Chamber Music

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Cat No: NEOS12331

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Format Details:

Release Date: 12 July 2024

Label: Neos

Packaging Type: Digipak

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4260063123313

Genres: Classical Contemporary Classical

Description

In an extremely apt and clever manner, Michael Quell once described Gunter Schwarze's composing and not only his musical understanding but also his wider-reaching life philosophy as a search for "freedom in the context of collective suppression". Succinctly and precisely formulated, this is the key to understanding this composer. He was only able to maintain his inner resistance to collectivist coercion through his deep faith, lived quietly but all the more convincingly, which gave him the strength to keep "still", to keep his composure, to not allow himself to be corrupted throughout his life (similar to Georg Katzer in this, as well as in his choice of compositional means of expression), yet not to be unwisely thrown under the bus by a superior opponent and so be at their mercy. Consequently, he always lives his religiosity quietly, it unfolds restrainedly in the music. It does not want to impose itself on anyone, and his "service", his immense social competence - acquired over the years in various functions, such as that of church cantor or university professor - feeds on this. Throughout his life, his composing was also shaped by his understanding of culture, the extremely respectful way he dealt with different cultural circles and their artistic means.
Modes standing in the tradition of leitmotifs, generated according to Bachian provenance via letters, assigned to intervals, form a musically commenting means of contrast in front of a cleverly disposed illustrative backdrop, especially in Schwarze's oratorical work. His "quiet" composing, unpretentious activity, not only musically, correlates with his preference for porcelain chimes and glass glockenspiels, for whose further musical development and subsequent renaissance in public life he was the decisive promoter.
Gunter Schwarze, born in Bautzen in 1949 received piano lessons from an early age and from 1966 onwards organ lessons. He studied singing, piano and composition at the Hochschule fur Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden from 1970 to 1976. 1976-1979 he worked as a freelance theatre composer and occasionally as cantor and organist in Plauen/Vogtland. At the same time he took up a teaching post for piano at the Musikhochschule Dresden, where he held a permanent teaching post from 1979, which was extended to include the subject of music theory in 1984. After the fall of communism in 1993, he became professor of composition and music theory. From 2005 to 2010 he was Dean of Studies and thus Head of the Department of Composition and Music Theory. After his retirement in 2014, he continued his teaching activities as an honorary teacher until 2020.
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