Iván Fischer, known worldwide as a conductor, has recently come to the fore as a composer. Fischer began composing at the age of twenty, writing, as he says, in an avant-garde style fitting for that age. But it all came to an end as he became more and more absorbed by conducting. Some thirty years later, however, the urge to take up the pen again became irresistible: “A feeling as though I found my true self.” He describes himself not as a composer but as a composing conductor, and the many composers whose music he conducts are his teachers and his sources of inspiration.
This CD presents a portrait of the composer Iv.n Fischer. The following liner notes are based largely on his own commentary and on that of Habakuk Traber (who writes for the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester Berlin).
Notes about the number of tracks:
I have taken the liberty to make the last piece of work ‘Tsuchigumo’ as one track (in the booklet 16 – 25) as many sections play through to the next without stopping.
Tracklist
Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.Total time: 00:54:09
Additional information
| Label | |
|---|---|
| SKU | 34516 |
| Qualities | |
| Channels | |
| Artists | Budapest Festival Orchestra members, Kobra Ensemble, Matthias Kadar, Nora Fischer, Wim Van Hasselt |
| Composers | |
| Genres | |
| Cables | van den Hul 3T |
| Digital Converters | Grimm A/D |
| Editing Software | Pyramix |
| Mastering Engineer | Jared Sacks |
| Mastering Room | Grimm LS1 |
| Microphones | Bruel & Kyaer, Schoeps |
| Mixing Board | Rens Heijnis custom made |
| Instruments | |
| Original Recording Format | |
| Producer | Hein Dekker |
| Recording Engineer | Hein Dekker, Jared Sacks |
| Recording location | Budapest Hungary |
| Recording Software | Merging |
| Recording Type & Bit Rate | DSD64 |
| Release Date | October 28, 2016 |
Press reviews
Klassieke Zaken
(…) Er wordt voortreffelijk gemusicieerd door een prachtig zingend Kobra en een nog prachtiger zingende Nora Fischer.
Klassiek Centraal, nomination Gold Label
Fijnzinnige Iván Fischer (…) Dat de Hongaarse dirigent Iván Fischer finesse uitstraalt, is een understatement. Hij ademt het moeiteloos. De cd Composers Portrait 1 doet zijn reputatie alle eer aan.
JDCMB
(…) a fascinating CD (…) Whether it’s a touching solo song in Yiddish (amazingly sung by Fischer’s daughter, the contemporary-specialist soprano Nora Fischer), a short Sextet for strings and tabla subtitled ‘Wanderlust’, the anguished German-Yiddish Cantata or the short opera Tsuchigumo, a completely off-the-wall creation in six languages and plenty of pastiche, based on a 15th-century Noh play – that voice is Essence of Fischer. It’s spare, direct, condensed. It’s funny, agonising, personal, satirical, sometimes switching between these in a flash, sometimes all at one go. It’s malleable, adaptable, insightful. A spot of Italian baroque style and language rubs shoulders with circus-like effects full of Hungarian black humour. And the opening fanfare is all fun – catchy and melodic and showy. Behind such chameleon-like eclecticism, though, lies a consistent personality: that voice, at one with the performer and the man.
Luister 10
(…) wat vooral verbluft is het gegeven dat Fischer erin slaagt een eigen geluid toe te voegen aan de massa klanken die het verleden reeds bracht. (…) transparante, bijna terloops klinkende muziekjes met een puntig karakter. (…) verstilde eenvoud (…) Compromisloos bijzonder en allemaal van deze tijd. (…)
Opus Klassiek
(…) Fischer is Fischer. Hij is een romanticus die melodisch en harmonisch schrijft, wel degelijk fantasievol, expressief en beeldend (tekst en muziek vormen een naadloos geheel), maar zijn creatieve horizon bewust niet heeft afgestemd op vernieuwing. Hij eist het zelf niet en dus hoeven niemand anders dat van hem te eisen. (…) Er is sprake van puur vakwerk, waarbij ervaring en fantasie ongetwijfeld hand in hand zijn gegaan. Het levert ook de gewenste gelaagdheid op en levert een wezenlijke bijdrage aan de synergie. (…) De opname is in de ‘klassieke’ Channel Classics stijl, het predikaat voor heel goed.
The Guardian
(…) Anyone familiar with his [Fischer’s] sometimes eccentric, brilliantly precise work on the podium won’t be surprised to find similar qualities in his compositions. (…)
BBC Music Magazine 5/4 stars
In music that is concentrated, lyrical, acerbic and often dazzling, Fischer brings together eclectic influences from Bach to weill, from Yiddish traditions to the Indian tabla and Japanese Noh theatre. (…) Soprano Nora Fischer proves a revelation (…)
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