Works for Viola Solo
For Julia Rebekka Adler
‘The music of the future will have to be simple, transparent, naked.’ Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought could serve as a motto for Walter Zimmermann's solo works for viola. The album brings together key compositions that unfold extraordinary intellectual and tonal depth through radical reduction.
At the centre is Die Sorge geht über den Fluss I + II (The Care Crosses the River I + II) – recorded in its entirety for the first time. The cycle was written between 1993 and 2000, supplemented in 2024, and is conceived as a musical diary. The first part responds to the early death of a friend, the second follows a trip to India and Zimmermann's own serious illness. Following the principle of ‘nulla dies sine linea’, Zimmermann wrote daily musical entries: condensed lines, fragile gestures, long pauses. The work moves between fullness and emptiness, closeness and distance – a sounding process of grief, reflection and recovery. The ancient myth of ‘care’ that shapes human beings and accompanies them throughout their lives gives the cycle its philosophical dimension.
Taula (2003), inspired by Raimundus Lullus, also combines ascending and descending movements of thought in music that balances order and freedom. Quattro Coronati (1999), composed in Rome, reflects on historical and contemporary upheavals – and offers a quiet sign of hope with the image of the apple tree attributed to Luther. Finally, Sha-ma-yim – Skies (2016) opens up the horizon: in shimmering flageolets and ascetic lines, the sky becomes the inner resonance space of the instrument.
Zimmermann's music does not impose itself. It demands alert contemplation and trust in the power of the individual tone. The viola, with its sound mediating between earthly roughness and shimmering heights, becomes the bearer of an ‘anima candida’ – a clear, unadulterated voice.
Julia Rebekka Adler performs these works with technical precision and spiritual insight. Recorded in the acoustic expanse of the Andreaskirche Berlin-Wannsee, the recording preserves transparency, breath and silence.
‘Skies’ is music as spiritual contemplation – clear, concentrated and of quiet intensity.
Programme
Walter Zimmermann (*1949)
Skies
Works for Viola Solo
For Julia Rebekka Adler
[01] Die Sorge geht über den Fluss I (1993)
[02] Die Sorge geht über den Fluss II (2000/2024)
[03] Taula (2003)
[04] Quattro Coronati (1999)
[05] Sha ma yim – Skies (2016)
total playing time: 65:42
Julia Rebekka Adler, viola
World premiere recordings
Biographies
Walter Zimmermann, born in 1949 in Schwabach (Middle Franconia), studied piano, violin, and oboe, and began composing at the age of twelve. He completed his secondary education in Fürth and studied piano with Ernst Gröschel. From 1968 to 1970, he was the pianist of the Ars Nova Ensemble in Nuremberg and studied composition with Werner Heider. From 1970 to 1973, he studied with Mauricio Kagel as part of the Cologne Courses for New Music, with Otto E. Laske at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, and at the Etnomusikologisch Centrum Jaap Kunst (ECJK) at the University of Amsterdam.
In 1974 and 1975, he resided in the United States to study computer music, and traveled to various states to conduct interviews with American composers which resulted in the book Desert Plants (1976). From 1977 to 1984, he founded the Beginner Studio in a loft in Cologne, where contemporary music concerts were held regularly. He taught composition at the Conservatory of Liège (1980–1984), and he was frequently invited abroad: to the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, the ESMUC in Barcelona, the Juilliard School in New York, and Cornell University in Ithaca. Walter Zimmermann taught composition at the Berlin University of the Arts from 1993 to 2014.
His works span all genres and repertoires and have earned him various distinctions, such as the City of Cologne Prize, the Residency at Villa Massimo (Rome) in 1987, the Prix Italia in 1988 for Die Blinden, and the Schneider-Schott Music Prize in 1989. In 2006 he was appointed a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Walter Zimmermann is also the author of publications on the music of John Cage and Morton Feldman, on the philosophy of Novalis and Wittgenstein, and of a manual by Liu Han Wen on Chan Mi Qi Gong technique.
His complete works are published by Verlag Neue Musik Berlin. Comments, essays on his work, and recordings of his music can be found www.beginner-press.de.
Julia Rebekka Adler, winner of the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Prize, studied with Kim Kashkashian, Johannes Lüthy, Wolfram Christ, Christoph Poppen, Walter Levin, Yuri Bashmet, and Hartmut Rohde, among others. She is a former member of the Kuss Quartet and the Ensemble Viardot, a founding member of the Berlin Soloists Octet, and served for many years as deputy principal violist with the Munich Philharmonic. Her musical partners include pianists José Gallardo and Jascha Nemtsov, with whom she discovers forgotten works by Jewish composers. Her repertoire covers a wide musical spectrum, which is reflected in her internationally acclaimed CDs; these recordings range from classical viola concertos, the solo sonatas of Mieczysław Weinberg, discoveries from the hand of forgotten composers, to the tangos of Astor Piazzolla.
In addition to the viola, she plays the viola d’amore and has studied historical performance practice of Baroque music with Reinhard Göbel, among others. Her openness to contemporary music has led to numerous world premieres, including works by composers such as Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Marc Sabat, Gerald Eckart, Johannes Schöllhorn, Favio Daiban, Pablo Aguirre, Eva Sindichakis, Wilfried Hiller, Max Beckschäfer, Dorothea Hofmann, David Loeb, Gerardo Gandini, and Walter Zimmermann.
www.julia-rebekka-brembeck-adler.de
More information
Catalogue number: NEOS 12604
EAN: 4260063126048
