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| While traveling through time in Italy and Germany, Thomas Jahn was particularily intrigued by the “culture of resistance”. The poems underlying the cycle are all concerned with resistance – resistance against war, against the lack of affection and against inhumanity: “He finds its remnants, so prevalent in Italian folklore, also in German lyric poetry.” (Hans-Werner Heister) Some of the texts alternate between German and Italian, sometimes even within the space of a single phrase or word. The prologue opens in the manner of Schubert’s Winterreise: As strangers we arrive, as strangers again we leave. And “for all the cohesion of the overarching dramatic and formal composition, the cycle offers a great variety of inflections, gestures and characters, of different combinations of instruments and uses of the singing voice. Here, the instrumental solo stands alongside the technical requirement of the preproduced audio tape, melodic simplicity alongside exalted raptures, and grief next to chicly hysterical exhileration. And every single piece has an unmistakable face of its own. What, in the end, form a common thread running through the entire piece are not cross-references established by a shared musical material, but the thematic leitmotifs. |
1CD | Contemporary | Special Offers |
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| Recommendation |
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The maximalist among American composers: Powerful harmonies, elegant handicraft, and a penchant for musical tradition characterizes Wuorinen’s oeuvre for piano.  |
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| From subtle irony to direct provocation: Satie, the complacent gentleman with a hat and goatee, meets the "pianist-futurist" Antheil. |
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| The Donaueschinger Musiktage 2005, Vol. 3! |
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