|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CD
|
|
WER 6783
|
Featured works: S1 for two pianos, Un-fini III, iv 11a, iv 11b, Contrapunctus, iv 1. Performed by Tomoko Hemmi and Yukiko Sugawara. "The piano works of Mark Andre are founded on his intensive examination of the fleeting phenomenon of sound reverberation and decay. His fading sounds can take numerous forms; there might be a thick cluster that reverberates on a single string, or a single note that causes the entire landscape of strings to resonate. On this recording, Tomoko Hemmi and Yukiko Sugawara interpret Andre's experimental constructions, focusing on his more recent pieces which seem softer and more playful, although here, too, the intrinsic logic and necessity of every transition and development has been closely scrutinized."
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2CD/SACD
|
|
NEOS 11067-8CD
|
2012 release. Stereo/5.1 multichannel hybrid CD/SACD release that can be played on any CD player. We imagine apocalypses as coming upon us unawares, loudly and brutally. The unleashed elements bludgeon, incinerate and scatter everything they encounter, and people scream in naked fear. Mark Andre's apocalypse contradicts this image. For the most part it takes place softly, with many zones of silence. Its few loud moments stand out all the more. Softness knows many degrees of intensity, not only in dynamic level, but especially in the tension it builds up between notes and sounds. As in much of his chamber music, Mark Andre's Music-Theatrical Passion is dominated by dark instrumental colours. He has quotations from the Bible fed in at the very opening and increases their number roughly from the middle of the piece on. They are taken from John's Gospel and the Book of Revelation, and more often than not they are whispered. In performance they are emitted by loudspeakers, and although the electronically manipulated sounds are introduced over the same speakers, they sound like irradiation from another universe compared to the four groups of instrumentalists and singers. The title of Mark Andre's Passion, ...22,13..., relates to a passage from the Bible. Verse 13 of the last chapter in its final book reads, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.' Then come eight more verses, after which the Holy Writ of the Christian faith ends with a vision of our temporal universe transformed into a world without time. Verse 13 reveals the code of this transformation, the eradication of time by the one who speaks: Christ. Andre adopts this threefold appellation of Eternity for the large-scale design of his piece, whose three sections are titled ...O(mega)..., ...the last... and ...the end... The titles signify, in metaphysical terms, the direction in which we are headed, not the origins from which we come. Mark Andre presses forward into the danger zones of modern human existence from an artistic urge, using the means of metaphysical reflection. He once referred to his Music-Theatrical Passion as a 'near-death experiment.' Performed by: Vocalconsort Berlin, Gerhardt Muller-Goldboom (conductor), Experimentalstudio des SWR.
|