Fabian Müller
is a forty-year-old Swiss composer who
originally studied cello at the Zurich
Conservatory. His first composition
teacher was Josef Haselbach but Müller
then spent a number of years in America
where he pursued further studies with,
amongst others, Jacob Druckman and Bernard
Rands. He has composed widely and retains
a strong and abiding interest in ethnology
– and as this disc shows his studies
into Swiss folk music have proved an
important constituent of his compositional
life.
Müller is what
I’d call a fugitive lyricist. He’s excellent
at abrupt shifts in mood and emotive
states and the first piece here,
the String Quartet written in 2000,
shows how his developed melodies become
sidetracked by brusque attacks. In a
sense this is a Janáček inheritance,
though Müller is less rhythmically craggy.
Melancholy informs the slow movement
and a rather impressionist Debussian
inheritance haunts the Intermezzo whilst
the finale is bristly, humorous, flighty
with some jagged edges and even some
hints of minimalism. Sounds too eclectic?
Well, it works; Müller has absorbed
what I take to be some important compositional
voices and has utilised them profitably.
The Trio is a slightly earlier work
and embeds the sound of an alphorn into
its language. It’s vocal and increasingly
vital but the heart of the Trio lies
in the Lento with moments of desolation
and unison writing giving way to some
meltingly lyrical moments, some reminiscent
of Mahler. The Allegretto is a slithery
piece of fun and the dance finale is
exciting and human.
The String Quintet
(Rhapsody) has plenty of off-beat accents
and developing swing – there’s a fine
sense of dialogue here, expertly crafted,
and some lineage suggesting Müller
knows his Berg. The Duo for Violin and
Cello is the most recent work, written
in 2001 and cast in five movements.
It’s a worthy addition to the repertoire,
opening tensely, then indulging Müller’s
scudding, skittering writing. The geniality
of the Bagatelle third movement doesn’t
quite hide its cleverness and there
are some finely worked out neo classical
procedures in the Perpetuum mobile before
a hymnal close – and sounding like a
second cousin of Appalachian Spring.
This is my first meeting
with Müller and I hope it won’t
be my last – a composer who writes with
freedom and imagination, who sticks
to no doctrinaire guns, and whose chamber
music is animated, warm and intriguing.
Jonathan Woolf
for
details 
Petersen Quartet