Anyone who has been swept away by the melodramatic intensity of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem for a young poet (Sony Classical, 12/95) should sample the works on this new RCA disc. It charts a transition from the early, impeccably orthodox modernism of Omnia tempus habent (1957) to the less stable stylistic world of two major works from 1961, which lay the foundations not only for Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten but also for the Requiem.
Omnia tempus habent sets verses from Ecclesiastes for soprano and an instrumental ensemble which, with copious use of flute and vibraphone, echoes then-contemporary Boulez and Berio. Like those masters, Zimmermann could turn a highly fragmented style to strong expressive ends, with an elaborate vocal line that tests Julie Moffat in what is in any case an unflatteringly close recording.
The other works fare better. Antiphonen is in effect a viola concerto, and, like many such compositions, it involves its gentle protagonist in an Orpheus-like attempt to tame the instrumental furies embodied by snarling brass and menacing percussion. The contest is nothing if not melodramatic, the end an uneasy, exhausted compromise rather than a victory for one side or the other. Zimmermann even includes a variety of texts to be declaimed by the instrumentalists: maddeningly, these are not set out in the booklet and, in any case, the device is of dubious value. Far more effective are the purely instrumental textures of Presence, where the need to work with just three instruments seems to have refined Zimmermann’s thinking. The result is one of his finest works.
Presence is a ballet score, and the composer shows great resource in allowing hints of conventionally patterned dance music to infiltrate the spiky, scary idiom of the remainder. Although the drama reflects Antiphonen’s alternation of aggressive and submissive moods, the music is absorbing on its own terms, and the piece is performed with great spirit by members of the Ensemble Modern.'