infotext:
The appeal of the impossible: Michael Bastian Weiß has found his life's work in the diverse relationships between art and science, between music and philosophy. He lives as a composer and philosopher in Munich.
The overall duration of the work, which is also his 2nd symphony, is colossal. At 50 minutes, it goes beyond the scope of conventional harpsichord music. Weiß liberates the instrument from its older and more recent historical models and creates an entirely new kind of music for it.
program:
Fragmenta Missarum per Defunctis 24:38
for piano solo, op. 7 (2000)
[01] I. Luceat ice 13:27
[02] II. Per sepulcra 11:11
Sonata on Darkness 50:32
(Symphony No. 2) for a two-manual harpsichord solo, op. 13 (2006)
[03] A. Introduction. “Mignon” 09:55
[04] B. The aria of the machine 08:43
[05] C. Scherzo 08:56
[06] D. Passacaglias 05:01
[07] E. Final. Adagio molto 17:57
total time: 75:21
Andrew Skouras, piano and harpsichord
Press:
The two movements of the 'Requiem Fragments' explore very specific concepts of the Requiem Mass in pianistic terms. 'Luceat eis' refers to 'eternal light', expressed here in isolated flickering chords and a high-pitched delicate melody, almost as still as something Feldman might have done. The far more active 'Per seplulchra', with its cross-rhythms and polytonal harmony has something in common with Messiaen at the outset, and then subsides into simpler, static textures and a suggestion of a kind of chorale, before a thunderous climax and a final withdrawal into the eternal light textures of the first movement.
A fifty-minute harpsichord sonata, moreover designated a 'symphony', is a strange concept, but this five-movement structure succeeds in breathing on a symphonic scale, and the incorporation of variation forms and fugue both refer to the history of the instrument and provide structural outlines to justify the extended timescale and offset the relatively limited dynamic and timbral contrast afforded by the instrument. To further expand the timbral palette, one manual is tuned a quarter-tone apart from the other; direct confrontation between the two temperaments to create a strange new tone-colour is used sparingly, but the hocketing alternation of thematic material between the two produces a greatly expanded melodic vocabulary as well. Andreas Skouras (keyboards).
Bavarian-born composer Michael Bastian Weiß has studied both music and philosophy, and his notes to the two-movement Fragmenta Missarum pro Defunctis (Fragments of a Mass for the Dead) — although not, curiously, for the other work on the disc, the Sonata on Darkness (Symphony No. 2) — have a philosophical orientation. The Fragmenta Missarum, he said, applies “a topos of recent musical history, namely working with stillness,” to the problem of “reacting to a historical disaster that caused considerable pain to countless people.” The work was composed in 2000, and this presumably refers to the Holocaust. Listeners will have to decide for themselves whether the music makes the connection; it begins, as the composer's words suggest, with almost complete silence broken only occasionally by quiet, single-piano chords. The music returns to this stillness, slightly altered in a brighter direction. Weiß names Webern as an influence, and indeed the music suggests something that the young, pre-twelve-tone Webern might have hit on if he had devised his minimal textures further in advance of the twelve-tone system. Perhaps more successful is the fifth -movement Sonata on Darkness, which despite its name has periods of light and shade. The work is written for a two-manual harpsichord on which one manual is tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other. The work explores various ideas, one of which is the shimmering beats that occur when the two manuals sound together; The massive 18-minute finale ties all the strands together. “I forgo the radicality of Cage or Feldman,” Weiss wrote about the Fragmenta Missarum, and the statement could apply to the sonata, as well; there are temporary tonal fields and a sort of ornamental use of little melodies. This is certainly music for listeners with patience, but the processes Weiß uses are clear, and his mode of expression is consistent. The extensive documentation is given in English, French, Spanish, and German. ~James Manheim, Rovi
http://www.allmusic.com/album/michael-bastian-wei-fragmenta-missarum-pro-defunctis-w194633/review
XX/XXI 2010
03/2010
music and philosophy
Munich-based Michael Bastian Weiß is a composer and philosopher in one person. and so the intellectual climate of his music is often fed by philosophical questions. who prefer to devote themselves to the existential dark side of life.
His “Fragmenta missarum pro defunctis” (2000) reflects fragments of the Latin Requiem in two movements (“Luceat eis.” “Per sepulcra”) as a kind of instrumental requiem. White's examination of the emotional aspects of a “Requiem” has above all one consequence, total withdrawal. Silence is the program in this music. in which Cage and Feldman were clearly the inspiration. before this ppp sound world visibly loses itself in an improvisational gesture.
The “Sonata about Darkness” offers an almost postmodern variety of expressive characters. A monumental harpsichord piece. also known as “Symphony No. 2” because of its dimensions and White’s cyclical layout. The almost hour-long composition not only pulls out all the stops of harpsichord music in five contrasting movements between Bach's "Goldberg Variations" and Ligeti's "Continuum", but also carries a lot of music history with it with a multitude of quotations and allusions.
But White clearly wants too much here. The recourse to late romantic orchestral languages. In particular, the adagio gestures of a Gustav Mahler in the final movement. with the tonally limited resources of a harpsichord, it seems to have been overkill. The virtuosity and stylistic eloquence of Andreas Skouras can do little.
Dirk Wieschollek
17.12.2009
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Royal winter music: The 50-minute sonata about darkness for harpsichord - called Symphony No. 2 in the subtitle - is like a glistening snow labyrinth. It takes training, to use Walter Benjamin's phrase, to get lost in it “like in a forest”. Just as Hans Werner Henze opened up new emotional and technical levels for the classical guitar in his Royal Winter Music, Michael Bastian Weiß opens up wider sound spaces of glittering beauty for the harpsichord.
16.12.2009
Fragmenta Missarum per Defunctis
“There have been attempts, especially in recent music history, for several decades. to equate silence with sounds as a compositional element […]. The composer Michael Bastian Weiß, who was born in Deggendorf in 1974 and lives in Munich, designed his work “Fragmenta missarum pro defunctis” in a similar way [to Feldman]. which was created in 2000 and has now been recorded alongside Weiss' “Sonata on Darkness” on a CD on the NEOS label by the pianist Andreas Skouras with a lot of feeling for the piece.
In this composition too you can hear it mainly in the first one. Sentence entitled “Luceat ice cream”. Sequences of quiet chords. between which there are always long spaces of silence. But in contrast to Feldman, this work by Weiß shows a development, the chords condense to a culmination point. Melodies also emerge before the movement comes to rest again in pianissimo.
If you get involved in these impressionistic and meditative chord sounds, in which an initially very delicate, almost fragile melody in the pianist's right hand only hesitantly emerges after around three and a half minutes. then this […] composition becomes a great sound experience”.
Stefan Rimek
11.11.2009
A linear further development of music in the sense of "material progress" practically no longer exists today and can hardly exist. Composers are therefore looking for syncretistic ways of connecting the new with historical forms, with non-European music or with non-tempered scales, to mention just a few possibilities. It remains to be seen whether Michael Bastian Weiß, born in Munich in 1974, will succeed in developing a personal style in one of these ways. Certainly there are some interesting passages in the Fragmenta in the concept of a form between silence and individual points of sound, an orientation to Webern and Feldman. One can certainly doubt whether the work is able to come close to the philosophical superstructure of the title in terms of sound.
The harpsichord “Symphony” seems even more problematic. While it is perhaps record-breaking at 50 minutes (for a work for solo harpsichord), it offers too many allusions and quotations from earlier music, and also too many conventional compositional techniques and rhythm models to gain a distinctive profile. The quarter-tone tuning between the two manuals does not achieve this either, which never achieves a really unique quarter-tone harmony – as is certainly the case in works by Alois Hába or Ivan Wyschnegradsky. A lot of idleness and little substance - that's how 50 minutes can be filled, even if this was certainly not the intention of the composer.
Hartmut Luck
Artistic quality: 8/10
Sound quality: 8/10
Overall impression: 5/10
16.10.2006
Sonata on Darkness
“New compositions for harpsichord have become rare in our time […] It is all the more striking when a contemporary composer like the Deggendorf musicologist, doctor of philosophy and cultural funding award winner Michael Bastian Weiß presents a new work for this instrument, which is often wrongly described as antiquated.
Without a doubt, what was premiered by Andreas Skouras [...] is a work of high compositional quality. Because this novelty from Weiß's pen, entitled 'Sonata on Darkness', deeply explores the contemporary tonal possibilities of a two-manual harpsichord.
The composer created a nearly 40-minute monumental work. which, thanks to its original and varied structure, never runs into danger. to seem tiring. This is also an interesting trick of the composer. that Weiß has the upper manual of the harpsichord tuned down a quarter tone for this sonata, which is like an acoustic parallel world to the normally tuned lower manual. In the introduction, one hears a gripping juxtaposition of the dissonantly opposed manuals in the form of expositions of a double fugue [...]
Pentatonic. asistically meditative-seeming structures. which return again and again to a basic chord, the third of which is left out for a long time and which therefore also acquires a somewhat meditative character, then introduce the 'machine aria'. As if from another world, the down-tuned manual intervenes like a nuisance. In the following scherzo, the three passacaglias and the finale, one hears baroque quotations and cleverly syncopated complementary rhythms. Simultaneous sounding of the original and down-tuned tones - which makes the vibrations tangible and lets you hear the interior of the tones - as well as antiphonal dialogues between the manuals.
Stefan Rimek
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