infotext:
CANTIQUE "I remember, one summer evening, a long time ago, Le Promontoire du Songe, Editions Gallimard, 2012
The young Victor Hugo looks through the telescope of the powerful Paris telescope, sees only the black and thinks he sees nothing but a "hole in the dark". But he sees the moon. His gaze strays into the flickering shadows of the »Promontorium Somnii«, the promontory of the dream. Looking through their own telescopes, exploring the landscapes of their own dreams, the inventors of sound, painting, stories, scents, mechanisms, but also the readers, actors, audiences, economists, politicians and ourselves are looking all the moment, the happy moment when a new idea will come to us. We are all looking for inspiration. CANTIQUE is the first part of a series consisting of three CDs. This series is dedicated to works inspired by paintings by Swiss painters. The project aims to subtly broaden »the listener's horizon«: He is invited to a journey through an imaginary country in which three composers – whose aesthetics are very different – seem to be looking at one another, seeming to be talking to one another. The fabric of their respective cultural reference systems becomes compatible. As in a strange dream, a landscape of tonal colors emerges before our »eyes«, a fairy tale made up of fleeting reflections, memories and surprising atmospheres. The three composers: Max Reger, the Catholic organist from Bavaria, who wrote in the face of the horrors of World War I and found his style; Ernest Bloch, a young musician from Geneva who is still searching for his own tone in his Jewish roots; and Andreas Pfluger, a century younger, an agnostic from Basel, with a slim style and an unconventional career, experienced as a composer of operas and film music. All three share a love of painting, of symbols, and all three deal with ancient texts and legends and with the supernatural. We have been working intensively with Andreas Pfluger since 2006. At the end of 2013 I commissioned him to write a cello concerto for the young cellist Estelle Revaz. We very quickly came up with the idea that every single sentence in this work should be an »image«. The composer explains: »These six pictures made me write Paintings strongly inspired: La confiture aux péchés by Louis Soutter is a dark, enigmatic drawing that has some connection to Skt.Adolf-Broggahr-Chatzli-Stok and Skt.Adolf-Krohn-Printzen by Adolf Wölfli and reveals traces of schizophrenia. Giovanni Segantini's diaphanous palette of impressionist tones Cupid at the well of life evokes a metaphorical atmosphere of lyrical sophistication, the counterpart of which is found in the scene with strollers and a merry-go-round on Carl Pfluger-Gotstein's In the long alders finds. Two contrasting movements come at the end of the concerto: Island Dulcamara by Paul Klee is an enchanting vision full of humour, in Felice Filippinis The caduta della ballerina imminent death leads to a compulsive frenzy.” After he die Four tone poems after Arnold Böcklin Richard Strauss said to Max Reger: »Reger, one more step and you are with us«. And Reger answered him: "Yes, dear Strauss, I'm not going to take that step." The form of the "Böcklin Suite" shows, somewhat antiquated, the traditional pattern Andante-Allegro-Andante-Allegro. in the first sentence, The violinist hermit, the solo violin is opposed to a double string orchestra antiphonally, creating an introspective, mystical atmosphere. The Nereids excite in In the play of the wavesThe Isle of the Dead is imbued with a dark, unsettling power and seems to reinforce the first movement's two-voiced character while Bacchanal, an image often referred to as a "German beer garden in ancient Rome," evokes the rhythmic power of the scherzo with a large, haunting crescendo. Ernest Bloch himself writes the program text for a performance of his work Shelomo 1933 in Rome. In it he explains the circumstances and the source of inspiration that stood at the beginning of the composition: [...] »Here is the history of the genesis of ›Schelomo‹: At the end of 1915 I was in Geneva. For years I had tried to set the book of Ecclesiastes to music, but I couldn't quite get to grips with the French, German, or English translations, and my knowledge of Hebrew was insufficient. Many sketches had piled up, but my project was dormant. One day I met the cellist Alexandre Barjanski. […] I regained hope and started thinking about composing a new work for this wonderful musician. In fact, why not use my material on the 'Book of Ecclesiastes' and the biblical imagery and entrust the declamation not to the human voice but rather to the deep sound of the cello, which can 'speak all languages'? So I gathered my designs and got back to work. At the same time, Frau Barjanski was working on making a statuette that she had designed for me. At first she had planned to create a Christ figure for me, but ultimately settled on a King David. After a few weeks her statuette and my new 'Book of Ecclesiastes' were finished. Because the book is traditionally attributed to Solomon, I gave my work the title 'Shelomo'.« Without really realizing it, we got caught up in a kind of artistic quest for what could be called the »transfer of inspirational material«. What is inspiration made of? How can one art form inspire another, how can color become sound? Or, to put it more technically: What is the meaning of a sound and by what magic does it travel through space? And while recording and talking about the works we are presenting here: Is it possible to imagine a new kind of balance between the soloist and the orchestra, which is more in tune with an actual concert performance of Shelomo approaching? How can a relatively small symphonic cast reproduce the rich dynamics of Reger? What perspectives are there for a new »Concert in Six Scenes« for cello and orchestra? CANTIQUE is the result of an artistic collaboration that began in 2013 with the young Swiss cellist Estelle Revaz and the Orchester Musique des Lumières. The program was played on a tour in Basel, Delémont (Delsberg), Geneva and La Chaux-de-Fonds - where the present recording was made in co-production with RTS SRF 2 Kultur and NEOS. This CD gives no answers. Rather, it suggests the listener to look through new telescopes. Facundo Agudin
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program:
Max Reger (1873-1916) [01] I The violinist hermit 07:21
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
Andreas Pfluger (* 1941) [04] I Confiture aux péchés 03:19
Max Reger (1873-1916) [10] III The Isle of the Dead 07:38
Total playing time: 70:55 Estelle Revaz cello |
Press:
Cooperation, 1st December 2015 season
Le 24 Heures, 7th-8th November 2015
Sortir, October 2015
September 25, 2015
La Liberté, 5 December 2015
La Revue Musicale de Suisse Romande, September 2015
Le Nouvelliste, 17 August 2015
Scenes Magazine, November 2015
Le Nouvelliste, September 17, 2015
L'Hebdo, Semaine du 5 November 2015
Television Suisse RTS, 12 October 2015 Radio RTS, 09 October 2015 Radio German WDR, September 28, 2015 Radio RTS, 08 September 2015 Radio Cité Genève , 26 October 2015 France Musique, November 14, 2015 Télévision Suisse RTS, January 2016 France Musique, 9 April 2016
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