About the desire to break frames

How can one approach such an abundance? Well, the oeuvre of Michael Wertmüller, a percussionist and composer whose catalog of works reveals an almost manic creative urge, whose scores can hardly be surpassed in opulence and density and who, on top of that, moves between various genres such as jazz, new music including opera, chamber or orchestral music and, finally, rock, mostly of a harder kind.

Well, the 14 authors of the special volume Michael Wertmüller, richly illustrated with scores and photos, try. One focus is on the astonishingly extensive opera and music theater oeuvre. In his text, Thomas Meyer deals with Stop, which premiered in Lucerne in 2013. He vividly describes the genesis of the politically charged work and describes in detail how the texts by the radical Swiss writer Lukas Bärfuss and Wertmüller's no less radical music came together. In her article on the «experimental opera» D-I-E Barbara Eckle explains, among other things, the concept that goes beyond any traditional framework. A classical string quartet, a female rapper, a garage-hardcore punk band, a classical percussionist and, last but not least, the well-known jazz trio Steamboat Switzerland, with whom Wertmüller has been collaborating for decades, are used to sometimes deafeningly loud effect. Gabrielle Weber describes this close, mutually stimulating cooperation with many refreshing interview excerpts from band members Dominik Blum, Marino Pliakas and Lucas Niggli.