FRIEDRICH CERHA - 90
Friedrich Cerha’s output has solid roots in an extended musical tradition, while spanning a wide arc from the beginnings of new music all the way to the present. This is not only due to the composer’s respectable age, but primarily to the great number of activities he has pursued in the course of his long life, along with the great variety of influences he has incorporated into his work. At the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music in 1956, he attended seminars given by violinist Rudolf Kolisch and pianist Eduard Steuermann, who had prepared performances of works by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern in collaboration with the composers themselves. Cerha passed on this firsthand knowledge to the next generations in his numerous articles, in his post as Professor for Composition, Notation and Interpretation of New Music at the Musikakademie (which became the Vienna Conservatory of Music), in his performances as a violinist, and last not least as a conductor of ensembles, orchestras and operas, much in demand on the international new music scene.
Cerha then opened up his music to influences from other continents, such as polyrhythm and microtonality. In maqam (1989), the first of four string quartets, he used Arabian scales with quarter-tones and corresponding complex rhythms. Starting with Catalogue des objets trouvés (1969) and fully with the composition of the Brecht-based opera Baal (1974–80), Cerha’s style started featuring direct links with traditional expression, melodiousness, harmony and structures ranging from the Baroque Age to the early 20th century. His most recent duo and trio pieces pay homage to Bach, Berg, Schoenberg and to his own previous works, including a series of direct quotes. Rooted in tradition yet entirely at home in the present, Friedrich Cerha’s music certainly builds new kinds of bridges. Yet these are no flimsy constructions dangerously suspended over a yawning chasm; instead, his pieces are like sturdy viaducts with several arches firmly planted in different varieties of soil.
The German newspaper Die Welt described a performance of the Boulanger Trio as irresistible, while Wolfgang Rihm wrote in a letter: To be interpreted in this way is surely the great dream of every composer. Founded in Hamburg in 2006 by Karla Haltenwanger (piano), Birgit Erz (violin) and Ilona Kindt (cello), the ensemble is now one of the few full-time piano trios currently based in Berlin. Already in 2007 they won the 4th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in Norway, followed by the Rauhe Prize for New Chamber Music in 2008. The ensemble has received crucial musical guidance from Hatto Beyerle, Menahem Pressler, and Alfred Brendel.
In the past years, the trio has gained an excellent reputation in the world of chamber music, with regular appearances at the Heidelberger Frühling, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, the Dialogs at Salzburg Mozarteum, and Ultraschall in Berlin. In tandem with chamber music partners such as Nils Mönkemeyer (viola), Sebastian Manz (clarinet) and Andrè Schuen (baritone), the trio has performed at prestigious venues such as the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Wigmore Hall in London and the Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus in Berlin.
In addition to works of the Classical and Romantic periods, the three musicians are much in demand as performers of new music. The Boulanger Trio collaborates with composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Johannes Maria Staud, Friedrich Cerha, Toshio Hosokawa, and Matthias Pintscher. In 2012, the trio launched its own concert series, the Boulangerie, in Hamburg and Berlin, and starting with this season it is also being exported to the Musikverein in Vienna. At every one of these concerts, a classical composition is performed alongside a piece of contemporary music, the composer of which is always present and talks with the three musicians about his or her oeuvre.
In 2016, the Boulanger Trio added two new recordings on the CAvi-music label to its discography: Solitaires, and a portrait CD celebrating the 90th birthday of Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha, after five previous releases on the Ars and Hänssler Profil labels that featured works by composers such as Shostakovich, Vasks, Liszt, and Schoenberg.
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