Manfred Eicher Monokultur #26
Recording ECM
36 pages of interview and images
First, silence. Then, as from afar, frantically, a violin descends, emerging from the shadows, ever more insistently. A piano answers, slows the pace. And thus begins a careful courtship of two opposing voices: teasing, complaining, questioning, refuting, embracing. And thus begins one of the most compelling recordings of modern music.
Later on, we hear a bell, the pulse, introducing the second movement – a requiem, a dream, a heart-stopping descent, unreeling slowly, ever so relentlessly, into a depth where there is nothing but mourning, brutal, encompassing, rapturous.
A variation: The initial melody reappears, hesitantly, lethargically. What was demanding and alive before has now lost its will, settled into a languid complaint, a tired resistance.
Finally, a violin edges in, harshly, introducing the last cycle: an infinite arch of contrasting movements, ripples in the sea, overlapping. A drawn-out rise of gathering forces, magnetic, building up, suspended, and inevitably, violently, colliding. The epilogue: a lament, distant voices, drifting apart. One by one, the musicians leave the room. The end of sound. Silence.
