Ebony Band

The city of Prague was a cultural hotspot in the 1920s and 30s. From 1918 to 1935 the country's president was the European-minded and remarkably liberal philosopher Thomas Masaryk, and his successor Edvard Benes was a kindred spirit.

The three population groups, enriched by emigrants from Russia, the Ukraine, Germany and Austria, competed with one another but also inspired each other. This was the Prague in which the composers on this CD were involved. In their music we hear the old and the new, tradition and renewal, but above all, imagination and talent.

When the border between East and West opened up in 1991, their music had hardly been heard in the West for some fifty years, having been suppressed first by the Nazis and then by suffocating communist rule. With the exception of Ullmann, even today these composers have hardly reached our concert halls.

Every epoch has had its group dances, and they have always been a source of inspiration to composers. In the interwar period, the Blues and Charleston meant as much to composers as the Sarabande and Gigue did to Johann Sebastian Bach and the Polonaise and Mazurka to Frédéric Chopin. The advent of American jazz and dance music in Europe was a gift from the gods for young composers hungry to find new paths and means of expression. Even though the word jazz meant little more than syncopated march and dance music based on ragtime, there was no stopping the rage. Jazz represented a radical break with the traditional, oldfashioned way of life of the nineteenth century, and made a wonderful match with the elated expectations that had replaced wartime suffering. Within just a few years, jazz fever swept across Europe. This CD bears witness.

My quest of many years for unknown but worthwhile repertoire has seldom yielded such outstanding works as the Polish masterpieces on this recording. Koffler and Regamey are such unknown names that one would be inclined to conclude that they must be typical 'musiciancomposers', but even that is not the case. Among musicians too, their names do not usually ring a bell. But never before have I seen my musicians react so enthusiastically and emotionally to music I had placed before them. The Quintet by Konstanty Regamey, to which Katarzyna Naliwajek-Mazurek drew my attention during a visit to the library of Warsaw University, is a fascinating journey through a most varied and colourful landscape; one forgets the 12-note technique completely when faced with so much imagination and creativity. Józef Koffler's music, in particular the cantata Die Liebe, is of the greatest conceivable purity: one cannot sing of love, as expressed in this biblical hymn, in a purer and more intimate manner.

Why are these pieces hardly ever heard in our concert halls? Does Regamey make too heavy technical demands on the performers? Is Koffler's music too subtle for our time?

Werner Herbers, artistic leader & former principal oboist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra The Ebony Band was founded in 1990 by Werner Herbers. Its core is made up of musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The ensemble specializes in modern, adventurous music primarily from the first half of the 20th century. Special attention is focused on the (frequently unjustly) forgotten music of lesser known composers, deemed to be worthy of revival. The goal of the group now is the registration of detailed information about the music of the interbellum on record and the internet.

The Ebony Band was founded in 1990 by Werner Herbers. Its core is made up of musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The ensemble specializes in modern, adventurous music primarily from the first half of the 20th century. Special attention is focused on the (frequently unjustly) forgotten music of lesser known composers, deemed to be worthy of revival. The goal of the group now is the registration of detailed information about the music of the interbellum on record and the internet.

Weill, Toch and Schulhoff wrote their pieces in the late roaring twenties of the last century. Inspired by jazz and entertainment, these live recordings - of which two are premier registrations! - belong to the ‘most musical and varied period in music history’ according to founder, conductor and artistic leader Werner Herbers.

Weill wrote an orchestral suite for wind orchestra only four months after the Berlin première of his Threepenny Opera (1928) by adapting eight of its most successful numbers.

Toch moved to Berlin in 1929 and became one of the most frequently played living composers of his time. ‘Egon und Emilie’ is a satire on opera based on a charmingly mischievous libretto by the famous German poet and humorist Christian Morgenstern. The text, is a monologue by a grand diva having a nervous breakdown, caused by the indifference and lack of interest of her companion Egon.

In 1930, Schulhoff, together with Otto Rombach, a dramatic author, writer, and journalist with the Frankfurter Zeitung, wrote the Jazz Oratorio ‘H.M.S. Royal Oak’, inspired by an actual event dating from 1928 when a violent quarrel had arisen among three officers about the music played by a small band in the officers’ mess.