Momentum

SKU: HL.14027994

ISBN 9788759864593.

New York is the city which fascinates and inspires Ruders. Time and again he goes back there to work. 'Manhattan Abstraction' (1982) subtitles - a symphonic skyline for large orchestra - was conceived there. Ruders' Brittish colleague Oliver Knussen defines the piece as: - a performance of an extraordinary Morden-Times-like construction. It is a sort of symphonic sculpture, which in the composer's own words words propels forth from one particular inspiration: the New York profile, as seen from Liberty Island, one icy cold January day with it's open, clear sky and dazzling sun light. 'Manhatten Abstraction' appears as an amalgam of some of the compositorical habits found in present pieces. For instance, are present here compositorical ideas and melodic loans from 'Capriccio Pian'e Forte', 2nd String Quartet(1979), 'Four Compositions' (1980), and 2nd Piano Sonata(1982). The question at hand is mainly concerned with the enhanced elaboration of Ruders' use of the classic English change-ringing system: a permuting method pre-determining the order of tone-appearances and /or tone groups; a serial technique in other words. In spite of the rigidly fixed material, Ruders somehow manages to chisel out a personal expression by way of emphasising contrasting elements already existing within the material itself. The spiky, repetitive sections form a counterpart to a more human violin-solo. This dialectical tension is - as hinted by the title - a symphonic abstraction of a fascinating metropolis; the most beautiful and the ugliest. The subtitle: a symphonic skyline reflects the musical erection of the Manhattan profile, which under the clear sky, materializes into the most powerful and compelling man-made sculpture on earth. Thus 'Manhattan Abstraction' is a homage to, as well as a vision of, this giant contraption of concrete, glass, and chrome.

SKU: KU.GM-1911

ISBN 9790206202384. 9 x 12 inches.

Monumentum, Music for String Sextet, was written in 2014 to a commission from the Moritzburg Festival, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center New York and the Kathe Kollwitz House in Moritzburg. It is dedicated to the cellist Jan Vogler. The world premiere took place on 19 August 2014 at the Moritzburg Festival, performed by Timothy Chooi & Mira Wang (violins), Roberto Diaz & Hartmut Rohde (violas), Jan Vogler & Harriet Krijgh (cellos). The American premiere took place on 7 May 2015 in the Lincoln Center with the Amphion String Quartet, the violist Yura Lee and the cellist Jan Vogler.

The String Sextet Momentum commemorates the outbreak of the First World War, the death of Peter Kollwitz – who died as a volunteer, aged just 18, in the early weeks of the war – and the manner in which his mother, the artist Kathe Kollwitz, mourned the loss of her son. The artist worked through her pain by creating her most famous sculpture, The Mourning Parents. It stands today at the German soldiers’ cemetery at Vladslo in western Flanders, where her son Peter also lies buried. During the 18 years that she worked on the Parents, Kathe Kollwitz attended several concerts at the Volksbuhne in Berlin, where from January to February 1927 she heard Arthur Schnabel’s cycle of all the Beethoven piano sonatas. Schnabel performed the Sonata op. 111 in c minor on 26 February 1927, and this work touched her in particular, as we can read in her diary: “The strange flickering notes turned into flames – a moment of rapture, taking one into a different sphere, and the heavens opened almost as in the Ninth (Symphony). Then one found one’s way back – but it was a return after having been assured that there is a heaven. These notes are serene – confident – and good. Thank you, Schnabel!” This encounter with Beethoven’s last sonata inspired the artist to take up work again on her sculpture after a long interruption and to consider different possibilities for arranging the two figures. For this reason, the first minutes ofMomentum are derived from this sonata by Beethoven – though without it being quoted in an audible manner – and they leave their mark on the form of the Sextet. The number 18 and the date of Peter Kollwitz’s death (23 October 1914) also have a direct impact on the work’s dramaturgy. This music is mostly calm in nature, but is time and again interrupted unexpectedly, being disturbed by unruly sounds and vehement eruptions until time itself seems to dissolve in an aleatoric passage. The work ends with an extended lament on “seed corn should not be ground”, a line from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years. Kathe Kollwitz often quoted this phrase to argue for peace, and also took it as the title for a lithograph that she made in 1942. - David Philip Hefti

SKU: HL.49003178

ISBN 9790220117237. UPC: 073999468175. 8.25x11.75x0.149 inches.

Commissioned by the BBC to inaugurate Birmingham's Symphony Hall on 12 June 1991, the sense of optimism surrounding that event is exactly mirrored in Momentum's long melodic lines and vibrant rhythms, drawing themselves out at the last minute into a litany of orchestral gestures massively confirming the mood of communal pride and aspiration. Nothing could better reflect the sense of civic distinction than the ensemble giving that first concert, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with whom Turnage was then Composer-in-Association.