Dialogues

ENSARI SCHUCH

German-Turkish artists Gulru Ensari and Herbert Schuch present this album of Monologues by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. The duo writes of this release: “As students we had already been allowed to take a peek inside the Monologues, but we only had access to a couple of photocopied pages. When the 100-year-celebration of Zimmermann’s birth came around, we remembered the impression they had made upon us. When we finally got to see the entire score, however, we took a deep breath: it demands the most incredible acrobatic feats! From the very beginning, we were particularly charmed by the way Zimmermann cites other composers: the quoted passages rise up in the midst of an agitated storm, like islands of tranquility and beauty. The works quoted by Zimmermann are not for piano duo, but we find that they have certain parallels with the other pieces on this recording. The cocky, unpredictable, whimsical aspect of Mozart’s C Major Sonata is also present in Zimmermann. It is fascinating to note how he quotes Debussy’s prelude Feux d’artifice in the 4th and 5th Monologues, thereby transplanting that shimmering French flair into his own musical environment. Debussy, for Zimmermann, is more than just a source for quotes. The frothy, pastel sonorities in the Monologues are so untypically German, so much more beautifully poetic than anywhere else, except in Debussy.”

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