infotext:
PIANO WORKS BY JÖRG WIDMANN Let's start the conversation with the oldest piano composition on this CD, the »Fleurs du mal« from 1996/97. No cautious approach to the traditional genre of piano music. It seems to me that they go all out and seek the musical limit - the piano is taken to risky border areas. The You fleurs are certainly a kind of endgame and live from the pianistic unleashing. The ear has to be very quick in the piece, because the gesture often changes abruptly: briefly flickering, selective music here - there the sparkling surface. However, this tonal variety of ideas is tamed by a strict form. In the subtitle you describe the »Fleurs du mal« as »Piano Sonata after Baudelaire« … ... just because I was fascinated by a field of tension: Baudelaire, this master of delirium and the visionary, pours his texts about evil into an exemplary classic form: the sonnet form. Exactly this polarity finds a correspondence in my composition. At the time, of course, I was also attracted by the basic aesthetic orientation of the You fleurs interested in Baudelaire: the beautiful in the bad. I had to read these poems over and over again - certainly also because I found myself in these texts. It was then an enormous challenge to translate these poisonous green fumes of literature into the piano sound. At first, the piano seemed far too concrete to me for this hovering imprecision. Do you refer to individual Baudelaire poems in your Fleurs du mal? At an important point I quote the first line of verse from the poem Albatros. The text is written into the music, but the pianist can only read it silently: »Souvent pour s'amuser«. The musical rhythm here is derived directly from the Baudelaire passage, but this is exceptional in the piece. Otherwise, I tend to trace the special language sound of the Baudelaire poems in general. in the poem Albatros speaks of the viciousness of the sailors who, for their own amusement, catch and torment albatrosses. Ultimately, however, the poem is a metaphor for being an artist, since Baudelaire compares the albatross with the poet. Think You fleurs tell about it: someone is flying. But not for long. That brings me to the »Elf Humoresken« from 2007, because you also describe a crash here. The last movement, "With humor and subtlety," begins in a delicately poetic manner, with distant sounds that can be heard as if behind frosted glass. A melancholy veil lies over the music – until it is torn away and the music falls into a sudden abyss. Yes, something breaks in this piece – a destroyed music box, a sick chime. However, the crash is looming early in this movement: a note freezes, the music fades, the music blurs... It seems inevitable to me that the music ends in some kind of catastrophe. Please tell me about the other sentences! These are character sentences, in the spirit of Robert Schumann's character pieces, to which the Eleven humoresques refer unequivocally. In the humoresques, I trace Schumann's gestures in my own way: in the third movement, "Anfangs lively", the feverishly nervous Schumann tone, which is, however, downright slowed down as the piece progresses. »Song in Dreams« reflects Schumann's ghost variations – as short as it is, a highly risky piece of music. Against the original E flat major is a high one A set harshly. Schumann stopped a tinnitus sound in the last years of his life A. It must have tormented him terribly - on a piece in E flat major! But this passage is the only correct quote that I am aware of. I wasn't concerned with a superficial homage to Schumann. In any case, I have the impression that you have created music here that, under the masquerade of a »humoresque«, perhaps also under the guise of Schumann, touches on very serious and very personal themes. I would be happy if you perceive the music in this way. You see: Schumann also has quotations or direct references. Everyone can say: Ah, here's the quote! All well and good, but why is Schumann quoting this passage? And dramaturgically where? What did he mean by that? What were his personal circumstances like? I'm interested in this second level. Let's jump back to the year 2001, to the »Fragment in C« that is only about 90 seconds long... … which is dedicated to my former composition teacher Wilfried Hiller on the occasion of his 60th birthday. What can I do with the sound C, do with a C major chord? When I was with Wilfried Hiller, I thought about these kinds of questions. With him I learned to omit sounds. The Fragment in C is inspired by it. It's actually an overtone piece about the tone C, with some very strange chords to C major. What I like about the piece is the openness, the strangeness - all of which grows out of a simple sound C. The piece opens with a powerful bang on the piano body, which reverberate in an echo chamber. This principle becomes important in the »Toccata«, which you composed a year later. Exactly. Striking - echoing. Both levels are composed in many variants. The drastic forms of attack, of course, impose themselves on the listener, the "toccare" of the pianist: the fast repetitions, the strumming of the chords, especially the beating of the piano lid. But I would wish that you could also listen to the aftertaste. The piece was created as a composition commissioned by the ARD International Music Competition. It triggered a harsh reaction from the audience at the premiere. I remember how the award winner Irene Russo walked onto the stage as if she were going to execute her. There sat a hungry lioness at the piano and threw, even whipped, the sound out of the piano. There was an extremely explosive atmosphere in Munich's Herkulessaal. The "Light Study III" was composed only a little later and yet breathes a completely different air. An introverted, oppressive piece in my ears. At that time I was looking for a different ideal of expression, and it is no coincidence that I was inspired by the visual arts, the space and light installations of James Turrell. The light study is an extreme piece in search of that other aesthetic. It is a game of pure form, a study of light and shadow effects, also of chords that are subtracted tone by tone according to a filter principle. After a certain time, you want nothing more than a liberation or a contrast. But the piece insists on a single idea and remains static. Hence the averted atmosphere. The light study leads into oppressive spaces - and at the same time enables a new, crystalline hearing. You hear it differently afterwards. At least that's what I wish for. |
program:
[01] You fleurs Piano Sonata after Baudelaire (1996/1997) 19:05 [02] Fragment in C (2001) * 01:47 [03] toccata (2002) 09:34 [04] Light Study III (2002) 16:53 Eleven humoresques (2007) * 22:36 total time 70:20 Jan Phillip Schulze piano * World Premiere Recordings |
Press:
Il ya quelques mois, notre média présentait le passionnant enregistrement de Fabio Romano qui croise des opus de Robert Schumann à deux pièces de Jörg Widmann. Paru en 2010 chez Wergo, le label des éditions musicales Schott qui publish les partitions du compositeur bavarois, ce disque dessinait les arcanes d'une filiation volontiers revendiquée, comme Mozart et Debussy [lire notre chronique du 25 November 2007 et du 11 September 2006] – référence tout récemment ravivée par la creation française du trio Once upon a time… par l'auteur et ses amis Tabea Zimmermann et Dénes Várjon [lire notre chronique du 11 mars 2016]. Tandis qu'à Palerme le pianist vient d'interpréter les Elf Humoresken, en cet avril qui fait fête à cette musique (une dizaine d'œuvres seront jouées au fil de vingt concerts à Bamberg, Cologne, Dortmund, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Liège, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Vicence, Vienne, Zurich, etc.), il n'est Jamaica trop tard pour revenir on a CD co-produced by the Bayerischer Rundfunk et NEOS in 2013. BB
04.2014 […] The “Fleurs du mal” […] characterize ecstatic fantasies and pianistic unleashing – a melancholic delirium that Widmann allows to collide with the sonata form. […] “Lichtstudie III” (2002) marks the other side of Widmann's aesthetics: an enraptured sound meditation that is limited to a few events and their echo chambers, acoustic islands in a state of constructive weightlessness – only color and light. The “Elf Humoresken” (2007) could […] have come from Schumann’s “Children’s Scenes”. Dirk Wieschollek Music:
10 / 2013, Semele Number 1 Baudelaire, Schumann, el delirio, la fever y la visión, la belleza del mal, son nombres e ideas que subyacen en la música para piano del gran compositor y clarinetista alemán Jörg Widmann, uno de los nombres fundamentales en la escena musical internacional en su doble faceta de inspired author de una obra proteica y multiforme, y de virtuoso performer para quien escriben los más respetados compositores.
Jorg Widman It can be scary when you look at the extensive catalog of works, numerous performance dates, recordings with well-known musicians, awards, but above all at his passionate and tireless work as a composer, clarinetist and recently also a conductor. Jörg Widmann, who is celebrating his 40th birthday this summer, is undoubtedly one of the most successful German composers and musicians of his generation. A CD of his piano music has now been released on the NEOS label, recorded by pianist Jan Philip Schulze. Schulze recorded five works from the years 1996 to 2007, which make Widmann's multi-layered compositions, which are so sparkling with ideas and versatile, audible in a representative way: "Fleurs du mal", a "Sonate after Baudelaire" (1996/97), "Fragment in C ” (2001), “Toccata” (2002), “Light Study III” (2002) and the “Elf Humoresken” (2007). Limitless tonal variety “Feverish, nervous Schumann tone” Exciting listening rooms Meret Forster |
