Heinz Holliger - Airs
Heinz Holliger (b. 1939) - Airs – Seven Poems (2015-16) Adam Frary, Oboe Thacher Schreiber, Oboe/English Horn I. Une semaison de larmes sur le visage change, la scintillante saison des rivières dérangées chagrin qui creuse la terre L’âge regarde la neige s’éloigner sur les montagnes A sowing of tears On the face changes, The scintillating season Disturbed rivers Sorrow that digs the earth Age looks at the snow Go away on the mountains II. (2:22) L’oeil: Une source qui abonde Mais d’où venue? De plus loin que le plus loin De plus bas que le plus bas Je crois que j’ai bu l’autre monde The eye: A source that abounds But where did it come from? From further than further Lower than the lower I think I drank the other world III. (4:24) Ce qui brûle en déchirant l’air rose ou par brusque arrachement ou par constant éloignement En grandissant la nuit la montagne sur ses deux pentes Nourrit deux sources de pleurs What burns tearing the air Rose or by sudden tearing Or by constant distance Growing up at night The mountain on its two slopes Feeds two sources of crying If one were to ask any oboist to identify the person responsible for most of their instrument’s contemporary repertoire, the name Heinz Holliger would inevitably stand out among the responses, and for good reason; there is a long list of works written expressly for him by many of the greatest composers from the latter half of the twentieth century to the present day. This list includes (but is not limited to) works by Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutosławski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Many of these works have long since entered the oboist’s core repertoire, as well as greatly expanded the oboe’s technical capabilities. In addition to Holliger’s long and continuing career as a soloist and performer, he is also a prolific composer, having studied composition with Elliott Carter. Several of Holliger’s works for oboe and English horn have also entered the oboist’s core repertoire. The work presented here, Airs, is a recent composition, using many different combinations of oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn and written around seven poems by the Swiss poet Philippe Jaccottet, three of which we will perform here. Each poem is infused with otherworldly visions and experiences of the sublime. Holliger treats these settings as instrumental recitations of the poems, using compositional techniques such assigning pitches to certain letters, using the rhythm of the poems to dictate the rhythm of the music, using extended techniques such as quarter tones to imbue the pieces with the otherworldly tone that emanates from the poems. Holliger himself states “It’s different from simply writing a composition – a song – for voice and piano. Here, I really ‘read’ the poems with the two instruments.” Indeed, the two oboists are called upon to play very freely, without any strict rhythmic structure or meter, merely flowing through the words, two voices reading their poems to each other. Performed for Spring 2021 UCLA FLUX Contemporary Concert ~ https://www.thacherschreiber.com/ ~ #oboe #classicalmusic #englishhorn
Heinz Holliger (b. 1939) - Airs – Seven Poems (2015-16) Adam Frary, Oboe Thacher Schreiber, Oboe/English Horn I. Une semaison de larmes sur le visage change, la scintillante saison des rivières dérangées chagrin qui creuse la terre L’âge regarde la neige s’éloigner sur les montagnes A sowing of tears On the face changes, The scintillating season Disturbed rivers Sorrow that digs the earth Age looks at the snow Go away on the mountains II. (2:22) L’oeil: Une source qui abonde Mais d’où venue? De plus loin que le plus loin De plus bas que le plus bas Je crois que j’ai bu l’autre monde The eye: A source that abounds But where did it come from? From further than further Lower than the lower I think I drank the other world III. (4:24) Ce qui brûle en déchirant l’air rose ou par brusque arrachement ou par constant éloignement En grandissant la nuit la montagne sur ses deux pentes Nourrit deux sources de pleurs What burns tearing the air Rose or by sudden tearing Or by constant distance Growing up at night The mountain on its two slopes Feeds two sources of crying If one were to ask any oboist to identify the person responsible for most of their instrument’s contemporary repertoire, the name Heinz Holliger would inevitably stand out among the responses, and for good reason; there is a long list of works written expressly for him by many of the greatest composers from the latter half of the twentieth century to the present day. This list includes (but is not limited to) works by Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutosławski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Many of these works have long since entered the oboist’s core repertoire, as well as greatly expanded the oboe’s technical capabilities. In addition to Holliger’s long and continuing career as a soloist and performer, he is also a prolific composer, having studied composition with Elliott Carter. Several of Holliger’s works for oboe and English horn have also entered the oboist’s core repertoire. The work presented here, Airs, is a recent composition, using many different combinations of oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn and written around seven poems by the Swiss poet Philippe Jaccottet, three of which we will perform here. Each poem is infused with otherworldly visions and experiences of the sublime. Holliger treats these settings as instrumental recitations of the poems, using compositional techniques such assigning pitches to certain letters, using the rhythm of the poems to dictate the rhythm of the music, using extended techniques such as quarter tones to imbue the pieces with the otherworldly tone that emanates from the poems. Holliger himself states “It’s different from simply writing a composition – a song – for voice and piano. Here, I really ‘read’ the poems with the two instruments.” Indeed, the two oboists are called upon to play very freely, without any strict rhythmic structure or meter, merely flowing through the words, two voices reading their poems to each other. Performed for Spring 2021 UCLA FLUX Contemporary Concert ~ https://www.thacherschreiber.com/ ~ #oboe #classicalmusic #englishhorn