ECM label - CDs

Two important pieces by Swiss composer Heinz Holliger, who celebrates his 70th birthday on 21 May, both inspired by Robert Schumann, are combined with a chamber work by Clara Schumann.

A fascinating concept album circling around the fragility of artistic sensibilities in German musical and literary romanticism. Two important pieces by Swiss composer Heinz Holliger, who celebrates his 70th birthday on 21 May, both of them inspired by Robert Schumann, are combined with a chamber work by Clara Schumann. They all intersect in the year 1853, when 20-year-old Johannes Brahms first visited the Schumann couple in Düsseldorf. The initial piece, Clara’s three wonderfully melodic Romances for cello and piano, is followed by Holliger’s imaginative and multi-faceted homage to Robert’s “Romances” in the same scoring. Much to Brahms’ approbation they were burnt by Clara in 1893 as she feared her late husband’s reputation could suffer if compositions from the onset of his mental illness would be publicised. All that survives is a vivid description by violinist Joseph Joachim. Holliger takes this verbal account as a starting point for music that subtly meditates upon the double character of love and death, music and silence, romances and cinders. “Gesänge der Frühe” first performed in 1988 is scored for choir, orchestra and tape. Schumann’s last piano work of the same title from 1853 is superimposed in a most visionary way with texts from the late period of Friedrich Hölderlin – another romantic genius who fell prey to mental illness.

Alfred Zimmerlin (born 1955), who won an early international reputation as an improvising cellist, has long been known in his native Switzerland as a prolific composer of strong sonic imagination, assured technique and resourceful talent. His catalogue of more than 70 compositions includes solo pieces, music with live electronics alongside works for radio and film. The ECM debut album introduces him with three attractive works for small forces, all of them in performances both energetic and sensitive. “Euridice singt”, a 35-minute “Szene” for soprano, oboe, cello, piano and tape is based on a libretto by Swiss poet, rapper and free improviser Raphael Urweider. Not Orpheus himself is the central character in this intelligent rendering of the much-used operatic subject matter from Greek mythology but Euridice, whose death is shown here as the very catalyst for Orpheus’ artistic awakening. A most diverse array of musical elements makes for unsettling listening. The interest in a formally elastic integration of heterogenous materials lies at the heart of Zimmerlin’s aesthetic in which the concept of the “column of time” plays a central role – the awareness that many layers of the historical past are communicating with each other while providing the fundamentals for a genuinely “contemporary” music. In Zimmerlin’s strangely sensuous compositions there is space for expressive cantabile, the sound of prepared instruments, noises of musique concrète and even rap.

Eagerly awaited new Bach by Austrian pianist Till Fellner whose Well-Tempered Clavier I (2004) won him many fans worldwide.

Bach on the modern piano at its best: warm and glowing but transparent playing of highest sophistication.

Fellner’s recording follows an almost 20-year-period of study and performance of these pieces.

Accessible and popular repertoire which is rarely recorded by modern pianists.

Two further ECM recordings featuring Till Fellner are in preparation.

It was his then professor Alfred Brendel who encouraged Fellner in the early nineties to intensify his work on polyphonic music as it seemed to suit his playing particularly well. The young pianist started by working on the two-part “Inventions” and three-part “Sinfonias” which epitomise the most crystalline keyboard polyphony by Bach. Designed as a manual not only for stylish playing but also for compositional invention and development, the pieces were composed in the early 1720s for Bach’s eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann. Although Fellner had studied the works a good deal as a child he was fascinated by their artistic wealth: “There are dance-like pieces, to be sure, but the range extends all the way to Passion music: think of the ninth three-part piece in F minor. They even vary in their sound, in their "instrumentation" you might say. There are harpsichord-like pieces in the style of an old trio sonata for two solo instruments and accompaniment. Sometimes they sound like winds, sometimes like a small string ensemble.” They are the ultimate challenge for every Bach pianist: “Literally every note counts in these very short pieces; you have to find the right character from the very first phrase, otherwise it’s all over.” The CD is completed by a delightful French suite. Fellner: “Manfred Eicher and I found it appealing to offset the fairly rigorous Inventions with a more loosely constructed piece, one that's a bit roomier and more fun to play.”

Till Fellner, born in Vienna, is a protégé of Alfred Brendel. His international career began in 1993 when he won the Clara Haskil Competition, since when he’s performed with leading orchestras, in the great capitals of Europe, Japan, and the United States, and at major festivals. He has worked with conductors of the stature of Abbado, Ashkenazy, von Dohnányi, Harnoncourt, Mackerras, Masur and Welser-Möst. He also plays regularly in a trio with Lisa Batiashvili and Adrian Brendel and works closely with the tenor Mark Padmore. Since October 2008 Fellner has played a seven-concert cycle featuring the complete Beethoven sonatas. The entire cycle will be heard inter alia in New York, Washington, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Vienna. His performance and recording of the five Beethoven concertos with Kent Nagano and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal was launched in spring 2008.

A new project combining early music and contemporary sensibilities in a most attractive way.

John Potter’s clear and beautiful voice enveloped in Field’s generous electronic soundscapes.

Respectful but imaginative approach to a key figure in Western music history who was the first composer to achieve international fame in the 15th century.

Will appeal to broad audiences beyond the usual.

John Potter, co-founder and former singer of the Hilliard Ensemble, has a strong following also based on his three successful releases with The Dowland Project.

Potter’s new book Tenor: History of a Voice is published on 1 April.

British tenor John Potter and his fellow countryman Ambrose Field, prize-winning composer of electronic/digital music, offer an unusual juxtaposition of Renaissance composition and present-day technology: In seven interconnected pieces, vocal fragments from the songs and sacred works by 14th-century composer Guillaume Dufay soar beautifully above Field’s vast and multi-faceted soundscapes. “Then as now, music was not forever fixed but lived and breathed through the imaginations of former musicians and their listeners”, says Field in his liner notes. John Potter has long been committed to conceptual approaches to early music and, as a former blues and rock singer, has always had a strong interest in uncharted musical fields. His clear, almost boyish voice immerses itself with great ease in the allusively processed sounds. Field: “The fragments of original Dufay are always presented entirely unaltered, and serve as a reference point or cantus firmus within what is new. From that new perspective, I wanted to explore the limits of the electronic medium, produce a new set of musical colours and, perhaps above all, avoid the often mechanical aspects of working with technology.”

Ambrose Field, electronic music composer and performer, uses recorded environmental sound sources and custom computer processes to generate a distinctive soundworld that is dense and uncompromis-ingly relentless. Winner of four international awards including two Ars Electronica Honorary Mentions, he specialises in Surround Sound production, utilising formats ranging from 6.1 through to Ambisonics on installation, live music and film projects. John Potter, for 18 years a singer with the Hilliard Ensemble and one of its prime conceptual thinkers, a vocalist of rare versatility and erudition, has written extensively on singing. His last ECM album, with his own Dowland Project, Romaria (476 5780), containing music from the Carmina Burana manuscript to Josquin Desprez, was released to critical acclaim in 2008.

Following his acclaimed ECM recordings of sonatas by Biber, Schmelzer and Veracini and his no less lauded rendering of the complete unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas by Bach two years ago, English baroque violinist John Holloway once again joins forces with his excellent partners Dutch cellist Jaap ter Linden and Danish harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen for an album of strikingly beautiful, yet little known chamber music from the baroque era.

Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764), who laid the foundations for the French violin school, was a particularly interesting figure. He trained as a dancer, lacemaker, violinist and composer and was active in several European cities such as Torino, Lyons, Paris, Amsterdam and Kassel. He was murdered in Paris under never fully detected circumstances. As a composer he was a master of mixed styles, providing a rare synthesis of Italian and French traits, of melodic beauty and dancelike vivacity. John Holloway has chosen sonatas from his “classical” period – a selection from the Troisième Livre de Sonates, op 5 – in which Leclair had gained a perfect balance of proportion, lightness, expressiveness, contrapuntal art and virtuosic display.

The sixth recording for ECM by John Holloway, it was made at the monastery of Sankt Gerold in the Austrian Alps. More information on the violinist can be found at www.johnholloway.org.

Three key figures from ECM’s contemporary music roster – Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, and Thomas Demenga – team up for an exceptional recording of three works by one of the leading German post-war composers Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Zimmermann, almost half a generation older than the serialists such as Boulez and Stockhausen, integrated state-of-the-art compositional methods in his writing while constantly following his own independent, highly expressive musical language. His compositions ranged from orchestral works and ballets to solo sonatas (ECM has recorded all three on 449 9042), electronic pieces and Die Soldaten (The Soldiers), probably the most important German-language opera since Berg.

The rhythmically energetic and jazz-inspired Konzert für Violine und Orchester (1950), which is partially based on twelve-tone models and cast in three movements, was soon hailed as a model for a post-war solo concerto, while Canto di Speranza (Song of Hope) (1953/57), a one-movement cello concerto with a sensuous quality, emphasizes monologue and introvert meditation. Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne on the other hand is Zimmermann’s last work, finished only five days before he committed suicide in August 1970. Labelled by the composer as an “ecclesiastical action”, the 35-minute oratorio on biblical verse and the famous parable "The Grand Inquisitor" from Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” is a deeply pessimistic “performance art” piece - of the kind that flourished in Germany’s ‘Fluxus’ scene around the time it was written - involving recitation, singing, and both gestural and acrobatic action. Towards the end the two speakers are called upon to stamp on the floor and scream at the top of their lungs!

Arve Henriksen studied at Trondheim Conservatory from 1987-91, and has worked as a freelance musician since 1989. For ECM he’s recorded with Christian Wallumrød, Trygve Seim, Arild Andersen, Jon Balke, Frode Haltli and Sinikka Langeland. For ten years he’s been in the band Supersilent and he’s worked with Anders Jormin, Edward Vesala, Jon Christensen, Marilyn Mazur, Nils Petter Molvær, Misha Alperin, Stian Carstensen, Cikada String Quartet, Motorpsycho, Iain Ballamy etc. In all these contexts, Henriksen has applied his uniquely lyrical/liquid trumpet tone which often sounds as much like a reed instrument or a voice as a brass instrument. " I have spent many hours on developing a warm sound. The trumpet has vast potential for tone and sound variations that we still have not heard.” Henriksen has been influenced by the colours of Far Eastern music, especially the sound of the Japanese shakuhachi. Its roots in the tradition of Zen Buddhism fascinated him, as did its "meditative and minimalistic” expressive quality. Inspired by all sorts of roots music, including Norwegian folk, he is now interested in working with more contemporary and composed music.

Cartography is produced by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, co-founders of Kristiansand’s Punkt Festival, location for several of these recordings. The pair have collaborated for many years – they work as a duo also called Punkt and as a travelling remix unit. As shapers of soundscapes they are in search of a relaxed yet intense openness, a description that can be applied to the music here. Much of the music is freely created but its particular freedoms are applied to horizontal movement: Heniksen’s trumpet glides over the changing terrain created by his associates. Amongst the many guests is singer David Sylvian, making his ECM debut reading two of his poems; Trio Mediaeval are sampled on the track “Recording Angel”, and Anna Maria Friman sings on “Famine’s Ghost”.

Italy’s great musical archaeologist and one of today’s outstanding improvisers, Gianluigi Trovesi indulges his love for the drama and beauty of Italian opera with Trovesi all’opera – Profumo di Violetta. Accompanied by a fantastic “banda”, the large wind orchestra with percussion heard in the on-stage-music of many operas by Donizetti and Verdi, the reedman takes us on a humorous journey through the history of the genre, enriched with light and playful improvisation. Both titles carry double meanings: the Italian expression for “Trovesi at the opera” is equivocal with “Trovesi at work”, while “Profumo di Violetta” simultaneously alludes to the protagonist of Verdi’s “La Traviata” and to the flower’s sweet perfume – while more religious and erotic associations linger in the background.

The importance of the Banda in Italian provincial society can hardly be overstated. These orchestras which played at all major civic and religious celebrations served as melting pot for the social classes. Traditional Banda repertoire, consisting of popular marches, waltzes, Neapolitan songs and – most important – operatic tunes served as a kind of cultural memory that handed on popular musical treasures from generation to generation. Trovesi grew up listening to his local village banda near Bergamo and it inspired him to take up the clarinet as a boy. Like most Bandas today, Filarmonica Mousiké have shifted their focus to original contemporary compositions, so developing into a concert orchestra. It was Trovesi’s idea to revisit Italian opera from an unconventional angle, juxtaposing famous and lesser known tunes and including orchestral excerpts that enhance the symphonic design. In Trovesi’s ingenious work the popular and the sublime, irony and unrestrained pathos meet with an improvisational spirit conveying the pure joy of music making.

Gianluigi Trovesi came to ECM with the Italian Instabile Orchestra on Skies of Europe, then issued three further discs under his own name: two with accordionist Gianni Coscia – In cerca di cibo (543 0342), Round About Weill (982 4131) – and one with his octet (Fugace – 066 5832). On his most recent, Vaghissimo ritratto with Fulvio Maras and Umberto Petrin (170 9774) he pulled together melodies from all manner of sources: Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Monteverdi, Josquin Des Prés, Jacques Brel, Italian pop singer Luigi Tenco, as well as pieces by the group members, plus collective improvising.

The release of the last two volumes of Schiff’s complete Beethoven Sonatas this autumn finally offers the opportunity to view, and hear, the pianist’s approach to this unique repertoire segment in total. Volume VIII, recorded at the Reitstadl in Neumarkt, Germany rather than the Tonhalle Zurich used for all the previous instalments, includes the Sonatas Nos. 30, 31 and 32. “This was a Beethoven which transfixed the audience with its Apollonian balance, its subtly hued sonic and dynamic differentiation, depth of thought and technical command…The three sonatas sounded like a quintessence of pure late style, otherworldly as if made from precious marble”, wrote the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reviewing Schiff in concert. The booklet for this final volume includes not only an extensive interview with the pianist on the recorded sonatas but also a performer’s note about his personal approach to and experiences with Beethoven.