Martin Herchenroeder (*1961)
program:
infotext:
»TO STAY IS NOWHERE«
Music for flute and strings by Martin Herchenröder
Placing an »imaginary theater based on William Shakespeare« at the center of this CD with The Tempest for flute and guitar (1992) is a striking reflection of Martin Herchenröder's creative identity. This shows on the one hand his deep roots in European cultural history, which is also reflected in profound training in the musical tradition, and on the other hand his openness to literary sources of inspiration, which he transforms into autonomous sounds.
In the four-movement work, Herchenröder created multi-layered sound structures in which above all atmospheric dimensions appear - nature as the auratic enveloping of the events in Shakespeare's The Tempest, but also spiritual and emotional upsurges that crystallize in harsh instrumental gestures. “Tenderly moved and very free” is the performance instruction for the short first movement (“Music of the Island”), which is a visionary reminder of an ambience that is detached from all human concerns. In contrast, the second movement (»Caliban's Revolution«) holds up a mirror to human existence, before the »island kingdom« is recalled beyond space and time, and in the fourth movement, the world of spirits and people enter into dreamlike connections.
Greek Blessing for guitar (2013) sounds like an afterword to The Tempest, which once again evokes the realms of Shakespeare with complex chords and melodic echoes – but also to seal them and open the window to new sounds.
In Terzattacke für Flute (2009), Herchenröder enters a completely different terrain, because this and other pieces are not based on literary reference points, but on abstract phenomena or fleeting impressions that burn into him, touch him and inspire his sound imagination. "Winkelmusik I" is the subtitle of Terzattacke, and the flute does indeed wind its way forward in an angle, explores corners and edges, rounds and widens, immerses itself episodic into the elegiac, only to narrow again the next moment and around itself to turn.
"stirred up" and "ghostly"
In contrast, »Winkelmusik II«, also for flute solo, leads to microsleep (2013), which leads in the mind's eye through a bizarre course of changing moods and states of irritation. Orion for violoncello and organ (2018), in which Martin Herchenröder himself participated as organist in the recording in May 2021 in the Nikolaikirche in Siegen, also develops succinct states of irritation. The organ is "his" instrument and plays an important role in his musical thinking and composition - as an experimental body of sound, but also because of its great variety of relationships and its, according to Herchenröder, "semantic aura reaching far into music history". Orion was created for the Gothenburg International Organ Festival, which focused on cosmic aspects of the organ. Herchenröder formulated, between "agitated" and "ghostly", a journey into the cosmos, which in a figurative sense outlines a life path up to death with phases of rebellion and contemplation - up to the dying end, which at the same time marks the ascension and the fall into the sky symbolizes depth.
In Waves (2022), Herchenröder combined the organ with the flute, and this work also suggests a »journey« in which the lyrical subject does not feel his way into cosmic regions, but with extreme expressive contrasts into realms of the dreamlike, the bizarre and the unconscious.
Although Orion and Waves are designed as larger arches, their power of expression is also and above all derived from the abundance of contrasting details. And this points to a central characteristic of Martin Herchenröder's music, in which the vulnerable, the vulnerable, the fragmented and fragmentary are essential. These elements are held together in a dense network of relationships by the existential question of the transience of life, of becoming and passing away. In this context, the words “Because staying is nowhere” from Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies completed in 1922 became a key concept for him. He interprets these words as a metaphor for music, but at the same time they point beyond that and draw attention to a basic polarity in the perception of sounds: »Music as sound is«, according to Herchenröder, »always gone, only a tiny fraction is in the Present marked and then gone again. It is fleeting in the moment of creation. On the other hand, composing means creating something that as a whole claims to be an object, we are talking about a musical form. We experience music between memory and expectation, as time drifting as a result of disparate, unrepeatable past moments. But still everything is connected with everything else.«
near and far
This productive dichotomy is essential for Martin Herchenröder and drives him to strive for music of “strange, strange, evocative beauty”, “which eludes purely intellectual access and yet – or perhaps precisely because of this – carries the spirit”. This striving is particularly evident in works in which the fragmentary character is elevated to a basic compositional principle. These also include Rubaiyat for flute and piano (2020) and Poems and Variations, his 1st string quartet (2001 / 2006), which open and close the series of these CD recordings, which are all first recordings.
The title Rubaiyat is borrowed from the name of a Persian form of poetry with a specific rhyme scheme (aaba), which Herchenröder may have reflected in the arrangement of the sentences. Movements 2, 3 and 4 address vague emotional concerns, although the 'final certainties' in the 2nd movement – as the subtle tremors of the piano's inside sounds unequivocally indicate – are far from certain. The 1st movement, however, aims at the longings of man in the face of the incomprehensibility of the stars with boring friction surfaces between digging piano part and wispy flute figures, while the 5th movement represents an epilogue that "with secret unrest" spins the thread of reflective reflections.
The Poems and Variations indirectly tie in with this thread and, for their part, ignite a game of closeness and distance that results from the musical structure itself. The first violin seeks »graceful« closeness to itself in the first movement, increasing in solo solitude from delicate gestural movements to latent dance associations. But "remaining is nowhere" hovers like a warning sign over this string quartet, whose 2nd movement can be read like an ominous omen, followed closely by the "demonic energy" in the 3rd movement. After two attempts, the spook seems over, but it turns into a lament abstracted to the extreme, which represents the transcendence of the lament more than the lament itself. Development continues incessantly; »Nothing comes back«, as Martin Herchenröder explains, »in this fragmentary form the way it once was. Repetition is impossible, the music never returns to the starting point.« Nevertheless, the 6th movement – with the heading »like a natural sound« meant as a reference to Gustav Mahler – at the beginning motivically draws a bow to the first movement and then takes other paths, on which Tone repetitions are layered in specific constellations in aleatoric counterpoint. The Poems and Variations end “solemnly and measuredly”, “morendo in fourfold pianissimo”, and yet this music is not over in the composer’s imagination, but as a small excerpt is processually directed towards an imaginary greater thing that does not itself sound. "Rather," says Martin Herchenröder, "it should grow in the mind of the listener as soon as the sounds fall silent."
Egbert Hiller
program:
Rubaiyat for flutes and piano (2020) 14:40
[01] Stars and people for Carin Levine 02:42
[02] Last margins for Navid Kermani 02:56
[03] Mixed feelings for Rainer Berger 01:20
[04] Fuzzy Messages 03:25
[05] Aftershock 04:17
[06] Third attack for flute (2009) for Michel Sauer 05:04
[07] Waves for flute and organ (2022) for Carin Levine 11:08
The Tempest Imaginary Theater based on William Shakespeare 16:18
for flute and guitar (1992)
[08] Music of the Island 00:51
[09] Caliban's Revolution 06:44
[10] Music of the Island 01:22
[11] Ariel (spriting gently) 07:21
[12] Greek Blessing for guitar (2013) for Nicholas Goluses 01:35
[13] Microsleep for Alto Flute (2013) for Michel Sauer 02:42
[14] Orion for cello and organ (2018) for Friedrich Gauwerky 09:10
Poems and Variations 1st String Quartet (2001/2006) for the Arditti Quartet 17:06
[15] Graceful 02:41
[16] Very slow 01:09
[17] Powerful, with demonic energy 03:16
[18] Raptured 01:38
[19] Restless and violent 02:20
[20] Mysterious; “like a natural sound” 02:55
[21] Solemn and measured 03:07
Total playing time: 78:23
Friedrich Gauwerky, cello
Martin Herchenröder, organ & piano
Carin Levine, flutes
Jurgen Ruck, guitar
Kuss Quartet (Jana Kuss, 1st violin Oliver Wille, 2nd violin William Coleman, viola Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, cello)
World premiere recordings