Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970)

Started by bhodges, March 11, 2008, 11:37:27 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

springrite

#20
I would love to have a recording of Requiem for a Young Poet, if only because I love the poetry and I have several of my poet friends die very young, including by suicide (or murder suicide in one case). I missed Gielen's NY performance by one day as I arrived in NY the day AFTER the last performance in 1998 (or so?).

Of the works I have heard, Soldaten is a clear favorite, although I'd say I loved them all.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

MDL

I've got the two previous recordings of Requiem for a Poet. I wasn't going to bother with the latest recording (Kontarsky on Cybele, a label I've never heard of), but it's got some fantastic reviews, so I might be persuaded. Has anyone heard it and is it really that much better than or different to the Gielen (Sony) and Bertini (Wergo) recordings?

some guy

And now I want to get the Gielen and the Bertini. (I have only the Kontarsky, and I think it's fantastic.)

Cybele, just by the way, is pretty fantastic, too. I have many CDs from them, mostly from their electroacoustic series.

MDL

Quote from: some guy on June 04, 2009, 01:05:02 AM
Cybele, just by the way, is pretty fantastic, too. I have many CDs from them, mostly from their electroacoustic series.

I'm a bit of a modern music geek, so I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never heard of this label until now. What composers are featured in their electroacoustic series? (By the way, at least one review of the Requiem was pretty ecstatic about the quality of the CD packaging and presentation; is that something common for this label?)

Superhorn

   Correction:  Zimmermann was born in 1918, not 1915.

bhodges

Quote from: Superhorn on June 04, 2009, 07:45:04 AM
   Correction:  Zimmermann was born in 1918, not 1915.

Thank you!  Corrected...

--Bruce

snyprrr

I liked the remark about the sym. in einem satz being 14min of hot flowing lava, a la Ruggles.

Is it different than the Violin Cto., which, so far, I find nothing in?

Still, what about that solo cello sonata?

snyprrr

It's sad when I'm the last to reply to my own reply, haha, but I need some love for Zimmermann. :'( :-* :'(

MDL

Yes, poor somewhat neglected Zimmermann.

He doesn't feature much in concerts in the UK. ENO did a splendid Soldaten well over a decade ago and I think he's cropped up in the occasional concert. But what we could do with is one of the Barbican's Total Immersion days dedicated to BAZ. Their Stockhausen and Xenakis TI days last year were really enjoyable, and Zimmermann would be well served by that kind of format.

Dax

Two wonderful pieces of Zimmermann

1 - Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu
2 - 2nd cello concerto ("pas du trois")

petrarch

#30
Quote from: MDL on June 03, 2009, 11:11:13 PM
I've got the two previous recordings of Requiem for a Poet. I wasn't going to bother with the latest recording (Kontarsky on Cybele, a label I've never heard of), but it's got some fantastic reviews, so I might be persuaded. Has anyone heard it and is it really that much better than or different to the Gielen (Sony) and Bertini (Wergo) recordings?

It's quite a recording; personal friend and composer João Rafael did the klangregie for it and he did spend an inordinate amount of time getting it just right (he also has some other well-known recordings under his belt, such as Xenakis' Persepolis on Fractal and some of Stockhausen's on the Verlag).

Correction: I misremembered the details of a photo of a concert of Mixtur on that CD where he is credited with sound direction, but that isn't related to the recording.
//p
The music collection.
The hi-fi system: Esoteric X-03SE -> Pathos Logos -> Analysis Audio Amphitryon.
A view of the whole

snyprrr

I just found the motherlode of videos on youtube. The Stille und.. piece was really impressive, as was Photopsis. He definitely cultivated a very paranoid, double-agent, Silent Spring type of modern pollution 1960s brooding e-f-e-f semitone stuff. Honestly, after hearing this, I'm tempted to call Nono a plagarist!

MDL

Quote from: petrArch on April 03, 2010, 08:14:33 AM
It's quite a recording; personal friend and composer João Rafael did the klangregie for it and he did spend an inordinate amount of time getting it just right (he also has some other well-known recordings under his belt, such as Xenakis' Persepolis on Fractal and some of Stockhausen's on the Verlag).

Correction: I misremembered the details of a photo of a concert of Mixtur on that CD where he is credited with sound direction, but that isn't related to the recording.

Well, say thanks to your friend. I bought this CD a few months ago (from Harold Moores in Soho - I never miss a chance to give that shop a plug) and it's hugely impressive. I wish I had an SACD player so I could hear it in surroundsound, mind. That must be amazing. Beautiful art design and incredibly helpful notes, too. A stunner.

MDL

Quote from: snyprrr on April 07, 2010, 09:01:21 PM
I just found the motherlode of videos on youtube. The Stille und.. piece was really impressive, as was Photopsis. He definitely cultivated a very paranoid, double-agent, Silent Spring type of modern pollution 1960s brooding e-f-e-f semitone stuff. Honestly, after hearing this, I'm tempted to call Nono a plagarist!

Thanks for drawing my attention to this. How the hell am I going to get any work done now?!?!?  ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j94tt0lwknQ


snyprrr

I now have what appears to be the four requisite BAZ recordings, other than the two big works:

1) Music for Violincello and Piano (Bach/Wambach- Koch)
2) The DG disc: Perspectives, Presence, Intercommunicazione, Monologue
3) The Philips disc: Schiff, Holliger, Hardenberger concertos
4) The CPO/Zender disc: incl. Photoptosis, Impromptu, Pas d..., Antiphon

This seems to include most of his best work. There really is a lot of different stuff going on here, and I've certainly not really made a dent in really getting into the BAZ.

One thing I've enjoyed in the Impromptu, which appears to be an uncredited double-bass concerto, which sounds to me like it has an electric bass also, which is also what I hear in the really wild, second cello concerto from the '60s (wonder what Guido thinks of this). BAZ just has some funky sounds that it seems I've only heard from bad '60s movies (that sort of jazzy/ electric thing).

I don't think I 'got' the piano trio, Presence, but, the playing by Kontarsky, Palm, and Gawriloff is searing, man. The same goes for the two-piano pieces. It will be interesting to compare them with Boulez and Ligeti.

I still don't understand BAZ's take on 'Post Modernism', or, the collage effect, or 'integrationism', where snippets of normal music rub shoudlers with the High Moderism. But, he's certainly a most deeply felt persona, elusive, and I look forward to more understanding.

mjwal

I agree with most of the recommendations here - would only disagree about the cpo Zender Photoptosis, which I find a bit muddily recorded compared with the col legno recording by Kontarsky (including Dialoge, Monologe and Perspektiven - and I found the Zender performance (not sound-wise) on Wergo LP with the Berlin RSO (+"Pas de trois" cello concerto w/Palm) the most exciting of the three.
It's fascinating to hear the earlier works, like the various 1949-51 piano pieces played by Tiny Wirtz on an LP and orchestral works on the Wergo CD 3 of their BAZ series. Not to be missed in my opinion is the ECM disc with the sonatas for violin, viola and cello played by Zehetmair, Schiller and Demenga (+ Bach solo cello #2).
Neither the Kontarsky Soldaten on CD nor the DVD from the Ruhr-Triennale quite build up the tension and then crush you with those tramping march sounds at the end in the way that Gielen did in Frankfurt back in the 70s (can't check date as my programmes are in Berlin). I am very happy, if that is the word, with the Bertini Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (interesting that both Gielen and (then) Bertini were chief conductors at the Frankfurt opera). As you were talking about his quotation technique, it is also vital to note that the title of the latter work alludes to a very famous poem by Rilke, the Requiem for Graf Kalkreuth, a young poet who committed suicide: it ends with the emblematic words "Wer spricht von Siegen? Überstehn ist alles," (Who speaks of victory? To endure is all) - ironic considering Z's own Freitod. The quotation/collage practice has to be seen in terms of Z's theory of the spherical shape of time, which in Photoptosis, for example, means that the fragments of Western music are meant to be heard as oscillating within the echoic "sphere" of time. There is of course a whole lot of academic discussion of this - the best way of accessing such thoughts might be to read the philosophy of Jean Gebser. There is a whole book on line on the subject of BAZ's Requiem, thanks to Google, if you read German :
http://books.google.fr/books?id=KEffeHaN-EYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bernd+Alois+Zimmermans+Requiem+f%C3%BCr+einen+jungen+Dichter++Par+J%C3%B6rn+Peter+Hiekel&source=bl&ots=S6ZeSuhtXt&sig=d_hYo-_X9px8cUG4pujqKVzJybY&hl=fr&ei=lnk0TKv1NsXFsgaCrOjOAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Violin's Obstinacy

It needs to return to this one note,
not a tune and not a key
but the sound of self it must depart from,
a journey lengthily to go
in a vein it knows will cripple it.
...
Peter Porter

snyprrr

Quote from: mjwal on July 07, 2010, 05:00:28 AM
I agree with most of the recommendations here - would only disagree about the cpo Zender Photoptosis, which I find a bit muddily recorded compared with the col legno recording by Kontarsky (including Dialoge, Monologe and Perspektiven - and I found the Zender performance (not sound-wise) on Wergo LP with the Berlin RSO (+"Pas de trois" cello concerto w/Palm) the most exciting of the three.
It's fascinating to hear the earlier works, like the various 1949-51 piano pieces played by Tiny Wirtz on an LP and orchestral works on the Wergo CD 3 of their BAZ series. Not to be missed in my opinion is the ECM disc with the sonatas for violin, viola and cello played by Zehetmair, Schiller and Demenga (+ Bach solo cello #2).
Neither the Kontarsky Soldaten on CD nor the DVD from the Ruhr-Triennale quite build up the tension and then crush you with those tramping march sounds at the end in the way that Gielen did in Frankfurt back in the 70s (can't check date as my programmes are in Berlin). I am very happy, if that is the word, with the Bertini Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (interesting that both Gielen and (then) Bertini were chief conductors at the Frankfurt opera). As you were talking about his quotation technique, it is also vital to note that the title of the latter work alludes to a very famous poem by Rilke, the Requiem for Graf Kalkreuth, a young poet who committed suicide: it ends with the emblematic words "Wer spricht von Siegen? Überstehn ist alles," (Who speaks of victory? To endure is all) - ironic considering Z's own Freitod. The quotation/collage practice has to be seen in terms of Z's theory of the spherical shape of time, which in Photoptosis, for example, means that the fragments of Western music are meant to be heard as oscillating within the echoic "sphere" of time. There is of course a whole lot of academic discussion of this - the best way of accessing such thoughts might be to read the philosophy of Jean Gebser. There is a whole book on line on the subject of BAZ's Requiem, thanks to Google, if you read German :
http://books.google.fr/books?id=KEffeHaN-EYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bernd+Alois+Zimmermans+Requiem+f%C3%BCr+einen+jungen+Dichter++Par+J%C3%B6rn+Peter+Hiekel&source=bl&ots=S6ZeSuhtXt&sig=d_hYo-_X9px8cUG4pujqKVzJybY&hl=fr&ei=lnk0TKv1NsXFsgaCrOjOAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

That Tiny Wirtz cd is hard to get, but doable.

It's all the stuff you're talking about that I'm probably not musically educated enough to hear, the 'quotations' that maybe are winkingly constructed, that I probably don't recognize. I CAN hear the obvious, but I'm sure there are a lot of allusions that I'm missing.

Very thought provoking, though.

Perhaps I can understand the oboe and trumpet concertos better, since their contradictions seem to be more obvious (classical vs. jazz, for instance). But, I will settle in for some deeper listening in the other works.

Is there a recording of Stille und Umkehr?

mjwal

I have 2: one by Metzmacher on Who is afraid of 20th century music? - The millennium concert (EMI), which may be very expensive now. The other one (that I know) is in RCA's Musik in Deutschland  1950-2000 series, which are usually available quite cheaply singly - it's a CD under the rubric Klangkomposition and also includes Ligeti's Lontano, Lachenmann's Notturno, Schenker's Landschaften, Rihm's Départ and Goldmann's Klangszenen - in other words, one of the best of that series, maybe even the best. But I see on Amazon.de that it has become very expensive (groan) - and there is only one (1) second-hand copy at € 4,70 here:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listing/B00004S4OK/ref=sr_1_16_olp?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1278512430&sr=1-16&condition=used
I don't claim to "hear" or understand all the theoretical aspects of Z's music either - but I don't think the allusions are meant to be a guessing game, more like fragments embedded in a multi-dimensional continuum. Go with the flow, is always my advice with new music, picking up a few ideas on the way of course.
The Violin's Obstinacy

It needs to return to this one note,
not a tune and not a key
but the sound of self it must depart from,
a journey lengthily to go
in a vein it knows will cripple it.
...
Peter Porter

snyprrr

FOUR YEARS????????? >:D >:D >:D >:D

How about we rediscover the Generation of Lost German Composers before we... well, I'll stop,... just want to get all political today for some reason...

May I recommend the Concerto in the form of a pas de deui for cello? So... so Modern, so otherwoldly, just listen to the alien language of the opening, like a garden with exotic plants, so much attention to detail, such surface activity,...

I"'m comin' to save ya Bernie, I'm comin'!!"


snyprrr

Quote from: snyprrr on February 11, 2015, 07:36:19 AM
FOUR YEARS????????? >:D >:D >:D >:D

How about we rediscover the Generation of Lost German Composers before we... well, I'll stop,... just want to get all political today for some reason...

May I recommend the Concerto in the form of a pas de deui for cello? So... so Modern, so otherwoldly, just listen to the alien language of the opening, like a garden with exotic plants, so much attention to detail, such surface activity,...

I"'m comin' to save ya Bernie, I'm comin'!!"

BAZ getting no mucho love on GMG here, oy vey, wt*???


Just re-discovered his 'Requiem for A Young Poet', and it seems to be the cat's meow. The SONY is completely unavailable, but the Wergo (with Bryn-Julson) is. Any comments on these two? I think there's a third too.

And I'm interested in 'Die Soldaten' also, would that be Telarc for the sonics's sake?



There's not much BAZ. iT'S EVEN WORSE THAN WITH bABBITT. whoops... Is there no one here who'll  BAZCHAT?


He really knew how to layer a lot of things going on at once so that everything can be heard.