infotext:
In changing voices and verses, the song goes up into the jubilant light and down into the shadows. Helge Slaatto (violin) replaces Klaus-Peter Werani (viola), gives the floor back to him and takes it up again for a small duet with Frank Reinecke (double bass). Then again, and until the end, the song is sung alone, by Erik Borgir (cello) and finally again by the bass player. In short, very personal booklet notes, the four performers tell us how they experience the music they play: as a fanfare, as a torrent, as an excursion at sea into unknown expanses. As a confrontation with infinite pain. And as a glimmer of hope for something beyond, for life after death.
program:
Nicholas Brass (* 1949)
song lines .
for solo strings
[01] Prolog (2006) for viola solo 01:44
[02] songlines I (2006) for violin solo 12:38
[03] Intermission (2007) for viola solo 02:20
[04] songline III (2007) for viola solo 23:16
[05] songlines IV (2006) for violin and double bass 12:18
[06] songlines v (2007) for solo cello 12:02
[07] Epilogue (2007) for double bass solo 11:39
total time 76:32
Helge Slaatto, violin
Klaus Peter Werani, Violet
Eric Borgir, cello
Frank Reinecke, double bass
Press:
Brass, Nicholas
song lines for solo strings
Artist: Helge Slaatto, violin; Klaus-Peter Werani, viola; Eric Borgir, cello; Frank Reinecke, double bass
Publisher/Label: NEOS 11021
Category: CDs
published in: New Magazine for Music 06/2010, page 89
Musical rating: 5
Technical score: 5
Repertoire value: 5
booklet: 5
Overall rating: 5
If the phrase had nothing stuffy conservative about it, one would be tempted to write that in the song lines for solo strings (2006/07) is nowhere composed «against the instrument». But fortunately there is another way: Nikolaus Brass' music has nothing compulsive, its strength is its naturalness. Cantilenas from his pen always come out of one piece. The quiet circling around individual intervals could stretch into infinity. And then there's this organic unity of the whole work; also often interpreted with a negative connotation, but can be heard in breathtaking perfection on Brass.
Four sets comprise the song lines. They are framed by a prologue and an epilogue, interrupted once by an «intermission» for solo viola. The gesture of the approximately twelve-minute movements is mostly turned inwards. «songlines I» for violin is like a meditation in the highest register. The polyphonic chords are sophisticated, interspersed with glissandi in a small space. Prepared by the relaxed «intermission», in the central «songlines III» for viola, Brass reaches a level of artistic excellence that can be compared with the main works of viola literature, such as Pierluigi Billones ITI KE MI (1995). Brass is comparatively less radical, but at the same time more flexible. Glassy, fragile harmonic passages transition seamlessly into polished polyphony played in the ordinary way, then two-dimensional episodes follow again, sometimes with a brittle intonation in the forte, then again with the finest dosed bow pressure.
The songlines cannot do without the specialized interpreter. Brass can count itself lucky with Helge Slaatto (violin), Klaus-Peter Werani (viola), Erik Borgir (cello) and Frank Reinecke (double bass). The gentlemen must have self-sacrificingly prepared, instrumental skills alone do not explain the special intimacy of the recordings. The technicians and the producer Helmut Rohm from the Bayerischer Rundfunk also played their part in this: the miking is consistent; exactly the right balance has been found between obtrusive closeness and distance. Subjective comments from the performers round off a furious production in the booklet. "An enraptured music, longing, intimate, sensitive, singing softly to himself," is how cellist Erik Borgir describes his impressions. Hardly anything to add. Only: top marks.
Torsten Moller
14.08.2010
17.02.2010
Nikolaus Brass - songlines
For a long time, Nikolaus Brass was considered an outsider in the current music scene, someone who went his own way as a composer and doctor and only occasionally made people sit up and take notice with his music. That has fundamentally changed recently. Brass, who was born in Lindau in 1949 and has lived and worked in the Munich area for many years, is currently receiving great national attention beyond the New Music circles. A CD with his “songlines” cycle, a series of solo and duo pieces for strings from 2006/07, has now been released on the NEOS label.
His composition, which Nikolaus Brass pursues with unswerving continuity in addition to his bread and butter job as a doctor and editor of a medical journal, arises from an inner necessity, far removed from various schools and aesthetic drawers. Brass only releases his own works relatively late, in his early thirties. There is now a diverse oeuvre that includes pieces for large ensembles as well as chamber music in various formations. His music is characterized by flowing time processes, questions of order and disruption, the unpretentious scanning of the acoustic outer surface for what it contains as an echo, as well as aspects of human existence, their ability to remember and forget, the permanent circles of losing and finding again . Although Brass is a quiet personality and has never made a fuss about himself or his work, he does speak up in a very reflective manner when it comes to the relevance of contemporary music or the status of composition.
Invisible mythical map
The title of his cycle "songlines" refers to Bruce Chatwin's novel "The Songlines" (German: "Dream Paths"), which describes a journey through the interior of Australia and revolves centrally around the songlines of the Aborigines. This is a kind of invisible, mythical map of Australia that is passed on from generation to generation through song and is the basis for the migration of the indigenous population. However, Brass's music is not about telling these stories in concrete program music, but rather about an "inner singing", which for him is essential for the conscious perception and processing of music. The cycle is framed by a short prologue for viola solo and an epilogue for double bass.
Enormously multifaceted sound journey
Six solo and duo pieces of different lengths (the CD lacks “songlines” II and VI due to the overall length) stand in between and, in changing voices, trace the sound spectrum and “singing” of the respective instruments in an incredibly colorful and imaginative way. As is often the case with brass, the parts are notated freely and give the musicians gestural freedom when designing their lines or singing voices. With Frank Reinecke (double bass) and the Norwegian violinist Helge Slaatto, to whom “songlines” is dedicated, as well as Klaus-Peter Werani (viola) and Erik Borgir (violoncello), interpreters who are already familiar with the music of brass explore this series of pieces extremely sensitively and at the same time virtuosically . Short, very personal booklet notes from these four musicians outline how they experience this music: as a fanfare, as a raging torrent, as a journey out to sea, into unknown expanses. Without Brass “doing” much, his music takes us on a finely crafted, enormously multifaceted sound journey... Definitely worth listening to!
Meret Forster