Saariaho / Ensemble Musikfabrik - Sturm [CD]

Stormy sounds of widely varying "wind quality" blow through the pieces on the new release by Edition Musikfabrik. In Steffen Schleiermacher's Das Tosen des staunenden Echos (The roar of the amazed echo) the paradox of a "roaring stillness" unfolds in a kind of cantus firmus - echoing ritual recitations from Laos - which meanders amongst the various instruments and moves towards it's finale with sonic force. Kaija Saariaho's storm references are more literary in nature: Shakespeare's play The Tempest serves as a backdrop for her Songbook of the same name and provides the lyrics for the pieces sung finely nuanced by Olivia Vermeulen and Peter Schöne. In antagonisme contrôlé, by Michael Wertmüller, the storm takes place in the formal structure of the work, where the different temperatures of free jazz and new music collide: Peter Brötzmann - on of the leading free jazz-artists today - together with Ensemble Musikfabrik's percussionist, Dirk Rothbrust, on drumset and Marino Pliakas on e-bass create a high pressure system to face the headwind of the full ensemble. The booklet poster shows Gerhard Richter's Red-Blue-Yellow from 1973, which artistically comments on the thematic bundling of the programme from the highlights of the series "Musikfabrik i'm WDR". Richter has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.