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«Blühendes», Trio for Alto-Saxophone, Violoncello and Piano (2007)

«Blossoming» Trio for saxophone, cello and piano
This work was commissioned by the Winterthur Art Gallery and was given its first performance there on 25 August 2007 on the occasion of the opening festivites for its autumn exhibition. The exhibition bore the title ‘Blühendes’ (‘Blossoming’), itself the title of a painting by Paul Klee that is owned by the museum. As it happens, a few months earlier, I had chosed precisely this picture for a CD cover. A three-movement work was the result, of which each movement refers to a picture by Klee. In the first movement, I tried to capture the atmosphere of the painting ‘Blühendes’. What is ‘blossoming’ in the picture is expressed by bright blocks of colour in the centre, surrounded by very dark colours. If one tries to look at the blocks in the middle of the picture without what surrounds them, one really only sees rather matt colours, which Klee however allows to shine in magical fashion thanks to the dark tones around them. Thus in my music, too, one cannot expect brightly illumined ‘blossomings’ but rather a dark, basic atmosphere. A theme soars up delicately in the middle in all the voices, like a wave, and it is with this that I wished to depict ‘blossoming’ in sound. The best-known picture by Klee, ‘Ad Parnassum’, was the source of inspiration for the second movement, which is characterized by a juxtaposition of polyphonic melodic lines. A calm pulse treads through the whole movement, which in the middle soars up to a dynamic climax. The painting ‘Park bei Lu(zern)’ was the model for the third movement, and this inspired me to an easy-going musical promenade that in harmony and melody is somewhat reminiscent of French Impressionism.