Elisabeth Harnik, by Elisabeth Harnik

Elisabeth Harnik

by Elisabeth Harnik

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She undoubtedly ranks among the most prestigious musicians in Austrian contemporary music. As a pianist, her improvisations can be heard throughout the world, and her work catalogue covers pieces from all genres. Her oeuvre is marked by the poles of improvisation and composition, and her preoccupation with language is central. With a technique of reduction, repetition and variation based on "sound shifts with minor details," she draws on Gertrude Stein’s experimental poetry. She stands "for constant shifts in perspective as well as for perseverance: sounds in and for themselves are always related in new ways to one another, guiding the ear to the sound itself," the composer explains.

In Harnik’s oeuvre, meditative pieces leading into the wealth of silence are contrasted with extroverted and virtuoso ones. The former are characterized by textures in which differently formed sound events, motifs, phrases or individual notes follow one another in metrically free fashion. In this respect, they follow John Cage – as a pianist, Harnik frequently works with piano preparations – but also the concept of "Deep Listening" by the electronic music pioneer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros.

The virtuoso pieces often marked by repetitions are related to the exploration of perception in Minimal Music, on the one hand, and to the sound compositions by György Ligeti, on the other. Purely instrumental means are used to obtain quasielectronic effects. However, the mechanical component in the finely engraved textures also evokes associations of typically female activities such as weaving and spinning, which have found expression in art from Schubert’s "Gretchen am Spinnrad" up to Louise Bourgois giant bronze spiders. Re-interpreted by Harnik, they become autonomous sound manifestos.

The pieces on the CD were written between 2001 and 2016. The innovative link between the traditional features and functions of stringed and key instruments and breath-taking virtuosity and introverted, sensual reflection challenges us to transcend the usual patterns of experience and penetrate into new sound realms. With subtle humour, the borders of genre are evoked associatively and expanded.

-Susanne Kogler

ORF-CD 3225
Running time: approx. 70 min.
Release date: October 2019

credits

released November 15, 2019

Solo compositions for zither, violin, harpsichord, piano, player piano, voice, and accordion.

Performed by Martin Mallaun (zither), Annelie
Gahl (violin), Sonja Leipold (harpsichord), Eva Bajic (piano), Wolfgang
Heisig (phonola), Gina Mattiello (voice) and Krassimir Sterev (accordion).

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