Erich Höbarth (violin), Thomas Demenga (cello), Thomas Larcher (piano)
© ECM 2001
The first ECM album to feature Austrian pianist Larcher’s taut and powerful compositions. He’s previously been heard as an outstanding interpreter on his disc of Schoenberg/Schubert «Klavierstücke», on Michelle Markaski’s «Elogio per un’ombra», and on Heinz Holliger’s «Lieder ohne Worter». Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich: «Larcher’s musical textures rely on the enormous expansion and compression of time, working with almost cinematic montage techniques, with cross-cuts, with rhythmic spans both long-arching and brief, with precisely calculated intensification and internal structuring. His music is clearly and securely shaped and radiates intellectual control… These pieces are the emanation of enormous concentration and intensity of experience.»
WORKS
- Noodivihik for piano (1992)
intro
critic acid
leave your baggage unattended
- Klavierstück (1986)
- Kraken for violin, violoncello and piano (1994–1997)
I. schnell
II. langsam
III. bewegt
IV. fließend
V. schnell
- Antennen-Requiem für H. (1999)
I.
II.
III.
Austrian pianist Thomas Larcher, previously known to ECM New Series aficionados as a tactful interpreter of contemporary music, with «Naunz» shows his colors as a composer of the same. That Larcher is a close associate of Heinz Holliger, another musician-composer of immense talent, should come as no surprise: both compose as if through a microscope. Yet while Holliger tends to languish in protracted gazes at what lies beneath his cover slides, Larcher is more interested in compressions and calms before storms—in the message of the medium. The laser-precise title piece, written 1989 for piano, evokes a particular brain chemistry and cellular dysfunction…yet also a fractured, spatial sort of harmony. Its thirteen-and-a-half-minute duration holds a broad technical spectrum on the tongue: metallurgical hammerings, bright pops, and bluesy accents trade places in carousel fashion. Every note drips like a love-sworn face, open-mouthed, a scabbard without a sword.
Thomas Demenga pushes these images deeper into the fire in «Vier Seiten» (1998), throwing himself into jaggedly brushed scenery. Larcher’s trust in Demenga is obvious, for even the most challenging passages flow effortlessly at the cellist’s virtuosic touch. Ley lines crack in a symphony of such intimate proportions that the piece stabilizes, settling into meditative fog curls, a muscle torn to infinity. Further bowings are put on hold for the duration of two more piano pieces. The fractured yet resonant «Noodivihik» (1992) works at an even more cellular level. With scientific attention, Larcher expounds its polyphony in monosyllables while moments of clarity rub up against those of murky discomfort. Not every piece, however, is so overtly disjointed, for in such a piece as «Klavierstück 1986» (the collection’s earliest composition) there is overt color-bleeding, punctuated by moments of insistence that fade into bodiless reflections.
The autobiographically inflected «Kraken» (1994-1997), a fascinating trio, revives Demenga and adds the violin of Erich Höbarth. In the latter’s playing is an Ysaÿe-like exuberance told yet in a language Larcher’s own, distinct for its obsessions. The entrance of piano after Höbarth’s pliant introduction lends a morose, titanic feeling of sunkenness. Violin lines evoke ghostly strangers from the wreckage, cleaving water and sky in kind. As a unit the trio forms a methodical braid, ponytail of a slumbering warrior. Larcher brings a percussive sound to his part, treading water in a marriage of staccato and legato impulses. The Holliger connection deepens as Demenga and Höbarth embark on a journey eerily reminiscent of his Duo for Violin and Cello before fragility and gnarled woodwork bring closure. Also bringing closure is the concluding «Antennen-Requiem für H.» (1999), an elusive piano piece that flirts with audibility by way of various extended techniques. Hands on the strings turn the instrument into a fast-forwarded film. It is a diegesis, an awakening, a genetic table setting loosed from its horizontal plane.
Larcher’s music is the equivalent of a postmortem. With a meticulousness that can only come out of self-discipline, he scours every body for clues of its demise. In so doing, he creates new life. Every helix begins a story.
quoted from: www.ecmrecords.com
Reviews
Rob Cowan, Gramophone
First there’s the bottom line, which is an hour’s worth of consistently high-grade invention. Innsbruck-born Larcher is still under 40 and a complete one-off. Those who have heard his ECM CD where Schubert and Schoenberg Klavierstücke alternate will also know that as a pianist Larcher makes the most of dramatic juxtapositions. He does much the same in his own works. Both «Naunz» (1989) and «Noodivihik» (1992) employ a partly prepared piano. The use of silence is as sudden – and as telling – as the loudest struck chord. And you must treat the long silent pauses that trail certain tracks as part of the musical scheme, not as an editorial oversight.Larcher’s variety of touch, his attack and capacity for tonal colouring, not to mention his uncanny ability to draw single notes from chaotic musical surroundings, is quite remarkable. His music can be as cold or as dangerous as black ice, and as quietly serene as Arvo Pärt. His driving ostinatos recall Bartók of the «Three Etudes», while at other times bold, wholesome chords hint at Copland.«Vier Seiten» is a solo cello elegy for the ill-fate dracing driver Ayrton Senna. You sense the impact, the horror and, ultimately, a horrible calm.It’s real music and Thomas Demenga connects with every note of it. Concentus Musicus’s leader Erich Höbarth joins in for «Kraken» (1994-97), a variegated piano trio with a «bewegt» third movement that sounds as if it’s been ripped from Bartók’s «Diary of a Fly». And to close, there are the glacial, shuddering whispers of «Antennen-Requiem für H.» (1999) – scrapes along the piano strings that in this context end the programme much as Chopin ends his «Funeral March Sonata», with a ghost in transit. Extraordinary. The piano sound is extremely realistic.
Reinhard Schulz, Neue Musikzeitung
Kleine Stücke, verspielt, mit Intimitäten, Fragezeichen, Kanten. Tonal und experimentell, immer auf der Suche. Mit inniger Liebe zum Ton, zu der kleinen Gestalt. Musik, die zuhören lässt.
Tarik O’Regan, The Observer
The compositions of Thomas Larcher mark a refreshing middle ground in the contemporary music scene, finding a niche between the complexity of the Boulez/Stockhausen-inspired avant-garde and the newer wave of holy simplicity most aptly summed-up in the music of Arvo Pärt. The delicate composer-led ensemble performs this unique brand of dissonant minimalism with graceful attention to the subtle intricacies of the score.
Rob Cowan, Gramophone, Dezember 2001
Larcher’s variety of touch, his attack and capacity for tonal colouring, not to mention his uncanny ability to draw single notes from chaotic musical surroundings, is quite remarkable. His music can be as cold or as dangerous as black ice, and as quietly serene as Arvo Pärt. His drivng ostinatos recall Bartók of the «Three Etudes», while at other times bold, wholesome chords hint at Copland.
Dirk Wieschollek, Fono Forum
Rhythmische Impulsivität und eine klare, transparente Faktur sind die auffälligsten Vorzüge dieser Musik, die ganz ohne jene vordergründige Spiritualität auskommt, die in den letzten Jahren so in Mode gekommen ist. Die Strukturen von «Klavierstück 1986», «Naunz» oder «Noodivihik» sind zerrissen, voller Brüche und Überraschungsmomente. In einem elementaren Wechselspiel von energiegeladener Motorik und spannungsvoller Stille tummeln sich konventioneller und präparierter Klavierklang, tonale Chiffren, geräuschhafte Schraffuren, perkussive Wiederholungsmuster und expressive Eruptionen. Da gilt es ebenso fragile Klangtexturen differenziert auszuleuchten wie der abgründigen Aggressivität insistierender Ton- und Akkordrepetitionen auf die Sprünge zu helfen – was Larcher und seine vertrauten Kammermusikpartner hier so pointiert wie kompromisslos bewerkstelligen.
SE: Thomas Larcher und Thomas Demenga, Basler Zeitung, 13.11.2002
Selten kommt es vor, dass man eine CD mit Neuer Musik von A bis Z gespannt durchhört. So geschehen bei dieser Porträt-CD des … Pianisten und Komponisten Thomas Larcher. Er hat sich einer «neuen Einfachheit» verschrieben, die überraschend hintergründige Dimensionen eröffnet. Schlicht das Material, ein Dreiklang, ein Doppeloktaven-Orgelpunkt, über den sich eine Melodielinie aufschwingt. Entscheidend ist, wie Larcher damit umgeht, wie er gliedernd repetiert, zeitlich rafft und dehnt und variiert. Bewegungsmuster der Minimal Music werden ebenso gebraucht und überwunden wie Montagetechniken und geräuschhaft perkussive, insistente Tonrepetitionen. Man staunt nur, wie Larcher klare Einfachheit und raffinierte rhythmische Strukturen und Klänge in eine so konzentrierte und spannungsgeladene Form bringt.
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld, Musik & Theater
Selbstbewusst stellen zeitgenössische Komponisten eigene Konzepte zur Diskussion. Thomas Larcher aus Österreich ist einer von ihnen, und er hat sowohl Lektionen des Serialismus und der Aleatorik als auch des Jazz verinnerlicht. «Naunz» beginnt mit einem dunklen Motiv, im Klang ähnlich dem Fortepiano, das umspringt zu einem klopfenden Bass, zu jazzigen Phrasen wechselt, wieder das Motiv als Klammer, und dann perkussive Akkorde, die sich in Einzeltönen verlieren. So treten die Ideen tröpfchenweise hervor und bündeln sich doch zur Einheit. Springende Figuren am prepared Piano und harte Akkordblöcke am Rande des Geräuschs sind auch in «Noodivihik» zu hören. Aggressive Ballungen in extremen Registern und versöhnliche Dehnungen eines Motivs erscheinen beim «Klavierstück 1986» wie eine wütende Reaktion auf strengen Rationalismus. In «Kraken» für Klavier, Cello und Violine folgt dem aggressiven Intro der Violine ein sanfter Pianopart und erst im Mittelteil konzertieren alle drei Instrumente um ein geisterhaftes Rondo. Die «Vier Saiten» für Solo-Cello mixen neoklassischen Veitstanz und Traumzustände. Aus der Polarisierung von Klängen entsteht extrem gespannte Unruhe, deren Widersprüche Larcher im Tonsatz gebändigt hat.