It’s always good to
see record companies devoting time to
up-and-coming artists; EMI Classics
has its bargain-price Debut series and
now Oehms Classics is following suit.
Here we have a disc of solo percussion
pieces from the past 25 years or so,
played by the German percussionist Johannes
Fischer (b. 1981). He has won a number
of awards, culminating in a first prize
at the 56th ARD International Music
Competition in Munich. Fischer is also
a composer and part-time lecturer at
the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana
in Lugano.
The disc’s title, Gravity,
is best explained by Fischer himself:
‘This is the art of leaving the greater
part of the active movement to the dead
weight of our drumsticks ... Such playing
with gravity thus becomes a game we
play with and around sound itself.’
A slender premise, perhaps, but the
rhythmic, rebounding beats of Xenakis’s
Rebonds A and Rebonds B
are certainly appropriate in this context.
For pieces written
in the late 1980s they sound as if they
belong to the 1960s or 1970s; indeed,
Fischer’s lengthy treatise in the CD
booklet is also reminiscent of the avant-garde
habit of devoting plenty of column inches
to what is often a fairly simple musical
conceit. In the event both pieces have
a sharp, mesmeric energy – Rebonds
B especially – the recording warm
and vibrant. It’s analytical too, so
one easily registers the impact of stick
on skin and the resonance of the drum.
Resonances also play
a part in Calculo secreto, by
the contemporary Spanish composer José
Manuel López López. The
piece opens with the first in a series
of magical arpeggios which are left
to resonate before being reinvigorated.
The quieter passages – sample from 2:30
onwards – are warm and fluid, contrasting
with more spectral episodes. The range
of sonorities Fischer extracts from
his vibraphone is just astonishing,
making for a most atmospheric and entertaining
musical journey. As an aside this is
a good piece for auditioning hi-fi equipment,
as it will test speakers’ ability to
reproduce complex tones and overtones.
At nearly 17 minutes
the German composer-conductor Matthias
Pintscher’s nemoton is by far
the longest item here. Apparently the
title is derived from the old Celtic
word for places where druids worshipped.
In contrast to the overtly ritualistic
nature of Rebonds this is altogether
more mysterious; the music radiates
outwards from a still, devotional centre,
like ripples in a pond. It’s wonderfully
varied, with ever-changing dynamics,
timbres and melodic fragments. The recording
is exemplary, picking up all the tiny
nuances of Fischer’s playing.
The muted drum beats
of nemoton are particularly arresting,
as are all those flashing arpeggios
that surround points of repose. There
is a sense of constant evolution here,
of structures added to and extended
to make an all-encompassing musical
whole. This sheer inventiveness and
rhythmic vitality – sample the passage
beginning at 5:45 – ensures the piece
doesn’t sag or wander. It ends as it
began, with a return to that moment
of profound quietude, that ‘still point
of the turning world’. Highly effective
and strangely captivating.
The American composer
Jacob Druckman’s six-movement Reflections
on the Nature of Water is an excellent
vehicle for marimba players keen to
show off the different qualities of
their instrument. Crystalline
is clear but not too hard-edged, with
some highly unusual sonorities to boot,
while Fleet is suitably elusive
and fast flowing. The third movement,
Tranquil, has an insistent motif
around which the music builds and to
which it seems to return. Fischer’s
control of dynamics and rhythm seems
entirely natural, the piece sounding
fresh and spontaneous in his hands.
The last three movements
– Gently swelling, Profound and
Relentless – are surprisingly
pianistic in conception. Sample the
shimmering start to Profound,
for instance, which has a warm, Romantic
allure that’s hard to resist. And how
about 2:20 onwards, which leads into
a dark, swirling figure and some rather
haunting passages that resonate in the
mind long after they have passed. A
lovely wistful movement this, followed
by some crisp and forthright playing
in Relentless. Once again the
recording is clear and well balanced.
The Slovenian composer
Vinko Globokar’s Toucher is the
earliest piece in this collection. Written
for seven percussion instruments – chosen
by the soloist – the only instruction
is to match the musical sounds with
the vowels and consonants of the spoken
text. Given the title of this disc it’s
no surprise the selected passages come
from Brecht’s Life of Galileo Galilei.
As with Rebonds,
Globokar’s piece strikes me as somewhat
dated, typical of the musical ethos
of the 1970s. That said Fischer does
a pretty good job at approximating these
vowels/consonants on his instruments,
with the word ‘Galilei’ and short vocal
fragments set between these longer musical
‘sentences’. Quirky, I suppose, but
not terribly memorable.
If you enjoy percussion
programmes this disc will surely appeal.
It’s not the kind of extrovert, charismatic
music-making you might expect from,
say, Evelyn Glennie, but Fischer is
a thoughtful and intelligent musician
who deserves to be heard. Definitely
one to watch.
Dan Morgan
Johannes Fischer (percussion) 
