CCMusic.com

Chambery: "chamber-y." Six chamber music pieces by Tobias Klein: a trio, four duets and a solo piece, all with bass clarinet. A duet by Enno Poppe rounds out the program. What connects the compositions on one CD? Jazz and classical meet each other in Tobias Klein's music. Fie: "The jazziness shows up in the way his music is composed, but also the way it's notated. Certainly in his earlier pieces I see what I often see in compositions by jazz musicians - there is relatively little notated in the score." Tobias: "If I'm writing for my own group, for musicians with a jazz or impro background, I hardly write in any dynamics, thinking 'you'll feel that, right?' Afterwards, everything becomes clear in the rehearsal process. In that context, a composition is like a piece of clay still to be formed, and the performers' creativity plays an important role in that process. But it works differently for the classically trained musicians on this CD. They're so incredibly good at working out the nuances of the music. That works best when the composition offers a clear frame in which many choices have already been made and notated, otherwise there are simply too many possibilities and then the whole thing can get vague. What they really had to work at is playing on a strict rhythmic grid, with the required tight pulse." Fie: "... that is quite difficult for a classically trained musician. You might say, 'then practice it with a metronome,' but of course that's not the answer. And if you write out every little detail, it kills the music. I myself am no jazz musician, but over time I've developed specific skills so that I can perform Tobias' music well."