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Making utopias come true: composer Michael Wertmüller

Michael Wertmüller, a portrait by Gabrielle Weber

Michael Wertmüller’s music sounds anarchic, virtuosic and highly energetic. From the shortest compositions to immersive, expansive music theatre, his works combine approaches from jazz and contemporary music, always dramatic, intense and full on. A portrait by Gabrielle Weber

 

Porträt Michael Wertmüller zVg. Michael Wertmüller

 

Gabrielle Weber
“I just love craziness and playing crazy. I like virtuosity,” says Michael Wertmüller in an interview. The extreme is his norm. His radical, genre-breaking works are highly complex and usually interweave meticulously notated contemporary music with jazz, pop, rock and improvisation.

 

The drummer and the composer

As drummer, Wertmüller initially played in various fusion bands. From then on, the path to composing was natural as the music he wanted to play had to be invented first and so he gradually began to compose pieces for his bands himself: “It was a mix of jazz, rock, death metal and hardcore. From today’s perspective, it was a wild mess that wanted to and had to be tamed,” says Wertmüller.

His drumming performances as well as his first compositions are concentrated, highly concentrated power. In “check_in_swiss”, Wertmüller improvises a three-minute solo in consistently high intensity during a sound check for the band Full Blast.

 


Michael Wertmüller, percussion solo check-in-swiss, 2001.

 

As a percussionist, for the Bern Symphony Orchestra first and later for Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra, Wertmüller was fascinated by the intensity, power and drama of the classical orchestral apparatus. “It was a huge pleasure to follow how the instruments communicate with each other in the midst of this orchestral apparatus, how this web of compositions is connected. I was really interested in that.” From 1995 onwards, Wertmüller focused entirely on classical composition by studying composition with Dieter Schnebel at Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste.

 

Michael Wertmüller the percussionist © Francesca Pfeffer

 

Bringing opposites together

Meanwhile, he continued to tour the world with bands, for example with eminent jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and bassist Marino Pliakas in the trio Full Blast, until Brötzmann’s death in June 2023. “Being on the road, playing in a jazz context, has always been an incredibly important influence and at the same time, composition or, in a broader sense, classical music is also a strong influence in my playing.”

 

Peter Brötzmann is regarded as a radical jazz innovator thanks to his energetic playing and, along with Dieter Schnebel, was a formative personality for Wertmüller’s composing. “I had known Brötzmann since I was 22 years old, even before I studied with Schnebel. He kind of pulled me along and took me with him.”

 


Michael Wertmüller, antagonisme contrôlé, World-premiere concert  6.4.2014,  WDR-Funkhaus Köln. Peter Brötzmann (Saxophon), Marino Pliakas (E-Bass), Dirk Rothbrust (Schlagzeug), Ensemble Musikfabrik, conductor Christian Eggen.

 

“The free form of jazz and the very strict serial music: that’s a huge balancing act and they influence each other strongly.” Wertmüller’s “classical” composing brings both musical genres together. Wertmüller composed three works for Peter Brötzmann as a soloist, in which he incorporated Brötzmann’s improvisations into composed scores for new music ensembles. “Brötzmann never did that before. For me, it was an honour and showed that he respected and valued the connection between the two”.

In antagonisme contrôlé for three soloists, Brötzmann, Pliakas and percussion solo, and the Ensemble Musikfabrik, Wertmüller uses improvised solos by Brötzmann and Pliakas as a counterpoint to the strictly notated movement of the 19-piece Ensemble Musikfabrik from Cologne. His aim is to bring the free spirit of jazz and serial classical composition, two opposite worlds together in one form, so that both retain their character.

 

Connecting different soundscapes

 

Wertmüller’s band Steamboat Switzerland brings together contrasting soundscapes: since its foundation in 1995, the trio, consisting of Marino Pliakas, electric bass, Lucas Niggli, percussion, and Dominik Blum, Hammond organ, has combined jazz, rock, metal and improvisation with contemporary music.

Since their first encounters in the 1990s, Michael Wertmüller has become something of a resident composer for the band. “Steamboat is the most radical band that can play sheet music that I know of. So I can compose like a madman and it’s played like that: with an incredible radicalism, which is of course fantastic for me,” says Wertmüller about what he considers his favourite band.

Wertmüller later incorporated the trio into many of his major music projects, often in conjunction with classical ensembles.

“Steamboat is actually an incredible engine, a generator. The precision with which they play the material could definitely inspire a classical orchestra,” says Wertmüller.


Michael Wertmüller, discorde for Hammond-Orgel, E-Bass, Drum Set und Ensemble, Uraufführung Donaueschinger Musiktage 15.10.2016, Steamboat Switzerland, Klangforum Wien, conductor Titus Engel.

 

In discorde, premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2016, the trio plays with Klangforum Wien, conducted by Titus Engel. Wertmüller stages an actual battle between the different musical genres. However, he is not interested in the contrast, but rather in what they have in common: “They were the engine in the whole structure. It was a train travelling in the same direction.”

 

Modern dramas – utopias

 

“I don’t claim to unite styles. I rather have the feeling that they have become completely intertwined over the course of my life. Actually, it’s also a dramatic thing when it blends like that. To me, it’s a modern drama.”.

Wertmüller has been implementing the dramatic blending of opposites in five international music theatre productions since 2013, so far most consistently in the experimental opera D.I.E for the Ruhrtriennale 2021, where the stage and the space are also integrated. In a disused industrial hall, Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord’s power station, the audience is placed in the centre, surrounded by an all-round catwalk that serves as a stage for Steamboat, a string quartet, a punk band, a rapper, a conferencière and classical singers. Animated holographic music visualisations and enlarged sketches by visual artist Albert Oehlen envelop the whole. Michael Wertmüller produced an exclusive, limited vinyl release for D.I.E. together with Albert Oehlen, who designed the cover: the album Im Schwung with singer Christina Daletska, Ruhrtriennale 2021.

 


Michael Wertmüller / Albert Oehlen, Im Schwung, Christina Daletska, Ruhrtriennale 2021.

 

“Sometimes I have ideas about music that is not yet known or has not yet existed in this form. To me, art is also largely connected to utopias and I try to get into this area where utopia can perhaps also become reality.”
Gabrielle Weber

Sonderband Musik-Konzepte Michael Wertmüller, edition text+kritik, Hg. Ulrich Tadday, Dezember 2024.

Am 25.1.25 erlebt Wertmüllers nächste Oper die Uraufführung:
Israel in München, Uraufführung 25.1.25 Staatsoper Hannover.

Peter Brötzmann, Dieter Schnebel, Albert Oehlen, Christina Daletska, Marino Pliakas

broadcasts SRF 2 Kultur
Musik unserer Zeit, 18.12.2024: Michael Wertmüller und das Trio Steamboat Switzerland, Redaktion/Moderation Gabrielle Weber.

Neue Musik im Konzert, 18.12.2024: Michael Wertmüller im Konzert, Redaktion/Moderation Gabrielle Weber.

Neoblog, 3.10.2020: Michael Wertmüller: “..der grösste Beethoven-Fan aller Zeiten..”, Autorin Gabrielle Weber.

neoprofiles
Michael Wertmüller, Steamboat Switzerland, Lucas Niggli, Dominik Blum, Titus Engel

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Enno Poppe @ Lucerne Festival 2023

Enno Poppe @Lucerne Festival 2023 – A portrait by Annelis Berger

Enno Poppe is considered one of the most original composers of our time. The 55-year-old composer’s music is highly complex and yet extremely attractive to the ears and often as exciting as a thriller. Enno Poppe is this year’s composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival. He’ll present his work Fett, among others, as well as the orchestral piece Prozession.

Annelis Berger
He is a city person through and through: “Life in the countryside would be too complicated for me. I really like living in the city, where I can buy a litre of milk at any time without having to think much. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like to climb a mountain or jump into a lake sometimes.” Unfortunately, he won’t have time for that in Lucerne: “No way, I know that from the last time I worked with the Academy. I look after some 100 young people, all greedy and hungry for knowledge; they want to work from morning to night and experience things, so no time for climbing mountains”.

 

Portrait Enno Poppe © Ricordi: Harald-Hoffmann

 

Poppe studied composition and conducting in Berlin, still lives in the German capital and works throughout Europe with the most important contemporary music ensembles. I met him in Zurich, where he has just rehearsed with the Collegium Novum ensemble. A midsummer late afternoon, Poppe could just have a beer before the interview. We first talk about what distinguishes his music.

“I like intense and expressive music, I like to take the listeners with me. But I have to look for a new form of expressivity, expressivity cannot only be claimed, nor can it be imposed or sentimental. I cannot borrow the expressivity of a Bruckner symphony, I have to find one that has something to do with today and with the means available today. It is not simply a search for new sounds, but a search for a new expressivity. That’s something that constantly occupies me.”

The piece Procession is an example of this. “The work is actually a single process of growth,” says Poppe. “It begins with single notes, from which melodies emerge, then chords, which accumulate into chorale-like passages and the piece continues to build up, becoming more and more intense. Formally, there are nine big waves of increase, the sixth being the biggest and then it slowly decreases again. Every single musician in the ensemble has a solo part here and then leads one part at a time until the next part comes with the next solo.”

 

Enno Poppe, Procession, 2015/20, Ensemble Musikfabrik Köln, conductor Enno Poppe, Ensemblefestival for Contemporary Music 2020, Leipzig Kölner Philharmonie Nov. 22nd, 2020

An important source of inspiration for this work was the Catholic procession “Semana Santa” in Seville, which takes place every year during Easter. “They run through the city for seven days, 24 hours at a stretch with brass bands and drums, the Basel Fasnacht is a doddle compared to that. This Spanish processional music has a deep connection with the piece, without me quoting it directly.”

Prozession is a work that develops a pull during the listening process, as it really becomes denser and denser and one can hardly escape it. The work also conveys the feeling of tenacity: there’s no way of evading this music, its expressivity is very direct.

Enno Popp finds a compositional means for expressivity in glissandos and vibratos, which is beautifully demonstrated in Wald from 2010 for four string quartets. For many years, Enno Poppe has been working with the “moving” tone, inspired, among other things, by the Asian tradition of tones that are always in motion, i.e. one never hears the same tone twice, the musician intones it differently each time. Enno Poppe has often worked with this. “In Wald, every note is constantly sliding, moving up and down, back and forth. At the most varied speeds. That, in turn, is immensely expressive, because every single tone becomes animated.”

 


Enno Poppe also deals with the “moving” sound in the ensemble work Scherben, in the recording with the Collegium Novum Zürich, conductor: Enno Poppe, 2008, in-house production SRG/SSR.

 

Enno Poppe talks easily about his music. It is rare to find composers who do this in such an uninhibited and relaxed way. That makes a meeting with him very pleasant.

Of course I would also like to talk with him about the work Fett, one of the highlights at Lucerne Festival, conducted by Susanna Mälkki in the great KKL hall: “The piece IS indeed fat! Otherwise it shouldn’t be called that,” he says with a smile. In this composition, Poppe completely dispenses with melodies and themes and everything else that classically characterises symphonies. He worked with Chord clusters – at first only four-note chords that get bigger and bigger. “Towards the end we have 40-50-note chords! And not just octaves, but microtonal agglomerations.”

 


Enno Poppe, Fett (2018/19): Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Susanne Mälkki, World premiere 10.5.2019, Helsinki Music Center

 

Finally, the conversation turns to the composer’s working method.  He always enjoys both composing and conducting. Otherwise he wouldn’t do it at all. Sometimes, when opening a door to a new tonal world for a composition – like the microtonal agglomerations in Fett’s case – it is very easy for him because he quickly finds himself at ease in the new world. “Fett went incredibly fast. I was really into it. It was untouched terrain, which always invigorates me, I can then sometimes work very quickly. For Fett it took me about ten weeks, it’s actually a mystery to me why it went so quickly, because there are an incredible number of notes in this work.” There is a sense of lightness – and that is precisely what distinguishes Enno Poppe’s music: it is complex and multi-layered, but never bulky. This takes the listener on a journey through a world that never stands still.
Annelis Berger

 

LUCERNE FESTIVAL, Summer Festival 2023: Ensemble Intercontemporain interprets works by composer in residence, Enno Poppe; with Enno Poppe as conductor. Lucerne, 13.08.2023 © LUCERNE FESTIVAL / Priska Ketterer

 

Enno Poppe at Lucerne Festival 2023

Susanna Mälkki, Ensemble Musikfabrik

broadcasts SRF 2 Kultur:
Künste im Gespräch, 3.8.2023, Enno Poppe, Composer in Residence am Lucerne Festival, editor/author Annelis Berger.

Musik unserer Zeit, 13.9.2023, Enno Poppe im Portrait, editor/author Annelis Berger.

Neo-profiles:
Enno Poppe, Lucerne Festival Contemporary, Collegium Novum Zürich