NEW • NOUVEAUTE • NEUHEIT

08/14 (5)

teachers – friends – colleagues Works from Friedrich Goldmann, Reiner Bredemeyer, Siegfried Thiele, Thomas Müller, , Hermann Keller, Knut Müller, Wolfgang Heisig, Nicolaus Richter de Vroe.

Steffen Schleiermacher, piano

1 CD

MDG 613 1858-2

UPC-Code:

Eastern Collection Is there - or was there – an original “East German music”? with his mouth closed” – who here would not think of limited , who grew up in Halle an der Saale freedom of speech? Friedrich Schenker entitled his piano in the former German Democratic Republic, has set out in composition of 1972 “Hommage à .” quest of its traces and selected his traveling companions. Although today this may be difficult to understand as a His teachers from Leipzig and his (East) Berlin study years political statement, Schönberg was regarded as such as Siegfried Thiele, Friedrich Goldmann, and Friedrich “formalistically undesirable” in the East until the mid-1970s. Schenker are among them as well as former and current Bearing this in mind, we may get a latter-day inkling of the friends of his and inspiring artistic personalities such as resolve not to be kept in leading strings by a cultural Reiner Bredemeyer, Hermann Keller, Nikolaus Richter de bureaucracy. Vroe, Knut Müller, and Wolfgang Heisig. The result is a surprisingly rich and varied program thoroughly dispelling a Pianistic Selection number of mistaken notions about the East German music Wolfgang Heisig has gained renown above all for his scene. advocacy of mechanical musical instruments and the music of Conlon Nancarrow. His piano pieces are of amazing Western Connections simplicity: “Schade” consists merely of the tones indicated in For starters, modern music in the German Democratic the title (Es-C-H-A-D-E). And “Leuchtreklame” plays with the Republic was not at all out of touch with the rest of the famous Leipzig “Löffelfamilie” pictured on a neon sign never world. Friedrich Goldmann, a Francophile throughout his life, in 100% working order – which of course is not a political engaged in intensive occupation with the works of Olivier statement! If there is a common denominator behind all the Messiaen and , and his third piano pieces brought together here by Steffen Schleiermacher, composition is an explicit homage to Messiaen. John Cage then it is their high compositional quality – a rewarding left profound traces on the work of Nikolaus Richter de Vroe, encounter! and Thomas Müller saw to it that music by Stockhausen, Kurtág, and Cage was performed – the avant-garde was at Morton Feldman: Violin & Piano the top of the contemporary charts even in the German Andreas Seidel, violin Democratic Republic. Steffen Schleiermacher, piano MDG 613 1524-2 Political Reflections And yet the political element was also always present. For example, when Friedrich Goldmann spoke of an “Idyll with Artefacts Barbed Wire” in his fourth piano composition, the Piano Music of the 50th association with East German border controls was certainly Works from Wolff, Dallapiccola, Wen-Chung, Hauer, not unintentional. Or the playing instructions for Reiner Zimmermann, Dessau, Lutoslawski, G. Berg, Engelmann Bredemeyer’s “Klavierstück 3”: “The player complements, and Ustwolskaja counters, comments on, and synchronizes while humming MDG 613 1821-2

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