Ensemble
Heinz Holliger & Anton Kernjak
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra & Tonu Kaljuste
Karlheinz Stockhausen Michaels Reise
Torleif Thedeen (cello) & Marianna Shirinyan (piano)
Oslo Kammerkor, Hakon Daniel Nystedt
Berit Norbakken (soprano) & Solmund Nystabakk (lutes)
Magnus Boye Hansen (violin), Mathias Halvorsen (piano)
Anna Gourari, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana & Markus Poschner
Gavin Bryars
Vladimir Delman; Milan RAI Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Schippers; Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della Rai; New York Philharmonic Orchestra; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
