CD ECM Records Rosamunde Quartett - Thomas Larcher: Ixxu

2006

Andreas Reiner - vioara
Simon Fordham - vioara
Helmut Nicolai - viola
Anja Lechner - violoncel
Andrea Lauren Brown - soprana
Christoph Poppen - vioara
Thomas Demenga - violoncel
Thomas Larcher - pian

Thomas Larcher: Ixxu (1998-2004)
Thomas Larcher: My illness is the medicine I need (2002)
Thomas Larcher: Mumien (2001/02)
Thomas Larcher: Cold Farmer (1990)

Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik - Bestenliste 4/2006: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - Empfehlung

Thomas Larcher has a way of convincing you, like Morton Feldman, that every note is in its right place and should be nowhere else. A delicate touch and taut use of dramatic contrast flicker across his compositions, sending out shards of notes and icy silences.
Andi Spicer, Gramophone

„Ixxu” is in a thoroughly modern idiom, but with moments of shimmering beauty and an overall rhythmic energy which is quite compulsive, there are all the ingredients one needs to make an interesting piece all the more rewarding on repeated hearing. … In his pieces, notions of virtuosity are pursued to the limits, raising the expressive energy another notch in degree and intensity. In 'Mumien” this obsessive quality comes through in the intense and rhythmically incessant second movement. “Cold Farmer” was “like stepping into the unknown and the threatening” for the composer… There are some folk-like elements in the violin, some Shostakovich-like moments of repose, the stability of pedal notes and ostinati, sometimes transparently expressive melodic lines, and all of the emotional swings and roundabouts that you would want from a good string quartet… The music is expressive but uncompromising, filled with gritty passion and unfulfilled longings. Against all preconceptions and expectations I have enjoyed this well-recorded CD from ECM immensely, and recommend it wholeheartedly.
Dominy Clements, Music Web

The text of Thomas Larcher’s song cycle „My llness is the Medicine I Need“ comes from a Benetton magazine article about psychiatric patients. The icy clarity of the soprano Andrea Lauren Brown’s tone is impressive and disturbing, especially in the high leaps and strange melismas that make enunciation difficult. The accompaniment is partly “prepared”, the composer himself at the eerie padded keyboard. The terse, pithy, arresting directness of the music persists through the two string quartets Ixxu and Cold Farmer, which, played by the Rosamunde Quartet, are bracingly energetic, highly rhythmic even when slow and clearly the product of a feverishly inventive mind.
Rick Jones, The Times