FRIEDRICH CERHA / FRANZ SCHREKER

As Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich points out in his liner notes, Friedrich Cerha (born 1926 in Vienna) is a musician who has stood above the “schismatic rivalries” of musical modernism, being one of very few composers associated with both streams of Viennese dodecaphony: J.M. Hauer’s on one side, and Schoenberg’s on the other. The post-Schoenberg school is especially indebted to him for his completion of Act 3 of Alban Berg’s “Lulu”. Around the world, the work continues to be performed in Cerha’s version. In 1958 Friedrich Cerha co-founded the ensemble ‘die reihe’ which remained under his direction until 1983 and continues to be a committed force in the cause of contemporary music. Cerha’s orchestral cycle “Spiegel” and his operas “Baal” and “Der Rattenfänger” are amongst his major works.

In 1989 the Wien Modern Festival commissioned a cello concerto from Cerha. The result was “Phantasiestück in C’s Manier”, now the 2nd movement of the present three-movement concerto completed in 1996, in response to a commission from the Berlin Festival. It is a powerful work of concentrated energy and textural density. Cerha notes that “Intricacy and multi-layeredness are characteristic elements of my recent essays in concerto form.” Cerha sets Heinrich Schiff some tough challenges in his journey through the ever-changing symphonic fabric, and brings the solo cello into arresting timbral combinations with unorthodox instrumentation that includes organ, soprano sax and conga drums, as well as more conventional orchestral forces. Jungheinrich: “The point is not so much colouristic effects as rather, in Cerha’s words, the ‘integration of fundamental modes of musical cognition.’”
Friedrich Cerha has been awarded a number of composition prizes, including the Prize of the City of Vienna (1974) and the Great Austrian State prize (1986) - which he donated for performances of works by young composers. In 2006 he was given the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (leone doro alla carriera) of the Biennale di Venezia.
Franz Schreker’s Chamber Symphony in one movement is a richly inventive work in glowing timbres written in the middle of World War I, in 1916, to celebrate the centenary of the Vienna Academy of Music. Schreker (1878-1934) loved sound above all, dreamed of new instruments, and tried to substitute for their absence with compound blendings. “I often hear sounds that can scarcely be realized with existing means”, he admitted. His visions were timbral, biographer Christopher Hailey has noted, “his complex emotional insights captured in the iridescence of his orchestra.” He sought “a dematerialized array of ever-changing colours. No work better captures this sonic ideal than his Chamber Symphony…Its shimmering opening, in which first the flute, then the violins float above the aural mists of celesta, harmonium, piano and harp, is music of otherworldly magic.”