DOMINIQUE SCHAFER Vers une présence réelle … ensemble proton bern Matthias Kuhn © Mu-Xuan Lin © Mu-Xuan 3 DOMINIQUE SCHAFER (*1967) ensemble proton bern 2 Bettina Berger bass flute 1 4 6 Julie Brunet-Jailly flute, alto flute, piccolo 1 6 Martin Bliggenstorfer oboe, lupophone 1 Vers une présence réelle… (2014) 1 3 4 5 6 Richard Haynes clarinet, bass clarinet for ensemble 14:56 6 Elise Jacoberger contraforte 1 Aleš Klančar trumpet 1 6 Vera Schnider harp 2 Cendre (2008/2015 rev) 1 3 4 6 Samuel Fried piano for bass flute and eight-channel 4 Bastian Pfefferli percussion live-electronics (stereo mix) 08:40 1 3 4 6 Maximilian Haft violin 1 3 Laurent Camatte viola 1 3 4 6 Jan-Filip Ťupa violoncello 3 Anima (2012) 1 3 4 6 Matthias Kuhn conductor quintet for clarinet, violin, viola, 2 Leandro Gianini electronics violoncello, and piano 10:42 4 Fluchtpunkte (2002) Recording dates: 1 4 May 2018 sextet for flute, clarinet, violin, 2 13 Feb 2018 violoncello, percussion, and piano 09:58 3 – 4 29 May 2018 5 28 May 2018 6 3 May 2018 5 Ringwood (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 Publisher: Dominique Schafer 6 INFR-A-KTION (2018) Graphic design: paladino media, cover based on Artwork by for lupophone, contraforte, 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 4 5 © Dominique Schafer Vers une présence réelle … The title of the first work on this CD,Vers une présence as states of matter, juxtaposed but also muddled so and frequently quoted by Swiss composer Roland réelle…, may appear in a sense almost programmat- that the ear risks losing its orientation. In this way, Moser. Nevertheless, I would venture to modify it in ic. The tones are sound; they do not represent some- the music plays with blurriness and lucidity. Time and light of Schafer’s music: this supposed “understand- thing else, not emotions nor content, they are them- again it gets lost in complex polyphony (even though ing” is rather contradictory. Not only do the sounds selves and from them emerges the music. This 2014 complexity here is not an end in itself), stumbles over exhibit an understanding, but they also deviate, pur- nonet, commissioned by ensemble proton bern and earth and rock in repetitive obsession, or extends out- sue new ideas, contradict one another, behave in a re- premiered at the Dampfzentrale Bern is comprised ward into something more two-dimensional. The mu- bellious if not stubborn manner, in refusal and recon- of three trio layers: a classical piano trio, a “Debussy” sic focusses, solidifies and even quietens at points, ciliation, to use the provisional metaphor of language. trio of flute, viola and harp and a non-standard trio several times at least. Singular pitches penetrate the Of course Schafer’s music does not follow a linguistic What is a tone? of oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet and trumpet. It is out foreground, such as a “regular” tone emanating from ductus, but a purely musical one: it works well with- of this instrumentation, writes Schafer, that the work the trumpet around 03:00 that immediately draws all out associative text. In regards to the many developments in contempo- evolved: “The three groups are musically fully inte- attention to itself, only to be devoured by the ensuing rary classical music, this might be a strange and even grated and are never really independent, but at times sonic vortex. This process becomes clearest around pointless question. Has the idea of tone not been dis- take on a degree of autonomy, interact and culminate 09:00, however during a section of rhythmic unison: Cendre, Ringwood solved long ago? In embellishments, tremblings and at various points as a mixed ensemble. The work un- it leads to a break in the music following the preced- fragmentations, in intonational fluctuations and mi- folds within several large arches, incorporating ideas ing build-up and general pause. A window opens in Two of the pieces are similar in terms of combining crotonalisms, in spectral sounds and multiphonics, in of fleeting moments that return again in transformed our perception. In the Theory of Figures, an approach a solo instrument with electronics: Cendre and Ring- pitch clusters, in live electronic processing and spa- versions. The piece takes its idea from the transient to analysing music particularly from the Baroque peri- wood. The first, composed in 2007/8 for bass flute and tialisation, in the spectrum of sound from integrally quality of consciousness and the hazy perception of od, the term “Noema” denotes such an instance: a mo- eight-channel electronics, harks back to one of Scha- noisy to almost inaudible? Can tone still be the start- our senses that intermittently form into a clear awak- ment in music that alters and redefines the composi- fer’s older works, Ashes in the Air for tenor recorder and ing point for a composition? Is there a narrative to be ening, either within a short interval or over a long arch tional structure radically, uniquely and insularly. electronics. Originally it was supposed to be only an built through tone, beyond purely arithmetic tonal of time. It evolves into a dynamic interplay of oppo- adaptation, but then the piece continued to develop sequences? sites, which eventually develops independently.” Thus arise in exemplary fashion escalations and dis- on its own, and the English ashes became the French ruptions or in short, the form. From detail such as the cendre. Ash, a symbol of the transience of physical ex- This question arose again and again whilst listening An independent development – what does this mean alteration of a sound, the entirety grows whilst not ty- istence remained, characteristically fragile and imper- to the music of Dominique Schafer. Certainly, the in terms of tones? The work’s opening gives us a hint: ing itself to a formula. The music is wholly present – a manent. At the same time, ash (according to Schafer) composer (as explained in his programme notes) may a cluster formation around a quarter-tone flat D5, set present presence if you will – and therefore coalesces has the potential to become ground for something have derived inspiration from multifarious sources in rhythmic unison and wandering across the entire in a coda of consolidation and exhaustion. The aware- new. In fact, an “ashen” sound opens the piece, consist- and yet it’s actually the tones themselves that tell a ensemble as it transforms and expands. Cut: whilst ness of form in this music is strong but it originates ing of almost only air. One imagines hearing the wood, story in a wholly concrete and present sense: in facts the wind trio continues with the same gesture, the in the present. air flowing through it, able to be blown away, fleeting. and contradictions, in single and multi-layeredness, “Debussy” trio starts dissolving into arpeggios. The And so the flute part develops. Its counterparts are with sonic character from which form evolves and piano rebuts with block-like clusters that start to in- Sounds, tones in dialogue. Philosopher Johann Wil- the sustained sounds of the live electronics, some of makes itself comprehensible, in that one listens at- terrupt the music’s flow, this tension causing the fol- helm Ritter once wrote: “sounds are beings that un- which correspond to those of the flute: a continuo lay- tentively to the sounds and their qualities, thus cre- lowing passages to develop: the repeated block-like derstand one another.” This sentence in particular er that eventually dies down at the end, while the flute ating a narrative. attacks countered by fluid meanderings appearing comes to mind, his work having been rediscovered still happens upon its final melodious gestures. 8 9 “The bass flute is processed through an eight-channel And that’s how the piece develops: a multiphonic is Anima contrasts, the tremors, the ragged movements, the projection to extend space and timbre. The live sound repeated and is promptly opposed by a single clear sustained notes, which swell and rise over a quar- of the instrument and sampled sounds are simultane- tone. Trills and long gestures are added, assembling We encounter another pair of opposites in Anima from ter-tone, the block-like chords etc., a sliding gesture ously treated by the electronics, allowing the instru- the vocabulary of this work and enabling it to unfold. 2012. Dominique Schafer refers to the corresponding can be found, clearly set off with the glissandi at the mentalist to remain in constant interaction with the It is through the exchange of these elements that the term from C.G. Jung’s “Analytical Psychology”. There, very beginning – it is later recognisable, for example, electronics while performing a virtuosic flute part. piece progresses. Sure enough, as soon as one be- Anima is “an archetype that expresses the feminine in descending scales. This gliding becomes the con- The flute is spatially processed and dynamically trans- lieves that one has understood the procedure, the inner personality of a male.” The quintet plays “with stituent element of the form as well. In Anima as well, formed through the change of various parameters electronics get suddenly more involved in the form of the idea of a quality of a work harbouring an oppos- a first climax is reached in the middle, which con- cued by the performer. This processed sound simul- a contrapuntal voice. ing quality within it. The opening material announc- tinues in true polyphony and breaks off after three taneously enhances and dissolves the identity of the es a rather brash and insistent character, gradually, quarters of the piece.