ORF Viena Radio Symphony Orchestra / Friedrich Cerha EGON WELLESZ Die Opferung des Gefangenen

DIE OPFERUNG DES GEFANGENEN

 

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.”

FRIEDRICH CERHA Bruchstück, geträumt - Neun Bagatellen - Instants

Two things have happened to Cerha's music in more recent years; a conscious avoidance of rigorous structural elaboration of musical ideas in favour of small episodes of 'spontaneous inspiration'; and a decidedly autumnal feel, a sense of time running out. Old habits die hard; the harmonic thinking is still very much that of his beloved Second Viennese School, and the small disparate fragments - such as the very diverse movements that make up the Bagatelles - nonetheless form a convincingly unified whole. Bruchstück is very quiet, static, with bells and the imitation of the ticking of clocks marking the inexorable passage of time. Instants begins in compete stasis, from which a sequence of more active 'moments' of greatly contrasting character - vigorous and motoric; ethereal and calm; echoes of pastoral romanticism from far away - arises. The Bagatelles are strongly differentiated miniature character pieces which form a sequence with a convincing dramatic shape, while each fragment, however brief, has its on internal narrative.

FRIEDRICH CERHA Und du... - Verzeichnis - Für K

Und du... is the main work here, a 1963 commentary and warning about the dangers of the nuclear situation as it then appeared during the Cold War. An ambitious sonic collage, the work weaves together suitably apocalyptic texts, spoken and amplified, with a richly textured orchestral and electronic soundscape, fluid and plastic, devoid of any kind of melodic or rhythmic signposts. The texts are subsumed by the music, which ultimately fades out, to be replaced by an unaccompanied spoken essay on the apparent certainty of a self-imposed end of times (printed in translation in the booklet). Verzeichnis employs a complex collage of vocal styles, from speaking, sprechstimme, conventional singing and extended techniques, as well as the stamping of feet. The text is a list of people executed for witchcraft in Würzburg, and the piece dramatically condemns such arbitrary condemnations and murders. The much more recent Für K was composed for the 70th birthday of sculptor Karl Prantl, and is a good deal less obviously experimental. Metallic sounds suggesting chisel on stone punctuate a busy chain of events - sometimes abstract, sometimes frankly melodic - with constantly changing meter and timbre.