With this CD, the trombonist Mike Svoboda casts revealing sidelights on four heroes of new music.
Late pieces by Luigi Nono and Giacinto Scelsi as well as derivations or condensations from major works by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen are placed in a new space due to Svoboda's interpretation.
Scelsi did not see himself as 'author' of 'Mantram, canto anonimo': By his own admission, he received the music from other spheres, acted as an intermediary between two worlds. Svoboda, in his version, makes the piece, which originally has not been designed for a certain instrument or voice, take shape, in close proximity to the language, in a declamatory pattern by means of breath, voice and sound.
With 'Solo for Sliding Trombone', taken from Cage's 'Concerto for Piano and Orchestra', Mike Svoboda devised a version for eight trombones which he plays all by himself. The multiplication of the solo part produces an amazing multiplicity of moments of sound and silence.
'Signal zur Invasion I' – on this CD in a version for solo trombone – is part of Stockhausen's opera heptalogy 'LICHT' [Light]. The composer has the protagonist Lucifer musically represented by a trombonist. From the very beginning, this character has been connected with Svoboda who had been discovered by Stockhausen when he was a young musician.
The genre 'post-prae-ludium' invented by Nono is a music which wants to play after and before at the same time, thus gradually piling up sound incidents and turning them into a hovering presence. In 'Post-prae-ludium per Donau', Svoboda's tuba actions are multiplied and rearranged by a live electronics sound designer so that a permanent spatial polyphony is created.
