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25 YEARS COLLEGIUM NOVUM ZURICH The Collegium Novum Zurich was founded in 1993. In a gradual process, the ensemble was formed around a core of just a few musicians. The CNZ was soon able to establish itself with its own series of concerts, received support from the city of Zurich and also gained international recognition. His artistic profile was shaped by the respective artistic directors, to whom responsibility for the program was transferred: Armin Brunner (1995-1997), Michael Haefliger (1997-1999), Patrick Müller (1999-2004), Christian Fausch (2005-2010), Jens Schubbe (since 2010). Despite all its own emphases, one constant has remained throughout the quarter century of its existence. The CNZ has always seen itself as an ensemble that understands contemporary music as the result of historical developments and sees its task in presenting current music on the one hand, and constantly questioning the music of the past decades on the other. The recordings collected on this CD are concert recordings and document performances from the years since 2013, which are representative of the programmatic identity of the ensemble, with the accent on premieres and first performances in this selection. Vinko Globokar: L'Exile #2 Vinko Globokar's music is always worldly, reacts to reality, positions itself. His music is often extremely gestural, merging instrumental, vocal and scenic actions and grinding down genre boundaries. This is also reflected in the three compositions on the subject of »Exile«, which Globokar has presented since 2012: L'Exile #1 is a work for voice and five instrumentalists. L'Exile #2 is based on this concept, but includes a larger ensemble. L'Exile #3 is conceived as a large-format oratorio. The L'Exile #2 the underlying text is assembled from 37 text fragments, the globokar of the collection Cent poèmes sur l'exil and which were partly translated from French (to which they were mostly translated) into six other languages: Slovenian, German, Spanish, English, Russian, Italian. Experiences, images, situations and emotions that characterize exile flash up in the individual sentences. However, they are not presented, but exposed in a way that forces the listener into the role of the exile: Above all, through the transformation of the texts into different languages, the listener is confronted with a Babylonian jumble of languages, as it may appear to the stranger who have to find their way in an unfamiliar country. The solo part is initially followed by individual instrumental parts, each of which articulates itself in its own language. Gradually the texture becomes denser, the individual voices merge into choirs. At the same time, the boundary between instrumental and vocal sound becomes more permeable and more and more performative, theatrical elements are mixed into what is happening. The extreme forms of articulation evoke confusion, fear, insecurity and despair. But there are also moments of clarity, salvation, small dialogues that may be the first steps towards understanding in a new language. Jens Schubbe Sascha Janko Dragicevic: Rash In Rash for large ensemble and live electronics, I have dealt with the emergence and deconstruction of formal contexts through the direct juxtaposition of periodicity and aperiodicity. The mutual strangeness of these two poles is reinforced by the fact that they do not merge with each other through flowing transitions, but are mounted hard and directly on one another. This kind of strangeness in the conception of the formation of the form evokes a certain irreconcilability from the start, which can also be perceived as hard contours and sharpness. Maximum aperiodicity is represented in this piece by an idealized sound of »white noise«. This sound is repeatedly produced by the »Rauschrad« instrument, which was specially developed and built by Stefan Roszak for this piece. The ensemble responds with permuting, clearly defined periods. These are built from tiny, very simple motivic cells. The live electronics intervene, so to speak, in the musical events by emphasizing individual instruments in relatively short changes and manipulating them through processes of alienation. This access from outside seems to have a corrosive effect on the formation of formal contexts. But it also enables another, picture-puzzle-like form of perception of the musical texture through a constant change of listening perspective. In the end there is a smooth transition from periodicity to aperiodicity within a sound action of the "wheels of noise", triggered by a violent impulse that ends in "white noise". Sascha Janko Dragicevic Martin Jaggi: Xul Xul is the concluding part of a cycle of works with different casts that deal with the first civilizations: with that moment in history when the first cities, organized forms of society with hierarchical structures emerged, politics, economy, religion and the first states formed. This happened independently in six places: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus, China, Central America and the Andes. In all these works, the core material is given by the oldest music that is still alive in the respective regions. So it's not about a mystical reanimation of music, but about a look at old traditions, which often continue to exist in our time and sometimes deviate far from what is generally known under the term »world music«. The latest part of this loose cycle relates to Central America. The earliest culture found there is that of the Olmec, which lived from about 1500 to 400 BC. along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Their best-known cultural legacies are several colossal heads. Otherwise little is known, and since all Olmec sites have Spanish names, I decided to name the piece after an early Mayan site. Uxul is an ancient Mayan settlement in the Campeche region of Mexico. Uxul means 'at the end', thus providing an appropriate title for the cycle's final piece. A variety of instruments have been unearthed during archaeological digs in Central America, many of them in excellent condition. These are mainly a wide variety of flutes, trumpet-like instruments and percussion instruments. The harmonic material of the piece is based on the tones that these instruments could apparently produce. In addition, in the drums u. used instruments that originated in Central America, such as the slit drum and the güiro. In addition, the bongos are reminiscent of the sound of the turtle shells, which were used as percussion. Probably the most original musical culture in Central America has been preserved by the Maya in what is now the border area between Mexico and Guatemala. It was only here that I found music almost entirely untouched by Spanish and other Western influences - a rarity in an America where native traditions have been eradicated by the colonialists more successfully than elsewhere. The stuff from Xul is a small selection of personal highlights from my research. Martin Jaggi Marko Nikodijevic: Gesualdo Dub / Room with Deleted Character Many of Marko Nikodijevic's works refer to existing music, to foreign material. Even the title says it all: cvetić, kućica… / la lugubre gondola – Funeral music for orchestra after Franz Liszt, Music Box / Self-Portrait with Ligeti and Stravinsky (and Messiaen is there too), Tomb of Claude Vivier and Gesualdo Dub. One of the fascinating and mysterious aspects of his music is that in these evocations of the other, what is his own appears all the more clearly. In several of Nikodijevic's works - also in Gesualdo Dub – individual parts or sentences are designated as »rooms«. These "rooms" confront us with one, sometimes with several, tonal situations that are insistently circled. Moritz Eggert spoke aptly of "immersing yourself in a moment of sound" that can unfold an incredible effect. In Gesualdo Dub / Room with Deleted Character this has been particularly successful. The nucleus of the work is a semitone pendulum, the origin of which can be found at the beginning of the Gesualdo madrigal I live, lasso, al mio duolo can be found, in that downward chromatic movement so typical of the madrigal. Sound materials such as flotsam are attached to this figure – the cipher of pain and lament par excellence – at first almost inaudibly. They envelop the figure, take on a life of their own, shimmer and vibrate, unfold an aura, create sounding spaces. If the beginning resembles a gradual fade-in, we then find ourselves in a »dark room«. The music of a third room seems hallucinated, the contours of which blur as if we were perceiving it under surging water. "Sweet fragrance from fairy tale times" fills the fourth room with its fanfare sounds and seagull crying glissandi, before the permanent morbidezza is crossed with glaringly ecstatic bells in the final section. Jens Schubbe program:
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