Weiss / Trio Accanto - Interpreten-Portrait - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934) is the last living representative of the New York School (Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc.). Wolff was not even an adult when he studied with Grete Sultan and John Cage. Wolff's music was much more politically motivated than that of Feldman and Cage, which is evident on this new WERGO album by Trio Accanto. The album features first recordings made in close collaboration with Wolff in the studios of Deutschlandfunk Cologne/Germany. Wolff's great InchTrio IX - AccantoInch (2017) is a testament to his long-standing friendship with the musicians. Peculiarly serene and unobtrusively narrative, the piece features many reminiscences and hidden quotations from music by J. S. Bach to union songs. There are also tributes to Wolff's own InchExercisesInch, whose more recent numbers can be heard on the album as well. These InchExercisesInch sound lucid and atmospheric, yet complex. Each player has to decide for himself/herself on the course of the musical thoughts and spontaneously put them together in the group as an exercise. Collective agreement for individual positions as a musical and social task. This music by Wolff Inchstill sings a longer modernismInch, writes Seth Brodsky. InchYou can hear the historical horizon in it, not as some grandiose prophecy, but like an outline full of white space. The music is interested in the grace of presentness, of being-here, but it doesn't lack desire.Inch Album Tracks 1. Trio IX - Accanto for tenor saxophone, piano and percussion~Part I 2. Trio IX - Accanto for tenor saxophone, piano and percussion~Part II 3. Exercise 32 4. Exercise 37, version 1 5. Exercise 29 6. Exercise 30 7. Exercise 31 8. Exercise 37, version 2 9. Exercise 38

Album Tracks 1. Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 1. Allegro Con Brio 2. Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 2. Scherzo Allegro Molto 3. Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 3. Adagio 4. Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 4. Allegro 5. Piano Trio in G minor, JB 1 64 (Op. 15) 1. Moderato Assai 6. Piano Trio in G minor, JB 1 64 (Op. 15) 2. Allegro, Ma Non Agitato 7. Piano Trio in G minor, JB 1 64 (Op. 15) 3. Finale Presto

Songs and Poems is a title that promises quite a lot there are neither songs nor poems in the usual sense among these five instrumental compositions for the Trio Accanto there is no singing in Hans Thomalla's Lied, Aldo Clementi celebrates the art of instrumental counterpoint, and if Wolfgang Rihm's Gegenstück were a song, it would be a manifesto against vocality. At least the title of Walter Zimmermann's trio is based on a poem by Robert Creeley, but the words are not heard in the piece. Also, the audience does not need to be aware of the Baroque verse structures upon which Andreas Dohmen based his work commissioned by the group. The title InchSongs and PoemsInch nevertheless points in a certain direction. It reflects an underlying longing in these instrumental pieces for language, voice, and song, for the authenticity of singing, the simplicity of song, and the hidden meanings of poetry. Perhaps InchSongs and PoemsInch is a song collection that only dreams of songs, just as the Trio Accanto - with it's unusual instrumentation of saxophone, percussion, and piano - is a jazz trio that does not play jazz. Album Tracks 1. Versi Rapportati 2. Lied 3. As I Was Walking I Came Upon Chance 4. Gegenstück 5. Tre Ricercari