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Beyond Time - Zurich Ensemble

Beyond Time - Zurich Ensemble

Ars Produktion  ARS 38 205

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Chamber


Fabian Müller: Am Anfang - Drei Versuchen die Welt zu Erfinden
Volker David Kirchner: Exil
Olivier Messiaen: Quatour pour la Fin du Temps

Zurich Ensemble


After a first recording with works that were specifically arranged for the ensemble’s unusual combination of instruments - clarinet, violin, cello and piano - the Zurich Ensemble chose to record a programme featuring composers of three different generations, with each work touching upon a different aspect of existence. Each of the selected works has its roots in lived experience while at the same time offering universal, timeless truths. Fabian Müller’s Am Anfang (In the Beginning) is a musical rendering of creation myths and of "attempts at inventing the world" by author Tim Krohn. Exil by Volker David Kirchner deals with questions of individual isolation as well as internal and external emigration. Although written in dire circumstances, the Zurich Ensemble conceives of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps as an uplifting work, leading into the light of salvation and hope.

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Review by Adrian Quanjer - June 29, 2016

People who think that the Swiss are all happy yodelers in lederhosen, may know something about stereotyped culture, but very little about musically educated Swiss, because Switzerland is an extraordinary and fascinating melting pot, or should I say: meeting point, of German, French and Italian musical heritage, of which we have here yet another fine example. The programme assembled here under the heading ‘beyond time’, brings together three generations of French, German and Swiss composers in their pursuit of basic questions about existentialism which couldn’t be farther away from yodeling and rodeling in the Swiss mountains.

The intellectual starting point is Fabian Müller’s world premiere recording ‘Am Anfang : Drei Versuche die Welt zu erfinden‘ (the beginning; three attempts to invent the world) for soprano and ‘ensemble’ (originally for soprano, strings and harpsichord), based on texts from Tim Krohn, which are in turn derived from mostly humorous folk myths about how the world came into being, or, in religious terms: The Creation. The vocal part is half spoken, half sung and for those who do not understand German, it is unfortunate that no text with English translation is provided in the accompanying booklet. But even without, the three ‘Ad libitum’ parts will not fail to impress the listener with hints of Anton Webern’s atonality and Kurt Weil’s style of singing, carrying nonetheless Müller’s own, personal stamp.

Taken at face value, or rather: ‘ear’ value, the interpretation is extremely well put in perspective by the members of The Zurich Ensemble: Especially the varying balances between the instrumentalists and the soprano, whose well controlled voice is clear and pervasive. The music is not only impressive, but also superbly captured and most enticingly recorded by ARS-Produktion

Volker David Kirchner is probably best known for his stage music. But his oeuvre stretches out much wider, notably with numerous works for chamber ensembles. In ‘Exil’ Kirchner seeks to examine various feelings of isolation, and of ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ immigration, as he puts it. Composed in 1994/5 it has not lost any of its topicality. Xenophobia seems on the rise in many parts of the globe. In the second movement ‘Turning away, Blues tempo’ Kirchner takes Miles Davis and his music as an example, “… because music - and the black music in general – is a music of emigration, symbolic of the condition of being in the diaspora within one’s own country”.

In contrast with the rather disturbing outer movements, the three central parts are mostly introvert and written with apparent simple and transparent lines. The score is nonetheless particularly demanding for the musicians, acquitting themselves with mastery from their task. In the mind of Kirchner the music is meant “to contemplate a problem”, in which ambition he succeeds, as far as I’m concerned, convincingly well.

The major work on this disk is Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Quatuor pour la fin du temps’ (Quartet for the End of Time), composed around 1941 while he was captured as a POW and confined in a Nazi-German camp close to the now Polish border. It is scored for the unusual combination of clarinet, violin, cello and piano, being the only instruments then and there available. Under the prevailing circumstances Messiaen must have associated his internment with the end of times: “…But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, …”. (Revelation 10:7)

Many recorded versions exist, but in high resolution there is only one other recording available: Messiaen: Chamber Works - Hebrides Ensemble , in 2008 positively reviewed by John Broggio. This one is different in that it highlights the fatality of the matter perhaps more clearly than the Hebrides Ensemble does, expressing at the same time a positive promise of life after death. That said I would find it difficult to choose between one and the other.

In both versions the clarinet solo part (third movement) - which is, in effect, the first part composed (only a clarinet was then available) - is breathtaking. Fabio di Casola shows his craftsmanship in handling the multiple changes in volume and intensity, sometimes ‘coming out of nothing’, demanding the highest degree of breathing techniques, without the slightest mistake. And the birds do sing in the ‘intermède’. The final movement ‘Louange à l’immortalité de Jézus, marked ‘infiniment lent’, demanding exemplary ‘justesse’, comes off quite well, but could, in my view, have been played a trifle slower than The Zurich Ensemble does. But in view of the overall excellent performance this is only a minor quibble.

Summing it up: This is clearly not music for the occasional listener, hoping to find melodious stuff; this is for the intellectual who likes to discover new avenues like in Müller’s and Kirchner’s compositions, whilst having the patience to absorb the music and, last but not least, the mystical magic of Messiaen to its fullest extent.

The players of The Zurich Ensemble are obviously all competent in their own department and I have no hesitation to recommend this disk for any discerning music lover prepared to go the extra mile.

Blangy-le-Château,
Normandy, France

Copyright © 2016 Adrian Quanjer and HRAudio.net

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