Piano Music of the Darmstadt School, Vol. 1

On this CD:

1. Cantéyodjayâ, for piano, I/30
Composed by Olivier Messiaen
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

2. Klavierstück II, for piano
Composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

3. Proiezioni sonore for solo piano
Composed by Franco Evangelisti
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

4. Composizione No. 1, for solo piano
Composed by Aldo Clementi
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

5. Klavierstück IV, for piano
Composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

6. Piano Sonata No. 3
Composed by Pierre Boulez
Performed by Steffen Schleiermacher

Tracks:

Canteyodjaya
No.2 Klavierstucke: I
No.2 Klavierstucke: II
No.2 Klavierstucke: III
No.2 Klavierstucke: IV
Proiezioni Sonore: I
Proiezioni Sonore: II
Composizione No.1: I
Composizione No.1: II
Composizione No.1: III
No.4 Klavierstuck: V
Pno Son No.3: Trope
Pno Son No.3: Sigle
Pno Son No.3: Constellation - Miroir

Customer Reviews:

darmstadt has come to mean more than this.......2004-02-17

The new music seminars situated at Darmstadt that began after WW2 has become an important mecca retrospectively for contemporary music, anyone who is anybody has given talks there and has performed.(perhaps not Phil Glass, he found the music "scary")
The earliest generation is here those who began it as Karlheinz Stockhausen. If you have read any interviews with Pierre Boulez he claims he taught there only a few years. But Darmstadt was important in fashioning the post-Webern way of thinking post-dodecaphonic, 12 Tone Serial, where all the perameters of music tone, dynamic, articulation, duration was subjected to the "tyranny" of the 12, almost Kabballah-like minus the historical depth. And with any movement (as for instance Cubism Futurism, Dada) everyone who contributes to it brings/carves and finds/locates their own voice, and that certainly what has happened at Darmstadt. The "ends" of things in innovation in music were explored, and even Theodor Adorno(a generation older) was present arguing nicely and forcefully with the youngsters there that serialized music may have become a "sport" that was quickly exhausted by the end of the Fifties. Let's have a new work let's try this Adorno would exclaim, "how about a piece for Three Orchestras"" How about a piece for Voice and Percussion", How about a piece for Two Pianos", no innovation just "newness" for the sake of it"We haven't done that yet"Creators as Xenakis and Ligeti, and Penderecki certainly saw through this and another means(that of clusters, mists, arborencences) conceptually thinking about texture, timbre register. Boulez even said that he found it overly cumbersome to have to be forced to use all 12 Tones, when he was contented with writings exploiting the first 4 to 6.

I was rather disappointed in the playing here save for the Boulez "trope" from his Third Sonata. This was wonderfully aggressive inventive playing, you really sense the deep musicianship of Boulez something his other Darmstadt brethren tended to ignore as Stockhausen. The Boulez Third Sonata has a massive pallette of timbre, the use of all the pianos pedals as well as the entire registers of the keyboard, attack, and arpeggiation, staccato mixed with sustained.You always need to find a direction of this music jumping in and oput of registers. It does have a direction, and if you become lost, Well! you stay lost. It was impassioned playing.
Whereas the Stockhausen first 5 klavierstuck (piano pieces)(here referred to as Number 2,under one leaf book tyhat is)) were somewhat wihtdrawn timid and reserved. These pieces are about raw uninhibted timbre,lots of fortissimos, about musical space, High Middle and Low, Regions of excavations, (Loud is in front of you, Soft is hinterlands off in space) take yer ear oof. If you ever have heard Fredric Rzewski play these or the late David Tudor, or the Kontarsky Brothers (recall the early CBS-Box-Set Vinyl) this playing is rather uninspired. Perhaps all that John Cage playing has rendered the conceptual affinity for sound rather differently. These "klavierstuck" are incredible but you need to forget everything you have learned about the piano and simply think of it as a sound=producing box, like electronic music, simply register, klang. Likewise the Evangelisti was uninspired playing, much silnces with no real emotive of structural reason,quite boring,and it needn't be. Evangelisti died early unfortunately he was a wonderful contributor to the post Webern realm here and frequently utilizes graphic notation.

The Messiaen work is rather long and difficult to sustain interest,it has more dimensions to it than readily apparent but this was one of Messiaen's more extroverted innovative works relatively speaking, for 'Vingt Regard sur l'enfant Jesus' is the massive encyclopedic dimensions of the modernist piano for which all other of his works is seen and judged.

nice but introductory.......2001-11-23

This pianist has already recorded lots of CD's with contemporary classics, including almost everything by Cage, but why a selection of the Darmstadt School's "greatest hits"? I hope that after some more volumes the series will include all Boulez's piano music from the 50's, all the first 11 piano pieces by Stockhausen, and also music by Berio and Barraquer. Let us wait and see.

Piano Music of the Darmstadt School, Vol. 2

Average customer rating:

great cornocopia of the avant-garde inside the piano

Piano Music of the Darmstadt School, Vol. 2

Manufacturer: MD&G Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Piano Music of the Darmstadt School, Vol. 1
Helmut Lachenmann: Ausklang; Tableau
Tristan Murail: Gondwana; Désintégrations; Time and Again
Kurtag: Gruppen, Grabsteinfur Fur Stephan, Stelle, Claudio Abbado [Import]
The Ligeti Project IV: Hamburg Concerto (Horn Concerto) / Double Concerto / Ramifications / Requiem

ASIN: B0001EQHNE
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Tracks:

Corroboree
Mimetics Part I/Schoen Hut
1 A
1 B
Echo Andante
Mimetics Part II/Schoen Hut
For Times To Come - Josef Christof

Customer Reviews:

great cornocopia of the avant-garde inside the piano.......2005-01-13

This is a wonderful capsule showcase of piano solos of the leading creators of the post war avant-garde. The "Corroboree" by Earle Brown is a seminal work in his oeuvre, it is for multiple pianos,and Schleiermacher utilizes the piano interior to pluck strings gently. The means here was to suggest the titles, primoridial-ness, of dealing with timbre directly without cumbersome theoretical baggage.

The Pousseur pieces simply indicated "1A","1B" has a gentle pointillism something you may find in great abundance in the music of M.Finnissy. Pousseur was not prolific,but he certainly understood timbre and process,as this gem here. His other work for Two Pianos "Mobiles" is also quite interesting.
Mauricio Kagel came to dominate the post-war European avant-garde moving from his native Argentina to Cologne really. He found great green pastures in the theatrical dimension his works engage,always contemplating the performer as not only someone who produces sounds, but "acts". The "Mimetics"here also utilizes the interior of the piano,re-tuned as well, There are some passages that are quite impossible where if the pianist uses his nose along with both hands the tones could then be the given simultaneity.In the opposite direction the "Echo andante" of Lachenmann is an early austere work, quite abstract and severe. His piano music only finds fruitful means when harmonics are used to my ears as his seminal "Serynade". The Stockhausen is an incidental work.

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