SKU: CA.3550300

ISBN 9790007165161. Text language: Latin.

Particularly during the early 1740s, Johann Sebastian Bach concentrated intensely on studying the compositional technique of strict vocal polyphony. As an inspiration, he studied the works of older masters, copying them and, for the most part, performing them as well. A set of single parts for the Missa canonica by Francesco Gasparini in an instrumentation by Bach were recently discovered in the collection of the former Ephoralbibliothek Weissenfels; some of the parts are in Bach's own handwriting. Gasparini was esteemed in Germany particularly as a master of elaborate counterpoint and audacious harmonic writing. Bach amended the music text with a view to certain aspects of performance practice, clearly following a very specific concept of sound organization. His interest in strict counterpoint was paralleled by a tangible re-orientation in Bach's own compositional technique at the beginning of the 1740s. Francesco Gasparini's Missa canonica therefore served as a practical model for the highly developed art of canon writing and the strict polyphony in Bach's late works, as we encounter them, for example, in the B minor Mass.

SKU: BR.EB-9300

ISBN 9790004187647. 9 x 12 inches.

World premieres:I version for flute: Wiesbaden, 1972II version for piano: Nyon, 1972III version for var. insts.: Cologne, May 29, 1976VI version for accordeon: Fribourg, June 25, 1987VIII version for violoncello Tokyo: October 14, 1989X version for organ: Stuttgart, March 28, 2018This work (A Breath of the Untimely) was first written for solo Flute and dedicated to Aurele Nicolet. Its bears the subtitle Lament on the Loss of Musical Thought - some Madrigals for Solo Flute or Flute with any other Instruments. This serves as a playing instruction but doubles at the same time as an outmoded programme: it refers back to the musical origin of the opening lamenting motif, a tradition which was once of its time but is not of our time - namely the Lamento genre which gave the title to the Chaconne in Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. Almost simultaneously I wrote a second version for Piano (for Piano one-and-a-half hands), which already formulates possible approaches for the performer, in some detail, to the indicated, quasi-canonic version of the piece in the programme. The multiple version Ein Hauch von Unzeit III realizes a concrete version of a formal state which floats between strict canon and aleatoric principles: each of the musicians who are spread throughout the hall introduces their own idiomatic translation of the flute part. And so the music exists, omnipresent, not only spatially throughout the hall, but also formally in a sort of fluctuating simultaneity. For that reason, it was my express wish to any potential interpreter that they should construct entirely their own version of the piece. A healthy number of musicians have responded to my suggestion - versions of the piece have now been made for guitar (Cornelius Schwehr, Gunther Schneider), accordion (Hugo Noth), double bass (Fernando Grillo), violin (Hansheinz Schneeberger), viola, violoncello, and double bass (trio basso, Koln), violoncello (Michael Bach), trombone (Andrew Digby) and, created by myself, a sung version for voice (to words by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel und Max Bense), and for viola.The most important requirement for the whole piece is absolute stillness, which should as far as possible emanate from the performer. The pauses are occasionally in this respect the most important element. These may, if one can find the necessary stillness, become very long.Ein Hauch von Unzeit (A Breath of the Untimely) - time almost dissolves!(Klaus Huber, 1989/2014 - translation: David Alberman)CD:Jean-Luc Menet (Bass flute)CD Traversieres 120.270Jean-Luc Menet (fl)CD STR 37039Bibliography:Zimmermann, Heidy: Zeitgestaltung im Kompositionsprozess bei Klaus Huber - dargestellt anhand von Skizzen, in: Mnemosyne. Zeit und Gedachtnis in der europaischen Musik des ausgehenden 20. Jahrhunderts, hrsg. von Dorothea Redepenning und Joachim Steinheuer, Saarbrucken: Pfau 2006, S. 90-109

World premiere: Stuttgart, Hospitalkirche, March 28, 2018.

SKU: BT.PMC3367

Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to 'Light,' assembled from various sacred Latin texts. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother's final illness and found great personal comfortand solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels - spiritual, artistic and intellectual. The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of theRequiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, O Nata Lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus. The opening Introitus introduces several themes that recur later in the work and includes an extended canonon et lux perpetua. In Te, Domine, Speravi contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus Herzliebster Jesu (from the Nuremburg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on fiat misericordia. O Nata Lux and Veni,Sancte Spiritus are paired songs, the former an a cappella motet at the center of the work and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. A quiet setting of the Agnus Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, which reprises the openingsection of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful celebratory Alleluia. --Morten Lauridsen.