At the festival’s 20th-anniversary edition, music by 95 composers from over 40 countries was performed, 16 of whom were from Valais. Forty works were performed in Switzerland for the first time, and 13 works had their world premieres. Ninety-five percent of the pieces were no more than four years old.

Given the size and distance of the venues, the concerts were better attended than expected. The audience was delighted and grateful for the quality, attention to detail, originality, and uncompromising approach, as well as for the emotional depth and freshness of the program. Planning for the 2027 edition of the festival is already underway.

Forum Wallis is an international festival for new music founded in 2006 and organized by IGNM-VS, the local chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). Its board of directors is composed of internationally active musicians and composers from Valais: Manuel Mengis, Hans-Peter Pfammatter, Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, and Javier Hagen.

Since its founding, Forum Wallis has co-produced over 350 world premieres and presented works by more than 500 composers from around the world, including Stockhausen’s Helicopter string quartet together with the Arditti Quartet, André Richard, and Air Glaciers, Holliger's Alb-Chehr and Cod.Acts Pendulum Choir.

Five Hours of String Quartet

The 2026 edition of the festival kicked off on the afternoon of Corpus Christi at the Münstiger Church in Goms. The German Minguet Quartet performed Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2, the longest work ever composed in this genre—a plea for slowing down, patience, and perseverance.

With a running time of about 5 hours, the Minguets opted for a mid-tempo interpretation. The piece delicately wove its way through time, dissolving conventional perceptions of time. It is remarkable that more than 60 people attended the concert over its entire duration in a village of 300 residents.

Two groups improvise

On June 5 and 6, also in Münster, two top ensembles from the Swiss and European improvisation scene performed: Voutchkova/Strahl/Mengis/Pfammatter and Erb/Mayas/Läng. Both evenings enchanted the audience with their chamber-music-like intimacy and the palpable closeness and rapport among the musicians.

Transformed Poetry

On Sunday, June 7, all the cycles from the poetry collection were featured throughout the day In the close-up we run wild by Rolf Hermann, to be heard at «Münster Earport» MEbU, the art space for contemporary music in Goms. The new music duo UMS’nJIP and Luis Tabuenca, winner of the 2026 Reina Sofia Composition Prize, transformed the four poetry cycles In the Störgarten, Stolen Windows, Neophytes and one into intimate song cycles.

Teenagers Play Piano Music with Live Electronics

Under the Adventurous Sounds label, the Proyecto Piano Joven (PPJ) from Seville—a project for young pianists that has been in existence for 20 years—performed in Switzerland for the first time. Adventurous Sounds is an educational program series organized by Forum Wallis that introduces children and young people to contemporary music in a playful way.

At the conservatories in Geneva and Sion, the PPJ presented a total of nine works for piano and live electronics, all written specifically for them by renowned Spanish-speaking composers. Under the direction of Ignacio Torner, the teenagers performed a full program that, in terms of both composition and interpretation, was in no way inferior to that of a professional ensemble.

Folk Music from the Upper Valais and Bolivia

From June 26 to 28, the Upper Valais Folk Song Choir toured Saas, the Lötschental, and the Goms region together with Bolivian folk musician Juan Arnez. Here, too, in addition to dialect favorites sung together with the audience, innovation was a theme: new songs in the folk style by Stefan Ruppen, Manuela Lehner-Mutter, and Valentin Bregy, alongside five premieres in the Bolivian folk style by Juan Arnez.

Ars Electronica

On July 3 and 4, the festival at MEbU concluded with the final two concerts of the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2026 Selection Concerts. The first two concerts in the series had taken place at the same venue at the start of the festival. The program featured 32 pieces, and 17 others were on the “Highly Commended” list. Twenty-nine Swiss premieres were performed, along with three world premieres (Lund-Jensen, Duchenne, Otani).

More than a dozen composers traveled to the concerts from China, the United States, Germany, France, and Ireland. The four concerts provided a welcome opportunity for lively exchanges, not only within the music community but also with the local population, who turned out in large numbers to attend the concerts.

Noteworthy—and a topic of discussion particularly relevant to insiders—was the interpretive approach at the MEbU-Akusmonium: live diffusion. The layout of the MEbU-Akusmonium is not a standard configuration, but a deliberately asymmetrical one, designed specifically for this space by Simone Conforti of IRCAM in Paris and intended to be played live.

From concert preparation to mental slumps to routines that really work: these are the topics that host Patrick Hinsberger explores in depth with his guests every two weeks. The focus isn’t on magic formulas, but on honest conversations about setbacks, practice strategies, and what goes on day in and day out behind a musical career spanning decades.

The podcast originated from the blog in 2021 what-is-practice.de, which was based on Hinsberger’s bachelor’s thesis in jazz trumpet at the Bern University of the Arts. Since then, the show has built up a loyal audience. There are now 51 episodes available on all major streaming platforms, including several featuring musicians from Switzerland: Viviane Chassot, Lukas Thoeni, Nik Bärtsch, Nicole Johänntgen, and Marc Stucki.

Hinsberger particularly recommends this content for:

• Music Students in Search of Role Models
• Teachers who want to bring new perspectives to their classrooms
• Anyone who likes to take a look behind the scenes
• Amateur musicians looking for practice tips

Overview of the podcasts and written transcripts of the interviews:
what-is-practice.de/category/how-do-you-actually-practice

People are singing less and less as time goes on—whether at home, at school, at work, or in their free time. There are many possible explanations for this global (?) megatrend: modern work environments, individualized lifestyles, and a flood of media. But this book doesn’t delve into those details. On the contrary: it offers concrete and practical approaches to singing. Accessible and groovy. Catchy but by no means banal circle songs and polyphonic choral pieces encourage you to «just sing.» But it’s not quite that simple—even singing without sheet music needs a nudge to get started.

This is where the sing-along strategies come in, and they involve plenty of movement: miming melodies, learning together from the person next to you («someone knows exactly the part we’re missing»), moving your lips and singing silently, and then just speaking the lyrics. Games and activities like these are fun and help everyone relax—a far cry from right versus wrong, from «too low!» or «too late!».

It is not about efficient, linear music learning, but rather about circular, varied repetition based on listening. This approach to music education deliberately draws on traditional musical forms, but aims to integrate them into our daily lives today and develop them further.

The repertoire presented, mostly written by the author, is diverse in both language and style. Nature-inspired yodels are featured alongside catchy songs and canons. The songs are available in written form (for instructors) and can be heard in the audio downloads, performed by a small vocal ensemble with percussion and piano. They are well-suited for warm-up exercises in a choir or simply for singing along whenever the mood strikes. All in the spirit of: sing more again!

Thomas-Maria Reck: singalongsongs II, 23 new groove songs & chants, a teaching resource for choral singing without sheet music, including a set of strategy cards and audio downloads, $30.00, stimmlände.com

The foundation views the award as a significant recognition of its long-term project, which it has been pursuing since 2006 and which involves performing and documenting the complete vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The City of Leipzig’s Bach Medal is awarded for outstanding contributions to the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and is considered one of the most prestigious honors in the field of Bach studies. The jury consists of the Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, the rector of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theater in Leipzig, the Thomaskantor, the president, and the director of the Bach Archive. They explained their decision in favor of the J. S. Bach Foundation as follows:

«Since 2006, the J. S. Bach Foundation St. Gallen has been pursuing the ambitious project of performing the complete vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) in monthly concerts. For twenty years, the Foundation’s choir and orchestra, under the direction of Rudolf Lutz, have set the highest artistic standards. Sponsored by entrepreneur Dr. Konrad Hummler, Bach’s work—along with accompanying introductions and reflections on the text and music of each piece performed, as well as the release of the concerts on video and CD—has been and continues to be brought to a wide audience in an innovative and sustainable way.»

Left:

The Treasure of St. Gallen
Review and tribute to the St. Gallen Bach Project on the occasion of its 50th album (2025)

Convincing part of a big picture
Review of CD No. 20 (2018)

Helene Schulthess published as early as 2019 26 Swiss folk dances from 26 cantons from the collection of musicologist Hanny Christen, who traveled throughout Switzerland between 1940 and 1960 to record or transcribe melodies, and arranged them for two flutes and piano (Review). 12 Swiss-style folk dances is a chamber music cycle composed by Schulthess himself for the same instrumentation, drawing on characteristic features of Swiss folk music.

The focus is on clearly defined folk melodies that draw rhythmically on typical dance motifs, evoking traditional forms such as the Ländler or simple triple meters. Each of the twelve movements is assigned to a month, creating a musical annual cycle. Each movement is preceded by a haiku by Stefan Blankertz that reflects the respective atmosphere in a concise, linguistically reduced form. This creates an interplay between the sound of the alternating flutes and the word, making the cycle appear as a cohesive yet interpretatively open unit.

Month after month

January, titled «Allegro,» begins in a minor key and then shifts to a major key; it is paired with the haiku «winter without snow leaves mice chasing cats.» April, a pulsating Allegro with fast eighth-note triplets, is reminiscent of a tarantella. May is characterized by a yodel-like melody in the upper voice and is structured in three parts in classical song form, clearly marked with symbols such as A and A‘.

The piano primarily serves as a harmonic and rhythmic foundation, but at times enriches the musical texture with distinctive figurations and dense textures. The June movement is stylistically similar to the scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night's Dream in G minor, the first two measures echo the original, and it is aptly titled: «Sleeping wide awake on a summer night without pretension.».

With these combinations of lyrics and music, these dances offer an interesting change of pace from the flute repertoire, which is relatively rare in folk music. They are well suited for advanced players.

Helene Schulthess: 12 Swiss-style folk dances for two flutes and piano, with haikus by Stefan Blankertz, CHF 30.00 + shipping, self-published, helene-schulthess.ch (Where to buy and all the dances to listen to)

For decades, Edition Kunzelmann, formerly Edition Eulenburg, based in Adliswil, has rendered outstanding services to the cultivation of the wind repertoire, especially the horn repertoire. The impressive new edition of the Six mélodies by Charles Gounod bears witness to this impressive diligence.

These catchy pieces, which are not too difficult to play, were already published in 1982 by Editions Billaudot Paris, edited by the solo horn player of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Edmond Leloir, in a three-volume edition. It is to be welcomed that all Six mélodies now available in a booklet. The dedicatee of these works is the horn player and horn maker Marcel-Auguste Raoux from the famous Raoux dynasty.

The editor of the present edition, Simon Scheiwiller, presents a meticulously prepared revision report. His foreword provides interesting information about the historical context surrounding the hesitant, controversial transition from the natural horn to the first instruments with piston-valves in Paris around 1840.

As an old friend of the art of letterpress printing, the reviewer is delighted to hold such a lovingly designed music book in his hands.

Charles Gounod: Six mélodies pour le cor à pistons, edited by Simon Scheiwiller, GM-1981, Fr. 29.30, Edition Kunzelmann, Adliswil

The composer and guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel (*1965), who runs the Focusyear at the Jazzcampus in Basel, likes things creative, diverse and stupendous. For which he likes to use a wide variety of formats. Accordingly, the sought-after jazz musician is sometimes on the road as the leader of a big band, sometimes solo and especially in a three-piece line-up. The Austrian's latest musical venture is also a release by the Wolfgang Muthspiel Chamber Trio, the first, although the live premiere of the formation took place eight years ago. In addition to the namesake on guitar, the formation also includes his compatriot Mario Rom on trumpet and Colin Vallon from western Switzerland on piano. The declared aim of the three is to spin an interactive, polyphonic musical web together, which adopts the intimacy and transparency of chamber music formations without ever losing its rhythmic power and playfulness.

Already the first track, Guacho Schubert, makes it clear that the aim is to create chamber music free from formality and conventional pomp. Instead, the trio prefers to focus on improvisation, sound and, above all, the here and now. They do without bass and drums, which only becomes apparent on closer listening. Not least because Muthspiel occasionally misappropriates his guitar body for heartbeat-like percussion and Vallon mutes his piano strings. While in the title track Atlas the three instruments flow perfectly into each other and thus make the music pulsate between classical, jazz and world music, the following Might This Be The End quiet and completely inward-looking. The result is a sound like balm for the soul. Other pieces such as Lionel, that seems like an African travel memento, the elegantly swinging Duke's Blues or the tricky and playful Dogs make for an imaginative and sensual musical experience. And the more you get involved, the more you are rewarded.

Wolfgang Muthspiel Chamber Trio: Atlas. Clap Your Hands Records

The 30 New Studies for Solo Clarinet by the well-known English composer James Rae are a series of short, varied pieces in styles ranging from swing, blues, bossa nova to waltz. Titles from Another Planet to Molecules make them accessible as character pieces and thus promote musical expression.

The first «studies» are exclusively in the lower register and can be used as a supplement to a clarinet school. This also gives younger or less advanced pupils the opportunity to experience stylistic variety and create musical images at an early stage.

The pieces then become technically more demanding in small steps, while the keys and time signatures remain manageable. This allows for a clearly structured structure and supports continuous learning without excessive demands. At the same time, important technical aspects such as articulation, rhythm and phrasing are specifically addressed. Metronome markings for all pieces can be accepted as a challenge and are an ideal complement to the characteristic playing. The tempi encourage you to consciously deal with stylistics and pulse.

The booklet is practical and can be used directly in lessons and is ideal for building bridges to classical etude booklets. It motivates through musical variety and at the same time offers a solid basis for further development on the clarinet.

James Rae: 30 New Studies for Solo Clarinet, UE 21 850, € 18.95, Universal Edition, Vienna

Top performances usually go hand in hand with specialization. But violinist Sini Simonen and cellist Alexandre Foster are taking a different approach. They have opted for a combination of neoclassical sounds, two-part motets by Orlando di Lasso and contemporary sounds from different countries, each with its own style.

Variety is thus ensured. But Foster and Simonen achieve much more. In their foray through the ages, they discover various gems, which they present with more than just polish. Maurice Ravel's Sonata for violin and cello takes center stage. Roman Brotbeck rightly points out in the booklet that it «sometimes sounds like a string quartet». In addition to the astonishing sonority, the brilliant four-movement homage to Claude Debussy, who died in 1918, impresses with its elegance, polyphonic density and rhythmic finesse, which sound like modern Béla Bartók.

Moser and Winkelman

Switzerland resonates in the subtext: Alexandre Foster teaches as a cello professor at the Basel Music Academy. Bohuslav Martinůs Duo II was written near Basel, when the composer was a guest of Maja and Paul Sacher. Works by Roland Moser and Helena Winkelman also contribute to this wonderfully entertaining production: Moser's Three dedications are highly concentrated studies in which semitones, flageolet worlds and natural tones leave special sound impressions. In her early work Rondo with a Janus head already foreshadows what characterizes Basel-based Helena Winkelman to this day: a polystylistic openness with lively folk music and some jazz rhythms. Winkelman's lively Rondo is rightly written at the end of a CD on which Simonen and Foster hit the tone of the very different music at every point. We can only recommend it: Please listen in one go!

Bicinia. Works by Orlandi di Lasso, Bohuslav Martinů, Maurice Ravel, Helena Winkelman, Roland Moser, György Ligeti, Kaija Saariaho. Sini Simonen, violin; Alexandre Foster, cello. Claves Records CD 3134

«Nous ne savons rien sur l'origine de cette pièce qui constitue la première composition de Ravel pour le piano.» Arbie Orenstein wrote this in the preface to the first edition of the Sérénade grotesque, published by Salabert in 1975 to mark the centenary of Ravel's birth. The prominent Ravel scholar, whose monograph on the great composer is still probably the measure of all things, was not only the discoverer of the autograph, which had long been considered lost. He also arranged the premiere in the same year.

Fifty years later, Andreas Pernpeintner has now republished the short piano piece with Henle. The differences to the French first edition are minor. In Pernpeintner's foreword, however, we learn some fascinating details about how Ravel himself judged this work, which he had written almost as a teenager. Apparently he never kept it completely under lock and key.

The Sérénade grotesque is characterized by strong contrasts between percussive passages («très rude, pizzicatissimo») on the one hand and longer cantilenas («très sentimental») on the other. The numerous echoes of Spanish guitar music are not the only thing that makes the far more famous Alborada del gracioso from the Miroirs (Arbie Orenstein even felt like she was Scarbo recalls). As in these later masterpieces, the piano writing here also lives from orchestral associations. Although it is not overly demanding, the Sérénade has its pianistic pitfalls. In order to overcome these obstacles as elegantly as possible, the French pianist Cédric Tiberghien has contributed some fingerings that are really very practicable.

All in all, a worthwhile new edition! For Ravel fans anyway. But also for anyone who would like to look over the shoulder of a young genius as he develops.

Maurice Ravel: Sérénade grotesque, edited by Andreas Pernpeintner, HN 1590, € 8.00, G. Henle, Munich

Born in 1987 in the canton of Thurgau, Andreas Häberlin now teaches at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, USA. He has won numerous prizes in Switzerland, where he studied composition and theory at the ZHdK, and internationally, including a sponsorship award from the Canton of Thurgau in 2016. In the USA, Häberlin has worked with greats such as Michael Bublé and Barbra Streisand and has made a name for himself as a film music producer.

Now he is publishing his first book with the promising title A Music Transcription Method - Notating Recorded Music by Ear before. The title only partially lives up to its promise. In the four parts «Preparation - Process - Interpretation - Resources», the author meticulously and scientifically addresses the predominantly digital approach to music transcription, with a large number of references to the relevant literature. Online, he provides an extensive collection of self-recorded music and score examples for the book - but the assignment to the individual chapters is not immediately obvious.

You could say that writing down existing music requires outstanding skills in ear training, understanding rhythm and harmony. However, the proposed methods do not go into any depth, but presuppose the aforementioned skills. The chapter on «Orchestration» remains very general; Häberlin presents the Creative Software Sampler Cube and at least mentions the instrumentation teachings of Berlioz and Rimsky-Korsakov in the corresponding bibliography. Numerous technical aids, from midi devices and notation software to digital audio workstations, are presented. In addition, there are rather banal instructions to adhere to the deadline set by the client - and to make sure that you don't disturb the neighbors when playing music.

Andreas Häberlin: A Music Transcription Method - Notating Recorded Music by Ear, 178 p., € 50.99, Routledge, New York and London 2025, ISBN 978-1-032-84254-7

It seems a strange topic for someone who is starting out. But the hyphen in «auf-hören» already indicates that it is not simply a matter of ending, of calling it a day. Reto Bieri, clarinettist, conductor, lecturer in chamber music in Munich, long-time director of the Davos Festival and passionate programmer, is conducting the Whitsun Concerts at Ittingen Charterhouse for the first time. Heinz Holliger and András Schiff began this tradition exactly thirty years ago; after twenty editions, Graziella Contratto, Oliver Schnyder, Maurice Steger, Nicolas Altstaedt, Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout took over successively.

How does hearing come into cessation?

And now Reto Bieri «stops». In the program booklet, he explains how he understands this: «Hardly any other word says »no« so decisively and at the same time offers an opening. One says: »Stop it« and means standstill. But there is something else hidden inside the word: a listening ... » So to stop is like listening. This interpretation makes sense to someone who is interested in music. But is it correct? Kluge's Etymological Dictionary confirms that «aufhören» was synonymous with «hören» in the Middle Ages and infers: "When someone focuses their attention on something, they simultaneously cease their activity." Ceasing as being ready for the new that is about to come.

Reto Bieri explains this choice with the first impression the Charterhouse made on him: «You come through this portal and find yourself in a new, closed world. The most open space is heaven. That was also the case for the Carthusians, who withdrew behind these walls and created a paradise.» The entire festival program opens up from here.

Radical leaving behind

It begins with the extreme form of cessation, death. To kick things off on Friday evening, there is a three-part «Last Convoy» that stages precisely this arrival, farewell and resurrection. A few hundred meters away from the Charterhouse, a detachment of the Weinfelden Music Society forms up, then marches off slowly, playing the funeral march «Dear Mother». Then standstill, silence. It continues, same music, same slowness. Silence again. At the very back of the funeral procession of festival visitors, unrest spreads. Someone is upset that the loudspeaker, which is carried on a cart, is in the wrong place, because you can't hear anything. There is nothing to hear, it gradually becomes clear. There is slow walking to the funeral march - to the half! - and standing still. Not so easy to bear. The third time I stand still, I realize that my eyes are closing and I surrender to the situation. Bieri will later confirm «that you almost can't stand it, these repetitions, this stepping on the spot». And he will tell me what a unique experience it was for the music students involved to march along with players who have a completely different musical background. How the drum major had to explain to them how they should stand in line, heels together, feet at a 45-degree angle. Bieri has also joined the clarinet section and pays his respects to his dear mother. The march has to be played five times before they reach the Charterhouse, and the mint along the way begins to smell as they walk slowly.

Corpse feast, acted and completely true

In the baroque garden, Vox Clamantis has positioned itself around the round water basin and greets those arriving with Gregorian chants, including the Pentecost sequence. In the subsequent concert in the Remise, this Estonian vocal ensemble sings with its somnambulistic homogeneity The Deer's Cry by Arvo Pärt, the composer to whom it is very close and who almost quit, only to find a new voice years later. Finally, Henryk Górecki's Little requiem for a polka, here, too, repetitions, stepping on the spot and a sudden burst of nostalgic, exaggerated exuberance. Actor Jürg Kienberger, who has already given a somewhat disparate speech outside as the «priest» between quotes from Gotthelf and automatic telephone announcements, also provides amusement. There, these tragicomic-parodic intermezzi alienated me somewhat; on stage, I like them. It's good to laugh between this concentrated music. When asked whether this «theater» does not meet with opposition, Bieri will tell of a priest who wrote to him angrily. In the meantime, it has become a very stimulating exchange.

The evening concludes, as befits a funeral service, with the funeral meal. Everyone is seated in the Charterhouse restaurant: soup, people begin to chat hesitantly, main course, Mark Padmore accompanied by Anthony Romaniuk sings Schubert's Farewell to the earth, Dessert, ice-skating waltz. The festival musicians stand between the tables where there is space and play, the guests sing-hum-mumble along in several repetitions until the sadness has melted away and everyone is sure that something will begin again after the end. «... the end is the beginning from the other side», Karl Valentin is quoted in the festival program.

Unrelated in the horizontal

A feeling of togetherness spreads. Long-time festival-goers find that they have been missing something like this in the past. A community? Is music taking on the role of the church here? For Bieri, the proximity to the liturgical and religious is, on the one hand, strongly autobiographical: «As a child, I naturally took part in the Good Friday procession, thirstily walking four hours up the slope. At the Catholic teacher training college, we sang Gregorian chants every morning. On the other hand, I seem to be losing the roots of many things that have shaped us. Today we suffer from a gigantic cultural amnesia. Even when it comes to music, we often can no longer make connections and no longer know where something comes from or where it is going. Here we encounter the background of this monastic way of life, a comprehensive care, a verticality. In everyday life, we often only move horizontally and forget that there is also something above and below us.»

Stopping and blossoming

This year's program includes seven concerts. They mix music from the Middle Ages to the present day, less as a sequence than as a consequence. In the process, the procession, the making, is increasingly omitted, making way for the essence. The end point is Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet op. 115, which he wrote after he had actually finished composing. Listen, again and again! In the matinee on Whit Saturday, Vox Clamantis first sings the Gregorian antiphon Ubi caritas et amor and then, after a single breath, moves into Maurice Duruflé's motet on this theme, giving the impression that the monophonic melody breaks into an untenable polyphonic colorfulness. Later on Os justis in the same way to Bruckner's motet. Listen up! Next year it will be about «getting back».

This Whitsun, the line-up ranges from soloists to a 14-piece ensemble, with Vox Clamantis, Trio Gaspard, the string quartet Meta4 and many others performing at the Charterhouse. Bieri says that he insisted that the performers be here the whole time. Many never go out at all. There is also no town nearby. But the old roses - the Charterhouse is famous for its extensive collection - are coming into bloom these days. These historic varieties only bloom once a year, after a few weeks they are over, but they have a unique fragrance.

They came together through their shared soft spot for k-punk aka Mark Fisher, an English music critic and cultural theorist who died in 2017. And what did pianist Stefan Kägi and composer Michael Emanuel Bauer make of it? They took Othmar Schoeck's late song cycle Reverberation, Kägi and Bauer looked at it «from the spirit of Derrida's hauntology» and reworked it. The starting point is as unusual as the resulting mix: Kägi interprets the cycle together with bass-baritone Robert Koller; alongside the original is a textual and musical update, Bauer's «Afterimages». Finally, the German experimental musician Gunnar Geisse remixes some of it. The whole thing is given an English title: Schoeck vs. Bauer Or What Futures are you Longing For? Where are we?

The emotional state is sentimental: a return, a reflection is central, as the title Reverberation clarified. Schoeck was aware of his position as a late-born, post-romanticist, even to a certain extent as an epigone. And he rediscovered it in the poems of Nikolaus Lenau and Matthias Claudius. Resignation resonates - and then spills over to Bauer, who breaks it in many different ways. Stylistically surprising, there are echoes from the history of music. There are always echoes. This refraction is absolutely necessary, as Koller's tone, who can be such a shrewd mediator, occasionally slips into the sentimental and maudlin in Schoeck. But perhaps this is precisely what belongs in such an assemblage. Afterwards, however, Geisse's remixes seem contrived and not integrated, which are probably intended to represent an echo of the longed-for future.

Schoeck vs. Bauer Or What Futures are you Longing For? Othmar Schoeck: Nachhall; Michael Emanuel Bauer: Afterimages; remixes by Gunnar Geisse. Robert Koller, bass-baritone; Stefan Kägi, piano. aDevantgarde records, online only

Thomas Fortmann is a very unusual composer and his career is also unusual. Born in 1951 in the canton of Bern as the son of soprano Greta Saar and entrepreneur Rudolf Fortmann, he wrote his first pop/rock hit at the age of 17, which was released in many countries. In the following years, over 100 titles were released on various international labels. He also composed the music for the musical Tell!, in which Udo Lindenberg played the leading role. Apparently he then felt the desire to reinvent himself. In any case, at the age of 26 he turned to studying classical music and went on to compose mainly chamber music, but also two symphonies, an oratorio, songs and several stage works.

From lively to deeply dark

One of his most recent compositions is the Three mazurkas‚ which were recently published by Edition Kunzelmann. The first with the Polish title Mazurek dla Anny is a lively piece that is full of joyful playing and sounds like a free-tonal development of Karol Szymanowski's Mazurkas. In the Mazurek dla Arii‚, the second piece of the triptych, alternates meditative passages with slightly upbeat ones. Overall, a lyrical note dominates. What is striking here are the sometimes extremely low pianissimo registers, which make the piano sound like a murmur from a hidden underworld. The third Mazurka, Mazurek dla Arianki, initially leads us back to the joy of playing of the first. As the work progresses, however, the dark colors reappear and lead to a surprisingly clear tonal climax (Allargando). On the last pages, the two other mazurkas are also quoted, in part quite literally. The ending, which fades away in the most delicate pianissimo, is impressive!

The three pieces lie quite well in the fingers. Only in the last one are there some virtuoso passages. It is not the harmony that takes some getting used to, but sometimes the way in which Fortmann notates chords. For example, in the third mazurka at bar 23: this is quite obviously a pure A flat major chord. Why the «g sharp» in the bass? I'm sure Thomas Fortmann would have an original answer to that ...

The Three mazurkas were recorded on CD by the client Anna Kijanowska (21st Mazurkas, Dux Recording Producers), with brilliance and a great deal of empathy.

Thomas Fortmann: Three Mazurkas, MS-2631, Fr. 24.00, Müller & Schade/Edition Kunzelmann, Adliswil