Classical new release - Harmonia Mundi UK Distribution

Label: Wergo
File Under: Classical/Secular
Vocal music
Catalogue No: WER6749-2
Barcode: 4010228674927
NORMAL Price
Format: 1 CD
Packaging: cristal
Claudia Böttcher [soprano]
Jovita Zähl [piano]
Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN, Luciano BERIO: zeit(t)räume
STOCKHAUSEN: Tierkreis, Klavierstück IX
BERIO: Sequenza III, Quattro canzoni populare
Claudia Böttcher
Jovita Zähl
RELEASE DATE
3RD JUNE 2013
The soprano Claudia Böttcher and the pianist Jovita Zähl have worked as a duo since 2008. Their concert programmes
focus on music from the 20th and 21st centuries. The present CD 'zeit(t)räume' is dedicated to works by Karlheinz
Stockhausen and Luciano Berio.
Stockhausen's cycle 'Tierkreis' [Zodiac], originally composed for music boxes, is here presented in a version for soprano
and piano. Twelve individually created melodies on texts compiled by Stockhausen himself emphasise the primary
qualities of the star signs and connect them with their appropriate seasons, times of day, genders, elements, planets, and
stages of growth.
Between 1958 and 2002 Berio wrote 14 sequences for various solo instruments. 'Sequenza III', on a text by the Swiss
writer Markus Kutter, is the only true vocal composition of the cycle of works in which a wealth of emotional states, which
can be expressed by the voice as the natural instrument of [wo]man, is articulated through sounds, syllables and words.
The spectrum includes all possible forms of expression from singing and speaking, whispering and shouting, to laughing
and crying.
Between 1952 and 1961 Stockhausen composed eleven 'Klavierstücke' [Piano Pieces]. His 'Klavierstück IX" shows, as
an example, the characteristic principle of his serial thinking – to arbitrate gradually as well as organically between pairs
of opposites: The composition "conveys forms of musical time: periodicity and an entire series of gradations in the
aperiodicity. Static, ‘monotonous’ events are transformed into flexible, ‘polytonal’ ones; they are either placed abruptly
next to each other or are mixed in constantly new combinations." (Stockhausen)
Berio’s vocal arrangements in 'Quattro canzoni populari' accentuate an important aspect of his musical thinking: the
connection to tradition, without neglecting his impulse toward innovation. The special charm which characterises this
vocal work grows out of Berio’s careful new interpretation of this traditional, historical folk song material.