Girolamo Frescobaldi, Nikolaus Brass, Johann Jakob Froberger, Domenico Zipoli: Figures of Desire - Works for Meantone Tempered Accordion

01/21

Unexpected Encounters

[…] Accordionist Hans Maier is responsible for a no less fruitful dialogue between past and present. He brought together some early and late baroque masters with the composer Nikolaus Brass. He relies on mean-tone tuning to make the special harmonic appeal of old music more authentically audible and to use its special beat frequencies for new compositions. Commissioned by Maier, Nikolaus Brass wrote the cycle of "Harmonies" (2014-2018) and engaged with the warm sound of the meantone mood with audible sensitivity. In these first recordings, Maier succeeds in meticulously differentiating Brass' fluorescent sound tableaux in terms of colour. In direct comparison, “Figures of Desire” (4), also recorded for the first time, constitute a small-scale mosaic of contrasting figures that constantly change their contours and directions of movement. The pieces arranged for accordion by Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johan Jacob Froberger and Domenico Zipoli appear completely "natural" here, concentrated on structural substance, transparent counterpoint and sonorous colourfulness.

Dirk Wieschollek

08/2020

In his column “Beckmesser's Choice” Max Nyffeler wrote:

(...) In the tonal climate of the mean-tone mood, old and new come astonishingly close. In the "Hamonies I-IV", composed in 2014 and 2018, Brass gradually feels the unusual sonority, first with carefully heard chordal structures, then increasingly in the linear range up to virtuoso playing figures. In the most recent work, the "Figures of Desire", which premiered in 2019, he moves quite naturally on the new harmonic terrain and lets his imagination run wild. Through the sensitive way in which he makes the instrument speak and through the surprising changes in timbre and harmony, something like a longing for an unknown distance is actually articulated.