Details zu Aperghis, Georges: Werke für Viola und Saxophon

Cover vergrößern    

Kritik zu Kairos: Aperghis, Georges: Werke für Viola und Saxophon

Dr. Stefan Drees, 25.06.2009

Aperghis, Georges: Werke für Viola und Saxophon

Label: Kairos , VÖ: 19.06.2009

Spielzeit: 049:25

Interpretation : *****

Klangqualität:  *****

Repertoirewert: ****

Booklet: ****

       

Eine eigentümliche, aber dennoch in höchstem Maße faszinierende Besetzung ist es, die auf dieser neuen Veröffentlichung des Labels Kairos ihren Platz gefunden hat, denn im Blickpunkt stehen zwei Werke, in denen Georges Aperghis (*1945) eine Konfrontation der Viola mit dem Saxophon wagt: Mit dem Ensemble XASAX (‚ensemble de saxophones modulable’ mit Serge Bertocchi, Jean-Michel Goury, Pierre-Stephane Meugé und Marcus Weiss), das für seinen virtuosen Umgang mit zeitgenössischer Saxophonmusik bekannt ist, und der phänomenalen Bratscherin Geneviève Strosser bietet die Produktion eine Interpretation auf höchstem Niveau; zugleich stellt sie aber auch einen hervorragenden – und anregenden – Einstieg in das Schaffen des griechischen, heute in Frankreich lebenden und wirkenden Komponisten dar.

Im gedanklichen Zentrum der CD steht das Stück 'Crosswinds’ für Viola und Saxophonquartett (1998), das dem Hörer sofort bewusst macht, wie wenig der Komponist am aufpolierten Schönklang des gewählten Instrumentariums interessiert ist. Die eingesetzten Farbkombinationen basieren auf ungewöhnlichen Klangerzeugungsarten und erweisen sich dabei als außerordentlich gut durchdacht. In den Zwischenräumen der stark miteinander verzahnten Einzelstimmen entfaltet die Musik eine ganz besondere Wirkung, dort etwa, wo die Hyperaktivität plötzlich abreißt und längere oder kürzere Pausen klaffen, also unverhoffte Stille eindringt. Ähnliche Klangeindrücke zeichnen die Duokomposition 'Rasch’ für Viola und Saxophon (2006) aus, und auch hier wird die Verflechtung von Streich- und Blasinstrument (Pierre-Stephane Meugé mit Sopransaxophon) stellenweise bis zum völligen Verwischen der instrumentalen Charakteristika getrieben, so dass das Duo wie ein einziger Klangerzeuger wirkt.

Im Gegensatz hierzu zeichnet sich in 'Alter ego’ für Saxophon (2001) die Nähe von Aperghis’ Musik zum Gestus der Sprache ab. Marcus Weiss (Tenorsaxophon) findet hier zu einem faszinierend vielfältigen Vortrag, bei dem sich subtile Veränderungen und Pulsationen der Tonhöhe in Mehrklänge verzweigen und der Reichtum an raschen Registerwechseln die Idee einer imaginären Zwiesprache aufkeimen lässt. In eine ähnliche Richtung führt die Komposition 'Volte-face’ (1997) für Viola, in der Geneviève Strosser ihr technisches und musikalisches Können auf eindrucksvolle Weise unter Beweis stellt: Wie eine nuancenreiche Simulation von Sprache wirkt der Bratschen-Monolog, in gleichem Maße geprägt von sehr zärtlich ausgesponnenen Stellen und verspielt anmutenden Passagen wie von heftigeren Ausbrüchen, dabei aber immer durchzogen von assoziativ gesetzten Splittern, die von fern her an die Tradition des Rezitativs erinnern mögen.

Eine Sonderstellung nimmt schließlich die Komposition 'Signaux’ (1978) ein, deren variable Besetzung vier Instrumente von gleicher Klangfarbe und gleicher Tonhöhe vorsieht. Für die hier zu hörende Realisierung mit vier Saxophonen hat das Ensemble XASAX das komponierte Material insgesamt dreimal in unterschiedlichen Tempi eingespielt. Diese Aufnahmen wurden von Aperghis anschließend, wie Patrick Hahn in seinem lesenswerten und fundierten Booklet-Essay beschreibt, im Studio nach Gehör zu einem virtuellen, zwölfköpfigen Saxophonorchester montiert. Das Ergebnis ist eine mehrschichtige, von ständigen Verschiebungen und Überlappungen gekennzeichnete Musik, deren äußere Erscheinung stellenweise an elektronisch erzeugte Klänge erinnert. Und auch daran wird deutlich, wie sehr dem Komponisten daran gelegen ist, das gängige Klischee der Saxophonklangfarben zugunsten eines alternativen Zugangs zum Klang vermeiden.

Kritik von Dr. Stefan Drees, 25.06.2009

klassik.com Redaktion

The medias liked it : Pierre Rigaudière, Diapason

No, Georges Aperghis is not merely a major representant of musical theater. The present program lets us appreciate in other fields the efficiency of its writing very close to the instrumental gesture and craft. Nevertheless, in this chamber-music or soloistic context, voice reappears quickly, and with it, dramatic art. At first underlying in Crosswind ( 1997 ), where four saxophonists disguise the sound of their instrument by means of singing, according to a poetics of diversion keen to the composer, it rapidly integrates fragments of understandable words ; dialogue, observation, confrontation of saxophones and viola : theater is never far away. Alter ego ( 2001 ) comes to enrich the repertory of the saxophone, and Volte-Face ( 1997 ) that of the viola, with the power to live in the interpreters who seize it.
Marcus Weiss and Geneviève Strosser meet the technical challenge - multiphonics, subtones, fast changes of registers, playing modes and nuances - while accepting the rules of a score which must be played as close as possible of its specifications, without being overloaded with meaning intentions which would be foreign to it. Even more in Signaux (1978), the requirement of non-subjectivity is of another nature there and testifies of the influence that Cage was able to have on Aperghis, as for the random part contained in this version for twelve saxophones realized by mixing and editing fragments recorded by the quartet Xasax.

Particularly relevant in this recent version for viola and soprano saxophone ( 2006 ), Rasch constitutes the most compelling work of this album. Real dialogue without words, this very spiritual duet is served by the irreproachable coordination of Geneviève Strosser and Pierre-Stéphane Meugé, of an admirable flexibility and evidence. For whom knows the composer only through his musical theater, here is a beautiful opportunity to discover his theatrical music.

Pierre Rigaudière, Diapason, oct. 2009 n°573 p90

« Crosswind. Alter ego. Rasch. Volte-face. Signaux »

Geneviève STROSSER - XASAX        Kairos

Medium : CD / Genre : contemporary / Ref. 0012942KAI / Added on 11, 18th, 2010
Composition Georges Aperghis

The project is tempting and keeps all its promises: Xasax, declined from solo to 12 saxophones ensemble, and the violist Geneviève Strosser for a monograph CD dedicated to Georges Aperghis.

An atypical composer, he created the ATEM (Theater and Music workshop), real laboratory which allows him since 1976 to experiment in the field of the musical theater. Played by most contemporary music ensembles (Intercontemporain, Ictus, Klangforum Wien) his catalog of chamber music is also very rich with as constant questioning of the instrumental sound : " it is a bit like when we see the face of somebody on a photo in wonder : what could be the sound of his(her) voice ? "? And with G. Strosser and Xasax, the color palette is wide ! Piece after piece, each of them seems to widen the sound possibilities of his instrument.

In a spectacular way in Crosswind, a piece written in 1997, for viola and saxophone quartet. The sound of saxophones is altered : slaps, wind sounds, trumpets, then instruments increase in hosepipes and if that was not enough, the saxophonists speak, at first in their instrument then without, soon joined by the violist. Disturbing. Up to there G. Strosser resisted, competing in power or opposing with extreme dynamics (as this series of harmonics while saxophones growl around her). G. Aperghis specifies: " My central idea was the question of personal territory. We have the impression to listen to a pack in front of a victim who is obviously the viola ".

A more intimist universe, with Alter ego ( 2001 ) for tenor saxophone. A magnificent solo in which Marcus Weiss undertakes an improbable dance whose rhythm is given by his own key noises. It is tight always moving, always in extreme dynamics. The duet Rasch ( 2006 ) is inspired by Roland Barthes's essay bearing the same name (in L’Obvie et l’obtus): "managed quickness, accuracy [] rapid walk, surprise, snake movement between leaves". Originally for voice and viola, then violin and viola, this new version was realized in association with Pierre-Stéphane Meugé. Imperceptible, lightning, reptilian, both instruments look for each other, find each other, break up.

Calming down then with the solo for viola Volte Face ( 1997 ) even if the viola is alternately peaceful and unchained. The last work of this program, Signaux, is also the oldest (1978). 12 saxophones spread there in suspended time. We think of Four5 by John Cage but gradually the interventions densify and we find back Aperghis's characteristics. A new impeccable production of the Austrian label Kaïros. A new recording by the quartet Xasax which confirms its position in the universe of contemporary music.

Laurent Matheron, ASAXWEB.com, 18/11/2010

Works by Georges Aperghis for viola and saxophones  : Geneviève Strosser & XASAX

CD Kairos , Réf. 0012942KAI ,06 19th 2009

Duration : 49’ 25’’

1 Crosswind for viola and saxophone quartet (vaSATB)  1997     12’51’’

2  Alter ego for tenor sax solo (Marcus Weiss) 2001  7’53’’

3  Rasch for soprano sax and viola Pierre-Stéphane Meugé and Geneviève Strosser  2006  6’07’’

4  Volte-face for solo viola (Geneviève Strosser) 1997  8’52’’

5  Signaux :  version for 12 saxophones  1978   13’17’’

The collaboration between Xasax and Georges Aperghis is not a new thing : a first version of Signaux had already been recorded on our 1st CD in 1993, as well as Geneviève Strosser has been one of his privileged interpreters for years now.
But the Crosswind project was the opportunity for us to join our strengths in this ensemble as improbable as magnificent in 1998.

Georges Aperghis was not the first well-known composer for musical theatre who neglected the less “spectacular” varieties of music. But unlike the “symphonic form,” which Aperghis has rarely considered since his initial attempt in 1972, chamber music recurs throughout his oeuvre. As though staging a theatrical work, Aperghis plays his game in a chamber music hall with new instrumental combinations, creating a connection between the instruments and European musical tradition.

basa005  on Rapidshare

I had never heard Aperghis before : it is experimental, very experimental, spreading in all directions, it is just experimental, full of small scattered notes thrown from right to left, without odour nor flavor. His trick is the small scattered dotted notes, and it is always more or less the same thing.

Couack (Gdansk)  on MQCD

“Quasi parlando” – Intersections for Saxophone and Viola by Georges Aperghis                                    Patrick Hahn

He would not have been the first well-known composer for musical theatre who neglected the less “spectacular” varieties of music. But unlike the “symphonic form”, which Georges Aperghis has rarely considered ever since his initial attempt in 1972, chamber music recurs throughout his oeuvre. As though staging a theatrical work, Aperghis plays his game in a chamber-music hall with ever-new instrumental combinations, at the same time creating a connection between them and European musical tradition. He is always seeking voices. “It is similar to seeing the image of someone in a photo and wondering how their voice sounds. Is it nasal, is it high, is it low? Were they breathing heavily or easily? An instrument always remains the same. But the real question is: how does the voice of this instruments sound in this piece?”1 At first glance it may seem surprising that Georges Aperghis also associates

the sound of the saxophone primarily with American jazz, because, at most, the influence

of that music can be detected on this CD full of saxophone voices only as trace elements or in the mirror image of a negative imprint. However, it is an unmistakably audible fact that he considers suspect the polished, beautiful sound of a “classical” composition for this still relatively young instrument. As so often, Aperghis here dedicates himself to the “neglected” aspects of his protagonists. “An instrument always ‘plays’ itself. But a clarinet that plays like a clarinet is not what really interests me. A singer can sing with various voices, with breathiness, without breathiness, with vibrato, without vibrato; he can even scream. Why

shouldn’t instruments do that as well?”

The oldest work on the present CD, Signaux, is an exception in this regard. Aperghis wrote it for “a quartet of instruments of the same timbre and range” – thus, theoretically, it could also be played by four timpani. It is testimony to the influence of John Cage on the musical thought of the selftaught composer. Signaux was composed in 1978. For this CD the saxophone quartet XASAX recorded the composed material at three different tempi. Working by ear, Aperghis combined the material in the studio into a virtual twelve-saxophone orchestra. Translated, the title means “signals” – asubject with which Aperghis was apparently intensely preoccupied in his early years. A 1969 composition for prepared piano has the same title (in Greek). This composition for six percussionists, Kryptogramma (1970), takes its title from the encrypting of signs, in this case of rhythms taken from classical music literature. Signaux was suggested by the lights of modern civilisation. “I was pretty fascinated by the signal lights at airports”, says Aperghis in retrospect. “You see things light up to create visual rhythms. I wanted to do something comparable on the level of sound, without adding any emotion, passion or feeling. What I wanted was to create a kind of polyphony with always the same ascending scales. The quartets begin to create a kind of grid or woven texture. In the end, the rising scales are so mixed together that one can no longer hear the scales but rather a kind of melody arising from the accidental overlapping. I wanted to shape this material like a sculpture.” It almost seems that Georges Aperghis’ biographical roots in the plastic arts are even more evident at the beginning of his career than in later years. In Signaux the horizontality of the time axis dissolves, and the listeners move freely about the musical space, so to speak, as they might in viewing an installation.

What connects these signs, however, with the solo work for tenor saxophone Alter ego (2001), composed more than 20 years later, is the sort of “inexpressiveness” that is demanded from the performer: “no emotion, no playing of anything”, the composer says. “If you ask the musicians to play ‘expressively’ or you write ‘espressivo’, that leads, in my opinion, to something old-fashioned. I, on the other hand, want to find a construction that brings a certain expression along with it. If that is successful, it is enough for the musician to simply play the notes. The expression comes on its own.” Alter ego also puts the listener into a musical state, which in contrast to Signaux has various stages of intensity running through it. The Alter ego, that one becomes acquainted with here, is perhaps the opposite face of a frenetic John Coltrane solo, because all the energy in this monologue seems to be directed to the inside. “The piece is almost a chain of demi-semi-quavers that are marked triple pianissimo. That, of course, is more concept than reality. Not that it’s impossible to play softly on a saxophone. But a triple pianissimo on a tenor saxophone in the notated range would be drowned out by the sounds of the fingers and keys”, says Marcus Weiss, who played the debut performance of the work. The sound of the moving keys can, of course, be clearly heard on this recording, allowing the alter ego of the saxophone to be perceived as a percussive accompaniment: The creation of the tone, its means of production can be recognised. At the same time Alter ego is an extremely corporeal piece. Not in the sense of directed to the outside as a trial of strength on display – it is far too fragile for that. But the wide leaps in the voice, its momentary pausing in harmony and trills with muted volume, put the listener in a similar state of tension as the performer, who must make an effort to prevent the tone from bursting forth. The score of Alter ego is like a recording device of internal conditions, or, in the words of the French author Peter Szendy, “the seismogram of someone listening to his blood flow. […] [A] kind of barometer for the simple fact that one is alive.” In Alter ego one can listen to the sound of another’s brain as though it were one’s own.

One might term the musical posture of the soloist in Alter ego as “quasi parlando”, as in Roland Barthes’s words: “That is the movement of the body that is about to speak.” In an essay on Robert Schumann – a fixed star in the poetic universe of Georges Aperghis as well – the philosopher wrote: “What does the body do when it makes a (musical) statement? It speaks but says nothing : because as soon as speech – or its instrumental replacement – is musical, it is no longer linguistic but rather corporeal; it always says the following and never anything else: My body puts itself in the condition of speaking: quasi parlando.”4

The meaning that speech – like all things linguistical – has for Georges Aperghis may be read from the genesis of his duet composition Rasch. “At the outset I wrote Rasch for voice and viola. I finally omitted the spoken syllables when I rewrote the part for violin instead.” Assisted by Pierre-Stéphane Meugé, he then reworked the piece for soprano saxophone and viola. “I think this version is even better than the one for violin, because there is a clearer difference between the two instruments. You hear each of them in its loneliness

– and later, when they come back together, they complement one another. They have something in common, then again very large divergences. They are thus like people who approach one another and in the end separate again.” Once again, the title reflects the writing of Roland Barthes. “Rasch”, as the French writer translates the German word, means: with directed swiftness, exactitude, in just rhythm (contrary to haste), with rapid stride, in a surprise, like the movement of a snake going into the leaves.”5 These images, which accompanied Aperghis as he was composing, have produced a music that puts both the players and the listeners into a virtually animalistic state. This requires not just hearing but a form of keen listening: “Listening is that prior state of attention through which everything can be understood that can disturb the territorial system; it is a way of protecting against surprises; its object […] is a threat or, conversely, a need; the material of listening is the indication that

either reveals the danger or holds out the prospect that the need will be satisfied.”6 Thus the two instruments listen to one another, dovetail their voices as in hocket, freeze in place, conquer in their arabesque movement new tonal space, or defend their position in elaborate quarter-tone variations. “The most important partner of listening” for the two players is “the unusual: that means the danger or the unexpected good fortune; conversely, listening, if its goal is to calm a phantasm, very quickly becomes hallucinogenic.”7

Even more clearly than Rasch, the quintet Crosswind presses forward into animal terrain. The wind that saxophones always make plays less of a role here than the crossovers that Aperghis

specifies. As though the sound of the saxophone were not ambiguous enough already, as though he wanted to further enhance the special strangeness of the creature created by uniting a shiny gold alloy with a vibrating reed, he calls on the saxophonists after a certain point in the piece to play their instruments trumpet embouchures, lengthening the necks of their instruments, for example, with a length of garden hose and buzzing their lips into it. This reveals one of Georges Aperghis’ basic aesthetic ideas: “détournement” – putting something to other than its conventional use. “Putting the objects, the ideas, the sounds to another use

is the most essential aspect of our artistic desires”,8 he wrote in 1985. In addition to changing the saxophone embouchure, Aperghis distorts the sound by sometimes having the musicians sing along with their instrumental parts. Increasingly language is coming into play, as in many of his other chamber-music works as well. In the conversation of the performers, speaking in a gibberish invented by Aperghis, there are occasional sparks of speech that can be understood: the essence of this music reveals itself to be “foreign-lingualism”.

At the time when Aperghis was writing Crosswind, he was interested in the writings of the behavioural researcher Konrad Lorenz, and based on that work he began closely studying the animalistic behaviour among musicians. This is “no longer a question of similarity between human and animal behaviour […]. There are no longer any animals or human beings, because they mutually deterritorialise each other in a continuum of intensity. It is a question of becoming, which […] is comprised of the greatest possible difference, the difference of identity, the crossing of a threshold […].”9 There it is now lying in wait, posing and attacking, sometimes sniffing cautiously, then warning loudly and protesting. “What I tried to do in Crosswind is to present the territories of each individual. One has the impression of listening to a pack of animals and its victim, which is clearly the viola. One does not know for sure how this will end, but it is a kind of animalistic confrontation.” In a performance, in

which the violist Geneviève Strosser is encircled by the four instruments of XASAX, the first performers of this piece, this menacing situation becomes even clearer. It is almost touching how the viola with the resolution of leading tones repeatedly runs away from the bold attacks – even if this seems to do her little good in the end.

In contrast to this “music in a state of alarm”, Volte-face for viola solo (1997) is a rather dreamy dance on tiptoe that is constantly changing direction. It is performed by an individualistic personality : with melodic clichés from unwritten viola concertos, the dancer tries a pirouette or two before positively stamping the next moment or tripping away in pizzicato steps. As always in the music of Aperghis, this is characterised by varied permutations of small cells, “unfaithful” repetitions and “variations without a theme” (Marcus Gammel). The music has been described very well by Geneviève Strosser, who since 1996 has been working together with Georges Aperghis on numerous productions and to whom this piece is dedicated. “It has something of a kaleidoscope about it. Lots of small elements, always the same – and when you turn them and turn them again, they take on a

different form and a different image each time.”10 She adds: “As to my impressions of Georges’s music – I could also have said the opposite.”11 This music is simply both at the same time: a metaphor and its metamorphosis in one.

1 Unless otherwise stated, the quotations (and their translations) are taken from interviews that the author conducted in 2006.

2 Peter Szendy: Wie viele Ohren? (und andere Aperghis-Fragmente). In: Berno Odo Polzer / Thomas Schäfer (ed.): Almanach Wien Modern 2001, Saarbrücken 2001, pp. 143-147, p. 145.

3 Roland Barthes: Rasch. In: Der entgegenkommende und der stumpfe Sinn.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., p. 310.

6 Roland Barthes: Zuhören. In: Der entgegenkommende und der stumpfe Sinn. Translated from the French by Dieter Hornig. Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 249-263, p. 251.

7 Ibid.

8 “Détourner les objets, les idées, les sons, constitue pour nous l’essentiel de nos désirs artistiques.” Georges Aperghis: Programme de Conversations. Reprinted in: Antoine Gindt: Georges Aperghis. Le corps musical. Arles 1990, p. 65.

9 Gilles Deleuze / Felix Guattari: Kafka. Für eine kleine Literatur. Translated from the French by Burkhart Kroeber. Frankfurt am Main 1976, p. 32.

10 “Il y a là comme un kaléidoscope. Une foule de petits éléments, toujours les mêmes – et quand on les tourne et retourne, ils prennent chaque fois une autre figure, ils composent une autre image.” Peter Szendy: Machinations de Georges Aperghis. Paris 2001, p. 98.

11 “Vous savez, […] mes impressions de la musique de Georges – j’aurais pu dire le contraire.” Ibid.