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Wolfgang Rihm: La musique creuse le ciel

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Article number: NEOS 10721 Categories: ,
Published on: June 5, 2009

infotext:

Disemboweled Heaven - La musique creuse le ciel

Wolfgang Rihm's La musique creuse le ciel for two pianos and large orchestra is an early work, composed between 1977 and 1979; the composer was 25 years old when he began work on this score. It is the stroke of genius of a 'wild young man' who, at the beginning of his career, shook up the establishment of the avant-garde of the time.

In this work, Rihm consciously breaks open the hermetic structure of serial music: the clear contours and the dense network of motivic structures and characteristic gestures show a musical cosmos from ever new perspectives, which largely dispenses with block-like settings and instead is constantly 'in flux' seems to be. In fact, it is an early example of Rihm's idea of ​​'flowing music', which he would take up again and deepen in later years, especially since the early 1990s.

The title comes from Charles Baudelaire's posthumous poems and could be roughly translated as 'The music guts the sky'. When Rihm started to work on this work, he had already dealt intensively with the Expressionist poets and the poetry of Paul Celan and – especially in relation to Celan – had reached the stage of the 'actual dialogue' with the poet, as it Josef Häusler once formulated.
Dialogue is also the central moment of this composition, and in several respects. In the center are the two soloists. They belong to passages of clear dominance, in which they are only accompanied by the percussion, giving an impetus. In addition, they also act as soloists or as a soloist in the form of two people in dialogue with the orchestra. Over long stretches of the work, however, they are part of the greater whole, the dialogue appearing within the various constellations of the entire ensemble.

The work is clearly structured. General pauses and passages of extreme musical reduction mark clear caesuras within the musical flow. At the beginning there is a three-tone motif that reappears again and again in the further course of the work, at one point even being compressed to quarter tones. The response to this three-note motif is another original musical element, an almost escalating tremolo in the solo instruments. From these two motifs, a gripping, extremely dense togetherness develops.

But the musical course does not arise from the thematic processing of this material. The two basic elements are merely the cornerstones, to which Rihm always creates new opposite poles, develops surprising continuations or sets new sound processes in motion. It is a music that always strives to push the limits, powerful, energetic, virtuoso in the entire texture. Even the quieter passages are never free of tension, but are often the first sign of approaching catastrophic outbursts or stormy progressions or further developments of previously presented material. The tremolos come into play again and again, although their dramaturgical function within the work is often motivated in very different ways. Nevertheless, they form a tonal bracket that welds the heterogeneous materials together.

La musique creuse le ciel does not appear as a closed musical cosmos, but meanders, proliferates, branches out and constantly changes shape and direction. The music sometimes changes its density, its color or its profile within a few bars. It resembles a liquid sculpture that is constantly in motion. In doing so, she approaches an open form with varying degrees of certainty, but without questioning the distinct character of the work - a great example of the musical awakening of neo-expressionism in the late 1970s.

Rhythmic Visions – Überschrift

Über-schrift for two pianos was written in 1992/2003. With in-writing for orchestra and post-writing for ensemble, it is one of a series of central pieces in which the composer addresses the process of writing, which plays a central role in compositional work.

Individual points of note stand at the beginning of the large-scale work, which lasts about half an hour. They set the inner rhythm against the background of which new figures and patterns are constantly emerging. At the beginning there are always only short, often rough gestures – Rihm uses the rhythmic pattern ›short-long‹ almost insistently. Only later do these short phrases develop into more complex structures and larger arcs, and are the individual events placed in a larger context. For long stretches, the musical composition seems like a jigsaw puzzle, the blanks of which are gradually filled in, reminiscent of a torn dance style or a perforated, gradually reconstructed tango: the birth of music from the spirit of rhythm.

Martin Demmler

program:

Wolfgang Rihm (*1952)

[01] La musique creuse le ciel (1977/1979) 34:12
Music for two pianos and large orchestra

[02] Headline (1992/2003) 26:33
for two pianos

total time: 60:47

 

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

German Symphony Orchestra Berlin
Peter Rundel, conductor

Press:


04/2010


03/04.2010


11.03.2010

Sound-addicted delights

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The conscientiously edited CDs of the Munich label NEOS deserve attention. Away from the beaten track, they try to find interesting offers where there is still a lot to discover for music connoisseurs. The present recording with compositions by Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most profound that can currently be discovered in the relevant music catalogs on the work of this interesting composer.

The two compositions on this CD come from two different phases of Wolfgang Rihm's work. 'La musique creuse le ciel' was composed in 1977/79, 'Headline' started in 1992 but only finished in 2003. The category of progress, which was so important in places for the music of the 20th century, has hardly played a role for Wolfgang Rihm. For him it was and is always about communicative processes, but above all about listening carefully or, to put it emphatically, music as an adventure in the head.

'Über-Schrift' for two pianos is an expedition into the depths of sound design, brought about by fascinating flagolet effects, rhythmic-melodic figurations, etc. The piano duo Andres Grau and Götz Schumacher captivates with their clearly laid out tonal design and rhythmic pointing. Conclusion: a moving but still meditative interpretation.

'La musique creuse le ciel' for two pianos and orchestra anticipates the composition 'Dialoge' by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Rihm does not reveal any fundamentally new aspects, but that is not significant either. What is more important is that a virtually unreal sound aesthetic is created here with harmonious states of suspension and sound-addicted instrumentation artistry, which, despite all the 'traditionalness' and echoes of the familiar, always sounds new, as if you were looking at a family photo under the microscope and then putting the individual parts together again. The German Symphony Orchestra Berlin under Peter Rundel makes solid music with determination and keen awareness of motivic connections. The Grau-Schumacher duo presents itself here with the same eloquence as just discussed and performs its part virtuoso, sensitive and precise.

The recording leaves nothing to be desired in terms of sound technology, apart from the fact that one cannot shake off the feeling that the two grand pianos have been placed too much in the foreground. It's worth getting to know this music. In addition, the recording opens up new compositional territory and represents an important contribution to the reception of Rihm.

Michael Pitz-Grewenig

 


Jan/Feb 2010

La Musique greuse le ciel

Many American listeners may be surprised to discover that the music of Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952) is regarded by many in German new-music circles as dangerously reactionary. This has to do with where one defines the boundaries of “tradition.” For Rihm, ever since he burst on the scene in his twenties, "history" has been defined by the expressionist language of the early 20th century, leftned with many of the techniques derived from later modernist advances. Though thoroughly Germanic and less overtly romantic, one can perhaps think of John Corigliano as a useful American analogue. But as I said, many in Germany find his approach anathema. The ur-revolutionary Helmut Lachenmann and the late/high/mannerist modernist Brian Ferneyhough each continue to write a music that suggests that the discoveries of the last century are far from done, and that music will eventually be something barely recognizable from its state even 60 years ago. Rihm seems to believe that our mission is to rediscover a sort of “primal piece” and rewrite it, and that because we are now the living, it will of necessity be new.

I'm not enamored of the highly dogmatic view represented by Rihm's adversaries, and as a result, I have sympathy for his more “historicist” approach. But I do find problems with his work. He's incredibly prolific, and it seems he barely stops to refill his pen, he writes so almost. The music is dramatic, spectacular, and overwrought. It also has struck me as somewhat superficial, despite (or maybe because of) all the Sturm und Drang.

This disc gives us two works featuring Piano Duo (Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher). La musique creuse le ciel (1977/1979) is for duo with orchestra, and Über-Skript (1992/2003) for duo alone. Of the two, the former (title from a line of Baudelaire, “Music hollows out the sky”) strikes me as the far more successful and engaging. It often projects summer mystery and foreboding, quite chilling. There are episodes of stunning orchestration; For one example, there's a passage that seems to be a combination of dotted woodwind rhythms with string tremolos that becomes like a giant whirling sonic buzz saw. Though over a half hour, I found myself willing to give myself up to it. But when it was over (and more than once), I remained wondering what it all meant, if anything. There seems to be here a strong desire to please the listener, though not with easy or pretty sounds, but rather with spectacular sonic shock effects. And the role of the pianos is problematic for me. For long stretches they are submerged in the texture, so they seem an afterthought, and are a little shocking whenever they reassert themselves.

About font is more recent, but for me even less satisfying. It's jarring, disjunct, and abrasive in its sounds; there are lots of sharp attacks against soft backgrounds. For me, this is by now something of a new music cliché. The music does slowly coalesce from isolated events into something more continuous, but that doesn't seem like a big payoff.

In the end, the effect of Rihm's music seems like elevated film music. This isn't a facile put-down; indeed it's what intrigues me the most about it. At its best, this music seems to accompany some sort of not-quite-seen scenario, forcing you as a listener to exercise your imagination to its highest to link the sound and interior visuals. Going back to tradition, perhaps Rihm's closest musical grandfather is Richard Strauss.

The performances are committed, accurate, and suitably intense. In the double concerto, there's a lot to enjoy, dark and sensual. But I'm still not sold on any particular profundity here.

RobertCarl

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