Trombone player Mikael Rudolfsson champions contemporary music on CD Encounter
Last June, he played with Klangforum Wien at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, in a programme featuring innovators from the early twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In our pre concert talk, the Swedish-Austrian Mikael Rudolfsson proved to be a passionate advocate of modern(ist) sounds, and eagerly demonstrated some unusual playing techniques.
After the concert he pressed his newly released CD Encounters into my hands, featuring four solo pieces and one duo with clarinet. The five composers represent the entire spectrum of composing after the Second World War, when the classical-romantic tradition was discarded because of its strong associations with the Nazis.
Mikael Rudolfsson + Thea Derks, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, 5 June 2025 (c) Margreet Vogels
The CD opens with Solo pour deux by Gérard Grisey (1946-1998), one of the founders of spectralism. The intriguing title perfectly catches the character of the piece: clarinet and trombone actually play a solo part together, their very different timbres seeming to form a kind of super-instrument. With a range of brightly staccato, softly sustained or flutter-tongued notes, glissandi and multiphonics in every conceivable register, they create an exciting argument, compellingly performed by Rudolfsson and clarinettist Olivier Vivares.
Sequenza V for solo trombone by Luciano Berio (1925-2003), champion of the so-called extended techniques, is magnificent, too. Berio composed it in 1966, but over half a century later it still sounds fresh and at times even humorous, as if it were written yesterday. Rudolfsson rattles with mutes, groans, sighs, blows and speaks through the tube, taps on the mouthpiece, blares out firm clarion calls, but also makes his instrument sound as if he were gargling underwater.
Eloain Lovis Hübner, born in 1993, takes all this even further in Vier kurze Stücke für erweiterte Trombone, in which hardly a normal tone is heard, let alone a recognisable melody. The trombonist pops, hisses and rustles, rushes rapid rhythmic inhalations and exhalations through the tube, plays without or only on the mouthpiece and distorts his sound with the help of aluminium foil, plastic bags, PVC tubes and even a children’s trumpet. A true tour de force.
Bernhard Gander (1969) offers a completely different approach in Messing I, that explores the trombone in all its rich sonorities. High, rapidly repeating notes and staccato, melodic motifs crossing all registers are set against deeply rumbling sounds in the lower registers. It is impressive how Rudolfsson manages to squeeze all those fast notes from high to low flawlessly from his instrument without a single slip; his tonguing technique is beyond virtuoso.
The Greek-German composer Konstantia Gourzi (1962) wrote Encounter for trombone and tape especially for Rudolfsson, to whom it is dedicated. She creates a terrifying world in which dark, softly swelling sound waves seem to assail the trombonist, as if he were in an alien world.
The sounds, recorded by Rudolfsson himself and manipulated by Gourzi, press in on him more and more, as if he were spinning in a circle from which he cannot escape. He utters lonely cries and produces pleading glissandi, interspersed with rhythmic breaths, pinched or sung throat sounds. Towards the end, he finds peace in melancholic yet comforting cantilenas, which fade away into nothingness, together with the soundtrack.
The recording technique is impeccable and the album offers an impressive showcase of Rudolfsson’s skills, while at the same time highlighting the great diversity of modern compositions.
https://youtu.be/Gh_4yzFqnnE
#BernhardGander #EloainLovisHübner #GérardGrisey #KonstantiaGourzi #LucianoBerio #MikaelRudolfsson
Thea Derks
Klassiekvannu
Contemporary Classical - Thea Derks