DOMINIQUE SCHAFER Vers une présence réelle … ensemble proton bern Matthias Kuhn Dominique Schafer (*1967) 1 Vers une présence réelle… (2014) ensemble proton bern 2 Bettina Berger bass flute for ensemble 14:56 1 4 6 Julie Brunet-Jailly flute, alto flute, piccolo 1 6 Martin Bliggenstorfer oboe, lupophone 2 Cendre (2008/2015 rev) 1 3 4 5 6 Richard Haynes clarinet, bass clarinet 6 Elise Jacoberger contraforte for bass flute and eight-channel 1 Aleš Klančar trumpet live-electronics (stereo mix) 08:40 1 6 Vera Schnider harp 1 3 4 6 Samuel Fried piano 4 Bastian Pfefferli percussion 3 Anima (2012) 1 3 4 6 Maximilian Haft violin quintet for clarinet, violin, viola, 1 3 Laurent Camatte viola 1 3 4 6 Jan-Filip Ťupa violoncello violoncello, and piano 10:42 1 3 4 6 Matthias Kuhn conductor 2 Leandro Gianini electronics 4 Fluchtpunkte (2002) sextet for flute, clarinet, violin, Recording dates: 1 4 May 2018 2 violoncello, percussion, and piano 09:58 13 Feb 2018 3 – 4 29 May 2018 5 28 May 2018 5 Ringwood (2018) 6 3 May 2018 Recording venues: SRF Radiostudio Zurich (Studio 1), Zurich, Switzerland for clarinet and live-electronics 07:58 Producer: Dominique Schafer Recording engineer, editing, mastering: Andreas Werner, Silencium Musikproduktion 6 INFR-A-KTION (2018) Publisher: Dominique Schafer for lupophone, contraforte, Graphic design: paladino media, cover based on Artwork by Enrique Fuentes (Ojo_Peyote, 2015) and six instruments 13:49 TT 66:05 ensemble proton bern Matthias Kuhn Mit Unterstützung von: Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung 2 © Mu-Xuan Lin Dominique Schafer Vers une présence réelle … This question arose again and again whilst sically fully integrated and are never real- listening to the music of Dominique Scha- ly independent, but at times take on a de- fer. Certainly, the composer (as explained gree of autonomy, interact and culminate in his programme notes) may have de- at various points as a mixed ensemble. The rived inspiration from multifarious sources work unfolds within several large arches, and yet it’s actually the tones themselves incorporating ideas of fleeting moments that tell a story in a wholly concrete and that return again in transformed versions. present sense: in facts and contradictions, The piece takes its idea from the transient in single and multi-layeredness, with son- quality of consciousness and the hazy per- ic character from which form evolves and ception of our senses that intermittently makes itself comprehensible, in that one form into a clear awakening, either within listens attentively to the sounds and their a short interval or over a long arch of time. What is a tone? qualities, thus creating a narrative. It evolves into a dynamic interplay of op- posites, which eventually develops inde- In regards to the many developments in The title of the first work on this CD, Vers pendently.” contemporary classical music, this might une présence réelle…, may appear in a be a strange and even pointless question. sense almost programmatic. The tones are An independent development – what does Has the idea of tone not been dissolved sound; they do not represent something this mean in terms of tones? The work’s long ago? In embellishments, tremblings else, not emotions nor content, they are opening gives us a hint: a cluster forma- and fragmentations, in intonational fluc- themselves and from them emerges the tion around a quarter-tone flat D5, set in tuations and microtonalisms, in spectral music. This 2014 nonet, commissioned rhythmic unison and wandering across the sounds and multiphonics, in pitch clus- by ensemble proton bern and premiered entire ensemble as it transforms and ex- ters, in live electronic processing and spa- at the Dampfzentrale Bern is comprised pands. Cut: whilst the wind trio continues tialisation, in the spectrum of sound from of three trio layers: a classical piano trio, with the same gesture, the “Debussy” trio integrally noisy to almost inaudible? Can a “Debussy” trio of flute, viola and harp starts dissolving into arpeggios. The pia- tone still be the starting point for a com- and a non-standard trio of oboe, clarinet/ no rebuts with block-like clusters that start position? Is there a narrative to be built bass clarinet and trumpet. It is out of this to interrupt the music’s flow, this tension through tone, beyond purely arithmetic instrumentation, writes Schafer, that the causing the following passages to devel- tonal sequences? work evolved: “The three groups are mu- op: the repeated block-like attacks coun- 4 tered by fluid meanderings appearing as Thus arise in exemplary fashion escalations Cendre, Ringwood states of matter, juxtaposed but also mud- and disruptions or in short, the form. From dled so that the ear risks losing its orienta- detail such as the alteration of a sound, the Two of the pieces are similar in terms of tion. In this way, the music plays with blur- entirety grows whilst not tying itself to a combining a solo instrument with elec- riness and lucidity. Time and again it gets formula. The music is wholly present – a tronics: Cendre and Ringwood. The first, lost in complex polyphony (even though present presence if you will – and there- composed in 2007/8 for bass flute and complexity here is not an end in itself), fore coalesces in a coda of consolidation eight-channel electronics, harks back to stumbles over earth and rock in repetitive and exhaustion. The awareness of form in one of Schafer’s older works, Ashes in the obsession, or extends outward into some- this music is strong but it originates in the Air for tenor recorder and electronics. Orig- thing more two-dimensional. The mu- present. inally it was supposed to be only an ad- sic focusses, solidifies and even quietens aptation, but then the piece continued to at points, several times at least. Singular Sounds, tones in dialogue. Philosopher Jo- develop on its own, and the English ash- pitches penetrate the foreground, such as hann Wilhelm Ritter once wrote: “sounds es became the French cendre. Ash, a sym- a “regular” tone emanating from the trum- are beings that understand one another.” bol of the transience of physical existence pet around 03:00 that immediately draws This sentence in particular comes to mind, remained, characteristically fragile and all attention to itself, only to be devoured his work having been rediscovered and impermanent. At the same time, ash (ac- by the ensuing sonic vortex. This process frequently quoted by Swiss composer Ro- cording to Schafer) has the potential to be- becomes clearest around 09:00, howev- land Moser. Nevertheless, I would venture come ground for something new. In fact, er during a section of rhythmic unison: to modify it in light of Schafer’s music: this an “ashen” sound opens the piece, consist- it leads to a break in the music following supposed “understanding” is rather contra- ing of almost only air. One imagines hear- the preceding build-up and general pause. dictory. Not only do the sounds exhibit an ing the wood, air flowing through it, able A window opens in our perception. In the understanding, but they also deviate, pur- to be blown away, fleeting. And so the flute Theory of Figures, an approach to analys- sue new ideas, contradict one another, be- part develops. Its counterparts are the sus- ing music particularly from the Baroque have in a rebellious if not stubborn man- tained sounds of the live electronics, some period, the term “Noema” denotes such ner, in refusal and reconciliation, to use of which correspond to those of the flute: a an instance: a moment in music that alters the provisional metaphor of language. Of continuo layer that eventually dies down at and redefines the compositional structure course Schafer’s music does not follow a the end, while the flute still happens upon radically, uniquely and insularly. linguistic ductus, but a purely musical one: its final melodious gestures. it works well without associative text. 5 “The bass flute is processed through an direction. The title refers to a mineral, ring- of the ringwoodite: it contains hydroxide eight-channel projection to extend space woodite, which was formed under high ions, hydrogen atoms that are bound to and timbre. The live sound of the instru- pressure at depths between 525 to 660km oxygen atoms. “This suggests that the ma- ment and sampled sounds are simultane- within the Earth’s mantle. “Many aspects of terial, as it exists in the Earth’s mantle, con- ously treated by the electronics, allowing ringwoodite are intriguing and led to the tains huge amounts of water, more than the instrumentalist to remain in constant material becoming an inspiration for this the world’s oceans. This means ringwood- interaction with the electronics while per- musical work. Its color has a radiant deep ite is in essence a crystalline structure forming a virtuosic flute part. The flute is blue and sometimes even violet appear- that contains a liquid element, an analo- spatially processed and dynamically trans- ance. It is a material that can exist in many gy that plays a role in this work’s interac- formed through the change of various pa- crystalline structures and is therefore con- tion with the electronics. The electronics rameters cued by the performer. This pro- sidered polymorphous. Similarly, the clar- process and interact with the sound of the cessed sound simultaneously enhances inet’s musical material is often shaped in clarinet, in a sense they ‘extract’ attributes and dissolves the identity of the instru- rigid structures, sequences of multipho- found within the sonic texture of the clar- ment within a spatialised soundscape.” nics, and frozen pitch structures.” inet, rearrange it, and reform its ‘liquefied’ contents.” The eight loudspeakers are located around And that’s how the piece develops: a mul- the audience.