Bozzinikvartetten – tid med och utan mått

Ny Musik — Fall 2012

Participants

Programme

In the press

Review

Rolf Haglund, Borås Tidning, September 10, 2012

Swiss Jürg Frey, born 1953, that we have met before in Borås, partly as a composer with a personal voice, but also as a great clarinet player. The world premiere of his String Quartet (No.3), which has occupied him for three years, is a new peak, both for the composer, the Bozzini Quartet and Ny Musik, which accordingly should have its name written in the music history of the future.

Frey speaks of hus music as silent architecture: ”Ich stelle mir vor, dass meine Musik eine intellektuelle und emotionale Brauchbarkeit hat. Sie ist eine Art geistlicher (nicht religiöser) Musik: sie befasst sich mit der Zeit und mit dem, was darin anwesend und abwesend ist. — Sie ist auch eine Art Volksmusik: klar, direkt, eindeutig wie stiller Klang, stille Architektur.

He also speaks of a carefully elaborated analphabetism, beyond all words and descriptions.

His quartet is created under the signs of great, classical mysticism, a ”unio mystica” beyond time and space, at the same time coming very close and being extremely sensitive. No other ensemble could repeat the Bozzini interpretation, with its thousand colours, all grey, as a critic wrote about their special qualities.

Frey’s premiere was preceded by Cage’s early pioneering quartet from 1950, also soothening to the mind and with a spiritual dimension, Feldman’s rather short Structures from the following year (to be played as softly as possible) and two small pieces by Frey, all lovingly interpreted by the Bozzinis.

No other ensemble could repeat the Bozzinis interpretation, with its thousand colours, all grey, as a critic wrote about their special qualities.