Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Die Befristeten / Improvisationen Über Die Oper "Die Soldaten" / Tratto download free

Let's do simple, this record IS a masterpiece. Bernd Alois Zimmermann ‎was rather a severe composer, not really fun music indeed. Like Ivo Malec, György Ligeti or Iannis Xenakis, he was not exactly sticking to the dogma of serialism, and worked with a beautiful sense of intesity and eclectism.Generaly most of so called "contemporary music" is boring to my hears, Zimmermann music is definitively not boring...Still, this record is something special in the course of his musical work.As a composer coming from classical tradition, Zimmermann was open-minded enough to be fasciunated by jazz, and espaecially by this free-improvised thing going on in Germany in the mid sixties. So, naturaly, for the first side he asked Manfred Schoof Quintet to play and improvised around a theme of his Opera "Die Soldaten", and see what would goes on. The result "Die Befristeten" is outstandingly gorgeous : a crazy skeletical jazz landscape going on an aesthetical territory barely experienced by european free improvisers. Most of the side is snaking through deep layers of silence, and suddenly bursts into short jazz shooting stars like apparitions, to melt into night again. This is really fascinating. The cherry on the top for music fan and amateur of eclectism, Manfred Schoof Quintet drummer at the time was the young Jaki Liebzeit, a few month before he records "Monster Movie"... This should interest any serious Can fan.For the other side Zimmermann propose, for something completely different, an electronic composition done at Köln WDR studio.In my humble opinion, this is one of the major work of electronic music of this time, a true gem totally underestimated. Realised in 1966 "Tratto" is the first electronic composition using intensively low frequencies, years before it became Eliane Radigue "footprint". I'm mentioning Radigue here, because "Tratto" share with her music a sense of out-of-time quality. Zimmermann seems to take things where Stockhausen left them after the 1953 electronic composition "Studie I". As in Stockhausen composition "Tartto" is made out of several segments of frequencies embroided together in a cotemplative horizon, a sonic architecture evolving in a perpetual present. Unlike "Studie I" time in "Tratto" is carefuly stretched (this is one meaning of italian word tratto). The evolution is extrelmely slow, starting in low frequencies and evolving, or mutating into mid frequencies which start to sing their acoustic phenomenons song. A slight acceleration with an abrupt stop leads to the end, and leaves you with a feeling of cosmic beauty and mistery... In 1969, he did a variation of this work "Tratto II" (appearing on 1972 Wergo LP "Concerto Pour Violoncelle / Photoptosis / Tratto II "). This version was composed for the World Exhibition of 1970 in Osaka (a big mistake on the Wergo notes says 1968!), and this is another ineresting point of connexion with Eliane Radigue who was also invited by the Exhibition to show one of her sound installation. Though they never meet there indeed, aesthetical connexion between them is a beautiful manifestation of Zeitgeist for sure.The reason why "Tratto", both versions, are so different from the rest of Ziommermann work is because he was considering electronic sounds as a medium in itself, leading to completely different codes of composition than composition for classical instruments."For me, sinus tone have always had a quality of somehow opening space and time, and it can hardly be a coincidence that the ancient knowledge of the connections between music and space have been revided above all through the first electronic compositions. The opening out of space and the stretching of time seems to me to stand in a direct relation." Zimmermann said to enlight us."Tratto II" is may be even more time-stretching and perpetual-present oriented than "Tratto" as the piece was composed in two directions simultaneously : from the end to the beginning and vice versa.In any case, the combination of weird jazz stuff melted with contemporary composition, and electronic statis out of time, side to side is giving to this record a unique quality, a massive act of intuition and an overwhelming eclectic experience. I've said it before, this record is a masterpiece.