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Trio
2015
Cello
Clarinet
Keyboards
Piano
Strings, bowed
Winds
- Program Notes
- “Composition means: building an instrument.” "Unter Verschluss" for clarinet, cello and piano follows this maxim of Helmut Lachenmann by reimagining the typical sonic idiom of this instrumentation and transforming it into an individual sonic structure. The tradition of a predominantly full, dark sound world in the famous Clarinet Trios by Johannes Brahms and Alexander Zemlinsky is simultaneously continued and heavily defamiliarised through emphatic intensification. This is achieved by applying various preparations to the cello and piano for much of the piece that greatly mute their sounds. Only the clarinet retains its usual, naturally pale basic sonority. "Unter Verschluss" eschews anything that is obvious, middling or open. A cloaked, muffled and dim sound predominates, yet it can switch abruptly to the opposite extreme of aggressive brightness at any moment. Thus the trio not only shifts between shadowy and full sounds in a similar fashion to the other chamber works, but also transforms the Romantic gesturality of the music of Brahms or Zemlinsky into an expressive world that is different, yet very much related.
- Recording Notes
- Interprets: trio sostenuto Christian Wettin (Clarinet), Miguel Blanco Puente (Violoncello), Richard Röbel (Prepared Piano)