Friedrich Jaecker: Paradis

Zähl, Jovita; Kölner Kammerchor; pianoduo elaeis; Ostrzyga, Michael; Kronbichler, Philipp

Friedrich Jaecker studied with György Ligeti at the Hochschüle für Musik in Cologne. Jaecker is deeply expert in the music of Feldman and Scelsi, both of whom influence his music. American composer and instrument builder Harry Partch developed a system of just intonation, in which the exact tuning of spectral sounds and their inversions are made possible. In the composition Harry’s Dream, each of the thirty-three musicians is responsible for a single note to be played on a tuned wine glass. Each glass — tuned precisely to the (microtonal) cent — helps to build a tremendous “glass harp,” in which the listener is enveloped by a mass of sounds, moving from dense to transparent, from fast to slow. The glass tones change as the musicians are intermittently asked to hum and sing, contributing additional colors and intensity in the overall sound. The cosmic theme, the just intonation and the unique instrumentation of Harry’s Dream, offers a complete contrast to the intimacy portrayed in Bagatellen & Studien, written for solo piano—the father of all well tempered instruments. Composed between 2007 and 2012, each of the twenty-four miniatures represents its own unique, pointed style. In their short, sketchy lightness, the musical ideas evolve as quickly as they are presented. The contrasting profile of the Bagatelles and Studies — compared to Preludes and Fugues — becomes especially clear if they are alternately performed by two pianists at two pianos, as they are presented on this recording. The composition paradis (paradise), written in 2013, unites both instruments, forming a delicate array of sounds mostly within the pianos’ upper octaves. The composition is extremely thinned out —even to the point that only a single canonic line often remains. Even the sound of the hardly noticed or graciously tolerated piano hammers even play an important role in the composition.

Price: $27.98

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