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OF BLOWING UP THE GARDEN »There isn't much to analyze!«, remarks Jürg Wyttenbach mischievously. We're sitting in a café in Berne, photocopies of the »Liedle«, like the composer's, are spread out in front of us 8 duetini and Three short prayers called simply and affectionately. They were created in 2014 for Katrin Frauchiger and Katharina Weber. “I always need to know who I'm writing for. And mostly I wrote for musician friends.« So you have a latent influence on the conception and the result. The latter is surprising here: at first glance, it seems to resist the label »typical Wyttenbach«. But what is this typical? In the Théâtre musical, the scenic action, the (sometimes crude) wit, the irony and the grotesque? The two dedicatees, who are very familiar with Wyttenbach's oeuvre, see it differently: before, behind and alongside the hustle and bustle of the instrumental and vocal theater there was always the very private, the profound, the trend towards seriousness, combined with radical conciseness, razor-sharp precision of expression. And it is this aspect of his art that Wyttenbach brings out in the miniatures for Frauchiger and Weber. The appropriate texts for the 8 duetini he found the Japanese haiku poet Issa (1763-1827) and in the poetry book Zoe Zebra (2004) by Kurt Marti (1921-2017). Wyttenbach had already processed the poetry of the two: haikus by Issa (and others) in According to the cage for soprano and harp or guitar (1995–97, for Ingrid Frauchiger), poems by Marti in Is sound the point? for a reciting cellist (2009). And now he combines Japanese poetry and that of the Bernese theologian under one roof. What is this combination all about? "Marti's poems are of course not haikus," says Wyttenbach, but in terms of precision and density they are quite comparable to the Japanese three-line poems. The music absorbs this gesture impressively. There is no note too many, not too few; every tone is well thought out, even if none belongs to a "system", i.e. a series or something similar (in other words: "there is not much to analyze there"). Make the duetini here and there of a, albeit extremely subtle, musical wink, it is omitted in the Praised to Kannon Bosatsu, the Japanese goddess of mercy, whole. The simplicity, expressive warmth and - in the traditional sense - beauty of this small cycle are downright enchanting. "I had never written so simply," says Wyttenbach. "I just wanted to get away from the chromaticism and when I was composing, I always had these Japanese sounds in my ears." However, he wanted to avoid striking local color. There are nevertheless cautious echoes: subtly woven pentatonic turns, for example. Or the wide range in the piano, often including a ninth, combined with a hard attack. The Japanese stringed instruments played with plectrums were the tonal model here. A few weeks earlier in another Bern café: Katrin Frauchiger and Katharina Weber talk about the fascination of song and poetry from a compositional perspective. Again, categories such as density, precision of expression, and conciseness of form come into focus. But also freedom. "Poetry is something so important," says Katharina Weber, "especially at a time when so much is being written and so much prose is being produced. In contrast, the poem enables concentration - and at the same time freedom, because it leaves a lot open«, offers generous space for your own thoughts and associations, especially musical ones. Katharina Weber composed her song cycle for Katrin Frauchiger (seven of a total of nine songs are recorded on this CD) in 2014 to poems by Martin Merz (1950-1983), who had suffered from hydrocephalus and whose older brother is the writer Klaus Merz. "I don't have a specific style in which I compose here," says Weber, explaining the multifaceted nature of her miniatures. Rather, the musical imagination reacted to the multifaceted images that Merz's unique lyrics evoked. The peculiar manner in which the poet recited his own texts, or better: sang them, was also inspiring. There are sound recordings available to the composer. For example, the simple melody in natural B minor is Two Worlds (No. 1) based on the character of Merz' singing. At first glance, the piano contrasts sharply with the singing voice: »In ametric intervals«, as the playing instructions say, it intones cluster-like chords and a bass voice that is again independent of them. On closer inspection, however, one discovers a thin bond that holds the two worlds together, that of singing and that of the piano: the aforementioned chords are derived from an extended B minor sound. What can be observed here in the individual song applies to the whole cycle: Disparate musical material - including, specifically in Here you are, also echoes of the pentatonic scale – is subtly balanced, the diverse rounded off into a whole. »Katharina’s songs«, adds Katrin Frauchiger, »are very demanding, because as a singer you have to think quite independently at times.« In this sense, song no. 2 is also particularly tricky, The red coat. Katrin Frauchiger's own cycle of songs »... and the night is covered with sequins« based on texts by Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985) was written in 2004/05 in a version for soprano, flute and piano for the Amaltea ensemble. The work originally consisted of an instrumental prologue and six songs. For the present partial recording, the composer integrated the flute part into the piano part and also expanded the song Up there in that garden a prelude and short interludes by the piano. When composing the songs, says Frauchiger, she allowed herself to be guided associatively by the changing images in Oppenheim's texts, by the rapid succession of drastic elements and delicate poetry. This already indicates that no »calculated« music was created here. Frauchiger doesn't design her worlds of sound on the drawing board. »I hear the music inside me or work on the piano, experiment there, listen to the sounds.« And yet they are there, the constructive elements: motifs that weave a common thread, ensure a formal connection. They are mostly found in the piano part, in the form of chords. The two opening sounds of Up there in that garden for example, transitions from formal sections later accentuate, be it in the original formulation or slightly altered. In In the beginning is the end especially the arpeggios of the prelude, whose specific sonority – the dominating intervals are the tritone and the major second – is repeatedly taken up and used in the further course. Their pieces and those of Wyttenbach complement Frauchiger and Weber with Alban Berg's Seven early songs (1905–08) and a selection from Hanns Eisler's Hollywood song book (1942 / 43 created in American exile). Why this combination? “With Berg, it's the contrast to the other things that appealed to us.” There the succinctness and transparency, here the broad phrase and opulence. "You can open up completely different, 'broadened' dimensions pianistically, but also vocally." The Second Viennese School is also an affair of the heart, and their music has shaped the careers of both performers and composers. And how do Eisler's rarely performed songs fit into the concept? The fact that he too was once a student of Schönberg is less important than his aesthetic maxim of »writing understandable music without becoming banal.« Despite all the differences in style, parallels to his own compositional work open up here. Doris Lance program:
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