INTAKT RECORDS – CD-REVIEWS

KATHARINA WEBER
Woven Time

Intakt CD 157

 

 

 

Manfred Papst. NZZ am Sonntag, 29. März 2009

 

 

Wegsuche‘ ist ein schönes Wort. Als ob es um die Gangbarkeit von Wegen ginge, nicht das Erreichen von Zielen. KATHARINA WEBER beginnt damit ihr Piano Solo Woven Time (Intakt CD 157). In 15 Episoden zeigt die 50-jährige Bernerin, was ihr, nach Studium und Kursen bei Wyttenbach, Globokar, Rzewski, Oliveros und Frith und den Hinterkopf voller Lektionen der Zweiten Wiener Schule, von Schumann, Messiaen, Scelsi, mit wachem Sinn aber für das Wegweisende von György Kurtág und Galina Ustvolskaya, wesentlich ist. Eines ist schon nach wenigen Minuten, nach den leisen Tönen von Sicht aus dem Kopfstand‘, den Hell-Dunkel-Kontrasten von Spiegelfläche‘, den Quinten von Quint-Essenz‘, ganz klar, Weber improvisiert abseits aller jazzigen Anstöße, sie träumt und konstruiert klassisch‘. Aus ihren Fingerspitzen fließt kein Blues, sondern allenfalls ein Blaue-Blumen-Blau wie bei Der Traum der Gräfin‘. Wichtiger als Mondschein ist jedoch das Material, im durchaus prosaischen Sinn. Für Verstrebungen‘ beklopft sie mit Schlegeln den Bösendorfer Imperial-Korpus. Die Clustersprünge von Der wildgewordene Steinfrosch‘ sind angeregt durch Kurtágs Klavierzyklus ‚Jákétok‘, bei Dialog mit dem Hausgeist‘ imitiert sie einen sprudelnden Zimmerbrunnen, Schüttelbecher‘ erklärt sich ebenfalls selbst. Weber spielt keine vorgegebenen Licks, sondern mit soviel Bedacht, dass man ihr Denken mithören kann, nicht nur beim philosophischen Was bleibt?‘. Konsequent legt sie bestimmte Motive frei - recht plastisch, gleichzeitig auch Feldmanesk, bei Säulengänge‘ oder bei Bebung‘, wo sie mit der Rechten pickt und unter der Linken Vibrationen nachhallen.
Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy, Deutschland, 62/20

 

 

Frank von Niederhäusern, Radiomagazin, Schweiz, April 2009

 

 

 

Ny spennende stemme
Katharina Weber er en sveitsisk pianist som på et personlig vis har greid å fusjonere samtidsmusikk med improvisasjon.

Vel 50 år gamle Katharina Weber fra Bern i Sveits er et fullstendig nytt navn for meg. På hjemmebane derimot har hun lenge nytt stor anerkjennelse for sitt pianospill det være seg med et klassisk uttrykk eller i stadig større grad som impromusiker.
Weber er en høyt utdanna klassisk musiker som ikke hadde spilt en tone musikk uten at det var fullstendig nedskrevet før hun var 17 år. Deretter tok det henne mange vanskelige år, som hun sier det sjøl, før hun fant fram til et språk og et uttrykk som var hennes.
Med seg på veien har hun hele tida hatt komponister som Schönberg, Berg og Webern og den sveitsiske avantgardepianisten Irène Schweizer – som Weber har spilt duett med i Webers egen komposisjon for de to – har også hatt og har en sentral plass som inspirator.
Her møter vi Weber i 15 frie, men samtidig ganske så strukturerte stykker for solopiano. Dette er ikke fullt øs frijazz i et hinsidig tempo og med et voldsomt volum. Det er tvert imot høyst reflektert og kontemplativ musikk framført av en musikant med noe helt eget på hjertet. Hennes unike bruk av begge hender – som ofte lever sitt helt separate liv – gir musikken ytterligere spenning.
Katharina Weber er en musikant som på ingen måte går i tradisjonelle og opptråkkede spor. Hun har funnet fram til sin egen stemme – ei stemme det er spennende å være sammen med.
Tor Hammerø, Side2, 21. April 2009, Norway

 

Johannes Anders, Jazz n' More, Schweiz, Mai 2009

 

Vincent Cotro, Jazz Magazine, France, 2009

 

Thorsten Meyer, Jazzpodium, Deutschland, Juni 2009

 

Robert Iannapollo, Signal to Noise, USA/Canada, Summer 2009

 

Johannes Anders, Schweizer Musikzeitung, Juni 2009

 

Christoph Wagner, Schwarzwälder Bote, Deutschland, 27. Mai 2009

 

Who benefits more each time a gifted instrumentalist with a deep classical background like pianist Katarina Weber makes the jump to improvised music, classical music or improvised music? It’s a close call, which is not to suggest that albums like Woven Time are anything but vista-expanding for adherents of improvised music. Weber’s example makes a solid case that composers from Robert Schumann to the Second Viennese and New York schools provide improvisers with tool kits as comprehensive and pragmatic as any that’s brought to extemporaneous music-making. Still, for every moment where Weber’s nuanced touch and approach to harmonic development has the residue of her classical background, there are an equal number without discernable antecedents. It’s the specific mix of moments of laying solid foundations and bouncing on spindly limbs that distinguishes Weber’s music. She elicits unexpected colors from methods like playing unison lines played in the opposite extremities of the keyboard, or letting single pianissimo notes totally decay before playing another. Her temperament is hard to pin down – in a way, she’s boldly neutral, which accounts for the lack of melodrama in her roiling forte passages, and the absence of pat lyricism in her more subdued moments. The imperatives of interpretation gleaned from her classical training still figure in her sensibility. That’s why classical music benefits almost as much as improvised music from Weber’s impressive debut – it is elevated from a closed genre to a practice that can lead anywhere.
Bill Shoemaker, www.pointofdeparture.org, Issue 23 - June 2009

 

 

Allein die (übrigens durchwegs deutschsprachigen) Titel der einzelnen Improvisationen der Schweizerin – wie 'Wegsuche’, 'Spiegelfläche’ oder 'Der wildgewordene Steinfrosch’ – lassen auf Humor und einen spirituellen, nicht immer geraden Weg der musikalischen Annäherung schließen. Bei diesem Suchen, Finden, Verlieren am Instrument, dem Wachsen- und Entstehenlassen von Spannungsbögen dabei zu sein, ist anstrengend und äußerst befriedigend zugleich. Natürlich hat Fred Frith, der auch an den liner notes mitgeschrieben hat und K.W. offenbar sehr schätzt, recht, wenn er sagt, es gebe keine Vorbilder, niemand klinge wie Katharina Weber. Aber ich möchte doch eben keinen Vergleich, sondern eine Richtungsvorgabe wagen: einmal Muhal Richard Abrams oder, um es diffuser und gleichzeitig genauer und poetischer zu sagen, praktizierter Zen-Buddhismus am Flügel. Die Musik als Vehikel für kontemplative Spaziergänge durch eine aufmerksam wahrgenommene Um- und Innenwelt. Pianistisches Können eingesetzt für eine edle Transformationsgeste. Weber lässt uns teilhaben, lässt den Hörer die fein ziselierten, manchmal nur angedeuteten szenischen Abläufe miterleben. Mit 'Woven Time’ legt uns die Pianistin ihre erste Solo-CD vor. Das beeindruckende Ergebnis ist hoffentlich der Startschuss für eine öffentliche (in der Szene ist Weber seit 30 Jahren präsent) und internationale Karriere der Musikerin.
(mitter), Freistil, Österreich, Juni 2009

 

Christoph Wagner, NZZ, Schweiz, Juni 2009

 

 


Until she'd reached the age of seventeen, pianist Weber hadn't played the piano without having sheet music in front of her, but it's clear from this program that she's put in the effort it takes to acquire the improviser's gifts. Such, however, are the recorded precedents for solo improvising pianists that the business of staking out individual territory within the recorded canon is fraught.
In that regard, Weber fares rather well. The extraordinary reflection of "Sicht aus dem Kopfstand" is entirely her own, and she has a way of seemingly distilling time which ought to be the envy of others. The piece is less than four minutes duration, but in this case the brevity serves the music well.
That's equally true generally speaking as well. "Gefalschte Obertone und die Wahrheit dahinter," at just over three minutes, is static, seemingly not permissive of development, but in a way that conjures forth no notions apart from that of Weber's singular musical personality—certainly Morton Feldman's brand of minimalism isn't evoked.
Cecil Taylor's spirit isn't walking the floor here either. On "Dialog mit dem Hausgest" Weber gets as close as she ever does to his hyperactivity but the teasing out of lines, and indeed, perhaps, expectations, is the sound of a pianist only too aware of his precedent. As it is, she reaches a happy accommodation with it, letting her own music breathe in its own singular way.
She's a musician who tends to shy away from the emphatic, which in its way also informs her musical personality. She gets as close to such a gesture as she ever does here on "Quint-Essenz" where her innate pianistic knowledge allows her to tellingly deploy the instrument's dynamics. Again the risks of meandering are denied by brevity and the result is that her ideas come across as distillations, symbolic not so much of caution as they are of restraint of a high order.
"Schuttelbecher" is almost mechanical in its nature, and not least because Weber's hands serve almost as a kind of surrogate player-piano, complete with the connotations of the static that this implies. In view of this, it's perhaps unsurprising that the music doesn't progress in a linear fashion but instead seems to hang in the air, subject not so much to passing whim as to when Weber judges the moment is right. Her right hand teases a figure out towards the piece's end, but without compromising the mood established.
Nic Jones, All About Jazz, USA, June, 22, 2009

 

Die Berner Pianistin kommt aus der klassischen und Neuen Musik, spielte sich indes - u.a. durch Inspiration und Austausch mit Iréne Schweizer - improvisatorisch zunehmend frei und hat nun mit Fred Frith einen bekennenden Mentor und einen definitiv eigenen Stil gefunden, der auf ihrem Solo-Debut indes jedesmal neu und anders klingt. Die erfahrene Pianistin Weber ist definitiv noch auf dem Weg, aber was sie mit diesen 15 hochoriginellen und ereignisreichen Stücken vorlegt, ist eine große Bereicherung. In manchen Miniaturen tummelt sich eine unglaubliche und reichhaltige Material- und Referenzdichte, welche die Dialektik zwischen energetischer Impression und meditativer Expression auslotet und vorformuliert. BRAAZ: DA! (zach) Wie letzte Ausgabe versprochen: die Fortsetzung der CD "So!" der grandiosen austriakischen Free-Form-Kapelle, hier auf Vinyl only in grün, aber nicht dasselbe, sondern 16 sagenhafte saft-durchdachte Freispiel-Elogien zwischen Globe Unity und Lounge Lizards und Eigensud kocht. Der dritte Teil der Trilogie heißt übrigens "La!" und ist ein T-Shirt. Es liegt mir leider nicht vor, aber man soll es anziehen können. Unterstützt diese Band. Und wenn ihr schon mal dabei seid: Unterstützt die Unterstützer, unterstützt ein besseres Leben und stürzt Euch in den Sommer. Wir sehen uns im September!
By Honker, MADE MY DAY, TERZ 07/08.09, Deutschland

 

Andy Hamilton, The Wire, UK, July 2009

 

Weber’s classical background has provided her with her a sure technique, but it is as an improvising musician that she approaches this set of 15 pieces, none of them stretching much beyond six minutes and a couple barely lasting a handful of seconds. Most of the set grew out of material she had developed over the course of a month, with some pieces improvised during the recording session itself. Dark, restless, brooding and often melodramatic, Weber’s is an energetic music that surprises and excites in equal measure.
Simon Adams, Jazz Journal, UK, September 2009

 

 

Eblouissant
Katharina Weber : «Woven Time»Cette pianiste suisse née en 1958 vient du classique et de la «contemporaine»; elle a suivi des cours de Gyôrgy Kurtag et joué sous la direction de Heinz Holliger. Un jour, elle a découvert l'improvisation : une révélation. Dès lors, Irène Schweizer, Vinko Globokar ou Fred Frith seront ses guides sur ces terres nouvelles. A 51 ans, voici son premier disque de «jazz», beau comme la rencontre la plus exigeante, la plus subtile qu'on puisse imaginer entre Cecil Taylor, Morton Feldman, Gyôrgy Kurtag et Monk. Eblouissant. (Intakt/Orkhêstra)
Bernard Loupias, Le Nouvel Observateur, France, 10. September, 2009

 

The album title is regrettable, implying something more abstract and (dare one say it?) feminine. As a highly experienced classical player, Weber has a huge technical resource, and an instinct for form that translates surely to improvised situations; if, that is, these 15 short pieces are, indeed, spontaneous and not pre-composed to some degree. Weber has a forceful left hand and most of the playing emerges out of dark, woody territory, like the sinuous Spiegelfläche or the limpid Sicht aus dem Kopfstand, which flirts with silence. There are sounds which imply some kind of extended technique, preparation or “inside” work, but they are so seamlessly woven (damn!) into the fabric one simply accepts them as part of Weber’s immediately distinctive language. After 30 years, a debut record as solo artist: worth the wait.
Brian Morton, Jazz Journal, UK, August 2009

 


Anche se pubblicato da un'etichetta di grande tradizione come la Intakt, ed accompagnato dalle note di copertina di un musicista come Fred Frith, Woven Time non è affatto un album di jazz. Diciamo, questo, senza malizia e senza alcuna connotazione negativa. Solo per dare un riferimento estetico.
Questo album si muove infatti in territori prossimi a quelli della musica colta europea. Musica che non ha una forte tradizione improvvisativa, ma tant'è... non è mai troppo tardi per iniziare ad averne una. Del resto è la stessa Weber, nell'intervista riportata nel booklet dell'album, a dire chiaramente di avere l'impressione che le sue improvvisazioni stiano sempre più "ritornando alla classica". A conferma di ciò, la pianista menziona solo un paio di riferimenti jazzistici (Irène Schweitzer e Fred Frith), mentre si dilunga ampiamente sulla Seconda Scuola di Vienna (e dunque su Schoenberg, Webern e Berg), sugli ungheresi Ligeti e Kurtag, sul romanticismo di Schumann, su tecniche di modulazione barocche (la traccia Bebung), sugli intervalli (l'uso della settima maggiore invece dell'ottava).
C'è poi, nella Weber, un'attenzione quasi maniacale al tocco, al suono. Molto interessante l'uso del registro grave, favorito ed in qualche modo stimolato dallo strumento utilizzato, un Boesendorfer Imperial con corde supplementari sui bassi. Da rimarcare anche l'essenzialità del pianismo della Weber, nitido e conciso (le tracce sono tutte piuttosto brevi), che rivela un estremo controllo anche nell'improvvisazione più libera.
Musica classica, insomma.
I titoli dei brani hanno spesso un intento descrittivo. Sono stati decisi a posteriori e cercano di catturare la natura, sia essa poetica o tecnica, dei brani. "Quint-Essenz" indica ad esempio una struttura per intervalli di quinta; "Spiegelflache" lo spaesamento derivante da melodie che si riflettono, come sulla superficie di uno specchio (Spiegelflache, appunto); la traccia di apertura, "Wegsuche" (la ricerca della via), ha un titolo a dir poco rivelatore.
Valutazione: 4 stelle
Paolo Peviani, All About Jazz Italia, 2. Mai 2009

 

Back we go to the world of willfully aleatoric music with a solo CD, from pianist Katharina Weber. The liner notes suggest that she has crossed over into the Dark Side of improvisation from the world of Classical music and I can readily believe that given the results on this recording which display her assured technical command of the instrument. In the manner of many contemporary Classical composers, she drastically limits her available materials for each piece to a chord or an interval and relentlessly manipulates her starting germ to reveal every last permutation and logical facet she can wring from it. This gives the music structure and generally imbues each selection with its own identity—something not always found with this sort of all-improvised approach where all too often musicians recycle their own personal clichés and gestural inclination
through several tracks. Indeed there is an apparent form and logical cohesiveness through many tracks that might surprise a listener who didn’t know they were listening to an unpremeditated improvisation. Weber is helped in this by having both an enviable technique and a fine Bösendorfer at her disposal and she knows how to use it. This is good stuff and held my attention and I suspect it will hold yours too. Recommended.
David Kane, Cadence, USA, Oct-Nov-Dec 2009

 

Musikprotokoll mit Katharina Weber, von Johannes Anders, SMZ Nr. 11, November 2009 (PDF-Datei)

 

Ivana Ng, All About Jazz New York, January 2010

 

Free jazz is about pushing limits and reinventing sound. Ornette Coleman was an innovator due in part to the unique sound of his plastic saxophone. Horn players like Miles Davis, Marshall Allen and Evan Parker paved the way for the airy, wheezing, rambling and sputtering that we hear so often in free improv today. So far, the piano has been saved from extensive abuse and experimentation. No matter how you play the piano, whether it is with fingers, elbows or a wooden stick, it still sounds, well, like a piano.
...
Swiss pianist Katharina Weber takes the sparse approach to piano in her debut solo album, Woven Time. In 15 solo improvisations, the classically trained artist can hardly escape her roots—shades of Romanticism and the Second Viennese School permeate her songs. Weber describes the act of improvising as trying to "find my own language," which is evident in the thoughtfulness of each note. The silences in Weber's pieces express an intense desire to delve exhaustively into an idea. "Wegsuche" and "Schuettelbecher" are hauntingly beautiful examples of her earnest approach to improvisation.
Ivana Ng, www.allaboutjazz.com, USA, January 16, 2010

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