mono.kultur #26: Manfred Eicher
recording ECM
First, silence. Then, as from afar, frantically, a violin descends, emerging from the shadows, ever more insistently. A piano answers, slows the pace. And thus begins a careful courtship of two opposing voices: teasing, complaining, questioning, refuting, embracing. And thus begins one of the most compelling recordings of modern music.
Later on, we hear a bell, the pulse, introducing the second movement – a requiem, a dream, a heart-stopping descent, unreeling slowly, ever so relentlessly, into a depth where there is nothing but mourning, brutal, encompassing, rapturous. [...] (Englisch)
