Search - Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Bernhard Kontarsky, Andreas Grau :: Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Dialogue; Monologue; Perspektiven; Photoptosis

Late bloomer,committed to preserve the life of timbre. . . .

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 03/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Zimmermann was a late bloomer,not excessively prolific;You perhaps know his "Die Soldaten" a primary opera within the patrilinear pathway al la Wagner,Berg,Hartmann; he wrote(dabbled at times) in many musical fashions and genres, interested in jazz for a time,utilizing even tunes in his works,also 'assemblage'(tempus loquendi,for multiple flutes,one player) like composition where he simply assembles fragments from Mozart and Stravinsky Messiaen.Also the "indeterminate" had some conceptual longevity within the poast-war avant-garde, the use of proportional notation,graphic, word pieces,and mobile, where the performer can select the path of the music from movement to movement or within a page, systems encircling the page.(Boulez's Thid Piano Sonata being the most sophisticated example).Zimmermann had a real deep committed affinity for the mysteries and power of timbre, pure instrumental colour, "klangfarben melos", and was a brilliant, or became one; a brilliant orchestrator. His structures can be dense at times,a welter of sonic convolutions,walls "screens" of impenetrable timbres, all fusing,co-existing,fomenting,pro-creating together, like some petrified timbral forest. The two works with piano seem tedious to me the "Dialogue" and the "Monologue" any quasi-academic musical form that restricts Zimmermann cannot be useful to him, something he knew quite clearly and he thought of his music as stepping places to other places.He had a wonderful sense of timbre for the piano but as a solo instrument his "Konfigurations" miniatures with piano harmonics are wonderful pieces. Here he doesn't quite come to the same musical terms.

Not till the "Perspektion" do we get his imagination with large array of percussion snarling trombones, and high register strings,strident uncomfortable. The "Photoposis" refers to the condition Zimmerman had endured (which led to his death actually by his own hands) this is where you have incessant "flashings" in the eyes,uncontrollable. The music has this super-charged demeanor about it,sometimes the orchestral canvas is reduced to the winds or strings,direct and clear,other times you cannot feel where the music is taking you."