Rudepoema; Under Neonlight II
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.WER-60110-50

By Volker Banfield. By Heitor Villa-Lobos and Muller-Siemens. Listening CD. Wergo #WER 60110-50. Published by Wergo (NX.WER-60110-50).

"Rudepoema" (Rough Poem) by Heitor Villa-Lobos was written as a virtuoso solo piano composition in the years 1921 to 1926, a kind ofmusical portrait of the pianistArthur Rubinstein to whom the composer wrote in his dedication:

"My dear friend, I don't know whether I've succeeded in bringing your spirit fully and completely into alignment with that of "Rudepoema", but - and this I swear to you with my whole heart - I had in my imagination the impression of having your temperament similarly engraved; I brought it to paper as from yourself as a kind of intimate photograph. And because of this - if I have in fact done it - you will always be the true creator of this work."

"Under Neonlight II" is the name given by Detlev Muller-Siemens to his six piano pieces written between 1980 and 1983. Could this be one of those fantasy titles - an unfortunate custom - with which young composers try to decorate their works? Programmatic instructions for the musically illiterate? Indeed, a metaphor for a technocratically chilled and technologically illuminated environment? Or an indication of an interior Muller-Siemens psychogram related to the work of Andy Warhol and Jean-Luc Godard?

A binding formula cannot be found, not to mention a label. The light, which falls on manifold and contradictory style elements, is bright; it illuminates the present, meaning jazz and jazz-rock; it roams into the past brushing Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin, and Debussy. Typical forms, so far as applicable, come into play and are related to a current musical language; a prelude becomes a funnel; a rondo, a centrifuge. Bright is this light, not merely cold. Stylistic and formal relationships are united with the need for personal expression, whether it has not to do with a fragile song, with jazzy “drive”, or with an explosive outburst. Nothing is quoted, nothing is shamelessly lifted and then cut up. “Under Neonlight” can thus be taken as someone's search with a bright light for those historic and contemporary articulations whose simultaneity it is important to recognize. Whoever lies in wait with unprejudiced ears will succeed in achieving this feat of synthesis by making the non-simultaneous simultaneous. Putting it more concretely: to conjure the spirit of aromantic nocturne with the magic spell of jazz-rock and objectify it with a strict baroque craftsmanship. Like a puzzle the six pieces put together the picture of a young composer whose cool head, Byronic sensitivity, and blue-jeans agility seem to form a whole. He doesn't look much like an “avantgarde” figure, but very much like a contemporary person. Detlev Muller-Siemens has dedicated “Under Neonlight II” to Volker Banfield knowing well that without Banfield's exceptional mixture of sensitivity to sound colors, computer-like rhythmic stability, risk-taking virtuosity, and analytical intellect these pieceswould refuse to reveal themselves.

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