|
Aus dem
Booklet:
"Entre deux guerres" erhebt den Anspruch, politische
Musik zu sein. Wie löst Eichmanns Komposition diesen Anspruch
musikalisch ein, wo doch keinerlei Texte gesungen oder gesprochen
werden? Auch die Zeiten, in denen Komponisten Märsche spielen
oder Kanonen donnern lassen konnten, sind vorbei, Lautmalerei
verbietet sich aufgrund ihrer Plattheit von selbst, und den
Klang einer Sirene musikalisch nachzuahmen, kann bestenfalls
Heiterkeit erzeugen.
Das
Hauptmittel Eichmanns ist die äußerste Radikalisierung
und Konzentration der musikalischen Sprache. Es gibt nichts
Versöhnliches mehr in dieser Musik, es gibt keine Kompromisse,
keine Wiederholungen, keine Zitate, nichts, das irgendein Klischee
bediente, nichts, das ans Sentimentale oder Pathetische appellierte,
nichts, das nicht immer wieder neu wäre (ganz anders als
etwa in Schostakowitschs 7. Symphonie, in welcher der Krieg
als eine große, sich um die eigene Achse drehende Walze
daherkommt). Und es gibt in Entre deux guerres auch nichts,
das etwa "unterhaltend" wäre, das auf den Hörer vermeintlich
Rücksicht nähme, nichts, das noch irgendeinen Platz
für Erbarmen ließe. (...) Eichmanns Musik ist grausam,
um uns auf unsere Gewöhnung an den Zustand des permanenten
Krieges zurückzustoßen, um uns die Grausamkeit unseres
moralischen Versagens vor Augen zu stellen und den Zynismus
hörbar zu machen, mit dem über 200 Jahre nach der
noch lange nicht abgeschlossenen Aufklärung, der Formulierung
der natürlichen Rechte des Menschen und des Nachdenkens
über einen "Ewigen" Frieden weiterhin ganz selbstverständlich
Krieg geführt wird.
|
Rezensionen:
Die
Welt befindet sich seit langem im Dauerkriegszustand, permanent
in der Schwebe zwischen zwei Kriegen - "entre-deux-guerres",
wie man in Frankreich die Zeit zwischen 1918 und 1939 nannte.
Dietrich Eichmanns Konzertstück ist keine "Battaglia",
große Schlachten naturalistisch "ausmalend",
sondern versteht sich als genuin politische Kunst und bezieht
dezidiert Stellung - unversöhnlich und radikal.
– WDR
The German
pianist Dietrich Eichmann works both as a free-improvising musician
and as a composer. This CD is a recording of the 1999 world
premiere of Eichmann’s Entre
Deux Guerres, a “concerto for solo piano and fourteen
instrumentalists.” The score contains no elements of improvisation
or indeterminacy, and the scrupulously atonal musical language
is drawn from the vocabulary of contemporary composition; this
is thus a disc that falls more or less outside of Cadence’s
remit. Yet the impact of the players like Cecil Taylor or Eichmann’s
piano teacher Alex von Schlippenbach on the piece’s piano part
(expertly played by Christoph Grund) is unmistakable, and Eichmann’s
unusual choice of instrumentation (electric guitar and two percussionists
sit alongside a string quartet, an accordion and various woodwinds)
is clearly influenced by his interest in jazz and rock.
This
is a piece – as the title announces – preoccupied with the wars
of the 20th century. If I have a bone to pick it is primarily
with its rather narrow manner of dealing with that subject-matter:
the score carefully avoids lament or satire, opting instead
for a continuous dissonance which rarely rises to all-out sonic
violence but scrupulously avoids any sense of musical resolution.
If this is a “concerto for piano” it is nonetheless a piece
informed by the post-Schoenbergian questioning of traditional
hierarchies of foreground and background, soloist and accompaniment;
in the absence of such musical hierarchies the pianist stands
out from the other instruments primarily through the greater
rhythmic freedom and complexity of his part. Entre
Deux Guerres is divided into four parts that run
continuously; it’s not easy (given the composer’s careful avoidance
of obvious structural logic or repetition) to intuit the design
of the piece as a whole, but certain landmarks are clear. The
centre of the piece finds the ensemble splitting apart: part
IIb finds the pianist dropping out for a prolonged period, while
part III is a seven-minute piano solo full of ghostly ruminations.
The lengthy final section starts almost schematically with two
extremes: an abrupt descent into silence, and an equally abrupt
blast of noise. But the movement thereafter, for all its busyness
of texture, enacts a gradual withdrawal rather than a climax
or summing-up, very gradually sputtering out into silence.
An interesting disc, within its chosen aesthetic territory.
–
Nate Dorward,
Cadence Magazine, December 2002
Dietrich Eichmann is both a composer and a free improviser.
One facet of his activities informs the other, giving him a
different grasp of indeterminacy in music. There is no chance
or improvisation involved in "Entre Deux Guerres,"
the 46-minute work featured on this CD. Everything is written
down, but some sections were obtained through free improvisation
that was later notated. It gives the music an unusual momentum,
free-flowing yet rigid, like a showroom dummy placed in a pose
that suggests freedom. If it sounds like Eichmann has failed,
it is not the case. Ambiguity, tension, and forced movements
of this sort are at the heart of this work. The title "Entre
Deux Guerres" is a French expression that designates the
historic period between the first and second World Wars (1918-1939)
— literally the "between two wars." Presented as a
"concerto for solo piano and 14 instrumentalists,"
it would be better described as being scored for 15 soloists.
Except in part three where it is featured in a cadenza, the
piano rarely takes center stage and the distinction between
soloist and ensemble gets as thin as possible — soldiers working
toward a same goal but surprisingly refusing any form of authority
except for the battle plan. It sounds like highly controlled
chaos, reminiscent of Edgard Varèse's most dynamic pieces. Christoph
Grund had the difficult task of negotiating scored improvised
gestures. Members of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden
and Freiburg perform on strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion,
electric guitar, and accordion. This work is not entertaining,
neither is it pleasant. Eichmann's views on war are forcefully
negative and he made no attempt to tone them down. The music
leaps at the listener, aggressive, challenging, uncompromising,
punishing. The demonstration is at times cold but makes for
a rewarding listen and it will surely stand as a landmark in
Eichmann's oeuvre.
–
François
Couture / All Music Guide
Composer
and improviser Eichmann has kindly sent me a copious bunch
of his recent and past releases, and I’m happy to report about them
pretty regularly, since the man fathers music that is difficult,
stimulating and provocative, often all of the above in a
single outing. Such is the case of this “concerto for
solo piano and fourteen instrumentalists”, where everything
was carefully notated but I’ll be damned if these scores
don’t sound like a complex collective improvisation,
except for selected moments (for example pianist Christoph
Grund’s soloist spots, which reveal him as a brilliant
interpreter, very much in line with Eichmann’s score
and intentions). The concert, of which the CD contains the
première, was recorded in Karlsruhe on October 1999
and executed by the soloists of the SWR Symphony Orchestra
conducted by David R.Coleman. Its concept is essentially
based on the “beastly” characteristics of war,
although detailing this without quoting large chunks of Harald
Borges’ explicative notes would be too complicated
for the scope of a review. Let’s just say that there
is neither a “hook” or “refrain”,
nor anything that could be memorized or instantly sung back.
The aspects of Eichmann’s architecture range from bitter
to violent: many bursts and explosions, scarcity of smooth
sections (in any case scarred by acrid dissonances). A potentially
unifying instrumental element may be Teodoro Anzellotti’s
accordion, maybe the only fairly “static” presence
in an otherwise perennially boiling cauldron, yet even that
is soon swallowed by the general sense of barely repressed
rage that the music seems to exalt. It’s an intriguing
record that nevertheless won’t emerge as “appealing” after
twenty tries. Certainly not for everyone, significant just
the same.
– Massimo
Ricci, Touching Extremes
|
