Mumien for Violoncello and Klavier (2001)

Larcher’s music – obsessive repeated notes surrounded by elusive harmonies and wisps of melody – speaks as much of desiccation as dissection. He has the piano „prepared“ with various foreign objects, such as rubber wedges between the strings, enabling Fellner to conjure a fascinating array of tonally parched sounds from the instrument – weird glissandos, muffled tones, strange harmonic effects.
The composer has the cellist perform in novel ways, too, but the most telling aspect of the piece is towards the end, where the dry hammering of a particular piano note is taken up by plucked cello, and, for a moment, it becomes difficult to tell the two instruments apart.

aus: Matthew Rye: Playing with the enigma of the mummies, Daily Telegraph, 20.03.2002

In his pieces, notions of virtuosity are pursued to the limits, raising the expressive energy another notch in degree and intensity. In ”Mumien“ this obsessive quality comes through in the intense and rhythmically incessant second movement.

aus: Dominy Clemens, Music Web, November 2006