Les mystères Daniel Agi, Das Neue Ensemble & Stehan Meier

• Nicolas Tzortzis (b. 1978):
• 1 L’étoile de mer 19:43
• 2 ...De ce qui est en lutte 11:00
• 3 What the Wave Meant 15:25
• 4 Les mystères du château du Dé 21:43
• Total Runtime 01:07:51

Info for Les mystères

The music of Nicolas Tzortzis, Athens-born (in 1978) and now a resident of Paris, often involves other art-forms, not least video and elements of theatre. Two of the works on this album, part of a trilogy inspired by surrealist films by Man Ray, are intended to mirror the unsettling discontinuities of Ray’s films in musical surrealism of their own. Another, ‘... de ce qui est en lutte’, has its starting point in an aphorism of Heraclitus, and seeks coherence in extremes of contrast, throwing ideas against one another like images in a kaleidoscope. And What the wave meant – the title comes from a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers – processes the stages of grief. All four pieces pay close attention to instrumental timbre and bristle with energy, occasionally leavened by an anarchic sense of humour. Das Neue Ensemble – one of Germany’s premier new-music groups – was involved in some of these pieces from the very start, commissioning two of them, and it has worked closely with the composer on this recording, guaranteeing the authenticity of the performances.

Daniel Agi, flute
Udo Grimm, clarinet
Christof Hahn, piano
Stephan Meie, percussion, direction
Josje ter Haar, violin
Jessica Kuhn, violoncello

Das Neue Ensemble
was founded by its members under the artistic direction of Stephan Meier in Hannover in 1993 and has since then risen to take its rightful place among the leading international contemporary music ensembles. In 2005 it received the ‘Inventio-Preis’, awarded by the ‘Deutsche Musikrat’ for innovative programme concepts. Its ‘Gelbe Klänge’ in Sprengel Museum Hannover brought together music and the visual arts, stellar compositions rang out under the open sky in ‘Moonlight Serenade’, and ‘DaDaBus’ traced the life and work of Kurt Schwitters. Its programmes for children captivate new listeners, and since 1996 the ‘Mobile Musik’ subscription concert series has reached an exceptionally wide audience.

Das Neue Ensemble is supported by its friends association, Musik für heute e.V., which also provides rehearsal rooms and office space in the Alte Grammophonfabrik (old gramophone factory) and develops new audiences with concert introductions and private ‘house concerts’. Its honorary president is Helmut Lachenmann.

This album contains no booklet.