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KAI 15100CD
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"Friedrich Cerha, whose monumental Spiegel cycle and his completion of Alban Berg's Lulu have secured him a place amongst the most eminent composers of our time, celebrates his 95th birthday on 17 February 2021. This album presents two of his lesser known very typical Viennese works, featuring chansonnier HK Gruber. While somehow in the tradition of the local music played at the Heurigen, both pieces dig deep into the musical and spiritual soul of Vienna's folk and art music. This extraordinary album celebrates an extraordinary composer who has been a KAIROS artist since the label's beginning. The album also marks the 100th release since KAIROS joined the paladino label group, thus making it a double Viennese celebration." Performed by: HK Gruber & Ensemble die reihe, Friedrich Cerha
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NEOS 10921CD
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2012 release. György Ligeti once claimed that he was not a minimalist, but a maximalist. It is thus no coincidence that this rigorous genius had a high opinion of his fellow-composer Friedrich Cerha. Nor is it a coincidence that Ligeti called him a "master of Viennese understatement". Cerha, too, embraced his art with the uncompromising earnestness that has always distinguished the Viennese avant-garde, particularly in his confrontation with the city's intrigue-ridden traditionalism. Yet he has no magnetic flair, being neither an artistic missionary nor an unalloyed genius of the German stamp. Instead, his music is typified by a subliminal, proliferating web of musical events, uninhibited in the Viennese manner and thoroughly profound, but of intransigent radicality. Featured works: Five Pieces for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, performed by Arcus Ensemble Wien; Eight Bagatelles for Clarinet and Piano performed by Andreas Schablas (clarinet) and Janna Polyzoides (piano); Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, performed by Hugo Wolf Quartett.
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NEOS 11217CD
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2012 release. "String Quartet No. 3" (1991/92): One feature of my artistic development has been to continually probe new areas of the imagination in some of my works and to integrate my discoveries as organically as possible into my previous experiences. My "String Quartet No. 3" unquestionably belongs to the latter phase. The elements of non-European music that occupied me in many different ways in my first two quartets play a subordinate role in this one. It consists of six brief movements in which everything is aligned on a sharp, clear delineation of sometimes highly contrasting characters, and on a concise presentation of the music, which is often highly expressive. "String Quartet No. 4" (2001): If the six movements of my "String Quartet No. 3," despite their intricacy, formed self-contained entities with identifying characters, the "String Quartet No. 4," though it likewise has sections of contrast, has so many cross-relations from reminiscences, allusions and reprises that the overall impression is one of a cohesive organism. "Eight Movements after Hölderlin Fragments" for String Sextet (1995): In 1994, I repeatedly read the complete Hölderlin and jotted down many speech-melodies from the verses. Because I never intended the texts to be sung, I put the melodies into increasingly stylised music. The commission to write a string sextet initially led me to the idea of developing the musical fabric directly from the lilt of the language. But this procedure soon proved to be too narrow, and I returned to my speech-melodies and expanded on them in a very free and highly stylised way, except in the final movement, which, in its monomaniacal bearing, is entirely independent of the inflection of the text. Performed by: Frank Stadler (1st violin), Izso Bajusz (2nd violin), Predrag Katanic (viola), Peter Sigl (violoncello), Ulrike Jaeger (viola), Sebestyen Ludmány (violoncello).
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