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 BrötzmannDieter SchnebelAlbert OehlenChristina DaletskaMarino Pliakas

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

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

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

neoprofiles
Michael WertmüllerSteamboat SwitzerlandLucas NiggliDominik BlumTitus Engel

Open to people and music

Friederike Kenneweg
“It’s hard to concentrate on work right now,” said pianist Tamriko Kordzaia when I meet her for a Zoom interview in early March. We are both shaken by the Ukraine war, but for Georgian Kordzaia, the events have another meaning. ” I was there demonstrating of course, which did help, but when things go on the same way afterwards, I suddenly feel lonely here…”

 

Die Pianistin Tamriko Kordzaia sitzt am Flügel und spielt konzentriert, vor ihr die aufgeschlagenen Noten.
Portrait Tamriko Kordzaia © Lorenzo Pusterla/ Kunstraum Walcheturm

 

Bridges between Georgia and Switzerland

Tamriko Kordzaia has long been kind of a musical ambassador between Switzerland and Georgia. Since 2005, she has directed Close Encounters festival, which aims at performing contemporary music from both countries. The festival takes place every two years in Switzerland and Georgia. Tamriko Kordzaia’s goal is to present the music of contemporary composers from both countries and thereby create encounters. In Georgia, however, it is also about bringing contemporary music to rural regions and away from the capital. “This enables all participants – musicians and listeners alike – to have unique experiences,” Kordzaia emphasises.

This year, works by Peter Conradin Zumthor and Cathy van Eck will be featured alongside new pieces by young Georgian composers. Alexandre Kordzaia (*1994), Tamriko’s son, is also represented at the Close Encounters Festival. He can be considered a mediating bridge between Switzerland and Georgia, but also between classical and electronic music, as he’s not only known for his chamber music works, but also as a club musician under the name KORDZ.

Engagement for a forgotten composer

Tamriko Kordzaia does not only wish to present young composers however. In collaboration with two other Georgian pianists, she has also dedicated herself to the rediscovery of the late Mikheil Shugliashvili (1941-1996). In 2013, the three pianists performed Shugliashvili’s Grand Chromatic Fantasy (Symphony) and released the first recording of this impressive work for three pianos on CD.

 

Extract of the piece Grand Chromatic Fantasy (Symphony) by Mikheil Shugliashvili at Musikfestival Bern 2020

 

Building bridges between formations, eras and genres

Tamriko Kordzaia is active in very different musical formations. She plays solo performances, in duo with Dominik Blum from Steamboat Switzerland or with the cellist Karolina Öhman and she’s member of the Mondrian Ensemble since 2008, which covers all possible piano quartet combinations with its programmes.
Currently Mondrian Ensemble features Tamriko Kordzaia with Karolina Öhman, Ivana Pristašová and Petra Ackermann.

 

Die vier Musikerinnen des Mondrian Ensembles. Foto: Arturo Fuentes
Tamriko Kordzaia plays in Mondrian Ensemble since 2008, along with Karolina Öhman, Ivana Pristašová and Petra Ackermann. Foto: Arturo Fuentes

 

Tamriko Kordzaia has been building bridges not only between countries and formations, but also between eras. At the beginning of her career in Georgia, she first made a name for herself with her Mozart and Haydn interpretations, when continuing her studies at Zurich University of Arts, she began to explore contemporary music, with – for example – the works of the Swiss composer Christoph Delz (1950-1993), whose complete piano works she recorded in 2005. Mondrian Ensemble explicitly focusses on presenting both old and new music in its programmes, thereby unveiling unusual connections. The ensemble also implements concepts including space, stage or film play and has no reservations about collaborating with representatives of jazz or club music.

 

Recording of the Mondrian Ensemble playing Plod on by Martin Jaggi.

 

Over the long time that Tamriko Kordzaia has been with Mondrian Ensemble, firm and regular relationships and collaborations have developed with composers such as Dieter Ammann, Felix Profos, Antoine Chessex, Martin Jaggi, Jannik Giger, Roland Moser and Thomas Wally.

 

sieben Sonnengesichter

Tamriko Kordzaia also has a special relationship with the music of Klaus Lang, whose pieces have already found their way into some of the Mondrian Ensemble’s programmes. When the pandemic brought concert life to an abrupt halt, Kordzaia decided to concentrate and deal with Klaus Lang’s piece “sieben sonnengesichter” in detail. The result of this in-depth research can be heard a 2021 CD and recording.

 


Video of the recording session of sieben sonnengesichter by Klaus Lang. Piano: Tamriko Kordzaia.

 

Working with the younger generation

Something that distinguished Tamriko Kordzaia since her beginnings in Switzerland is her work with young musicians – an activity that she enjoys very much these days. At the Zurich University of Arts, she gives piano lessons and helps students find their own voice in the interpretation of not only classical but also contemporary works. In this regard, she also gets in touch with young composers, whom she advises on the development of their pieces. “It’s so great to see what ideas these young people have and how they get on. It always gives me a sense of purpose and helps me to keep going, even if sometimes circumstances are difficult.”
Friederike Kenneweg

Mentioned events:
Festival Close Encounters:
Dienstag, 26.4.22 Kunstraum Walcheturm – Favourite Pieces
Donnerstag, 28.4.22 Stanser Musiktage – Georgian music with Gori women choire
Freitag, 29.4.22 Feilenhauer Winterthur – Georgian music with Gori women choire
Samstag, 30.4.22 GDS.FM Club Sender Zürich – Tbilisi Madness

10 PIECES TO DESTROY ANY PARTY:
Dienstag, 3.5.22 Gare du Nord, Basel
Mittwoch, 4.5.22 Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zürich
Donnerstag, 5.5.22 Cinema Sil Plaz, Ilanz

Mentioned recordings:
Klaus Lang / Tamriko Kordzaia, sieben sonnengesichter: CD domizil records 2021.
Mikheil Shugliashvili/Tamriko Kordzaia, Tamara Chitadze, Nutsa Kasradze, Grand Chromatic Fantasy (Symphony) For Three Pianos: CD, Edition Wandelweiser Records, 2016.
Christoph Delz: Sils „Reliquie“ – 3 Auszüge aus „Istanbul“, CD, guildmusic, 2005.

Klaus Lang, Mikheil Shugliashvili, KORDZ, Christoph Delz

Profiles neo-mx3:
Tamriko Kordzaia, Festival Close Encounters, Mondrian Ensemble, Karolina Öhman, Petra Ackermann, Alexandre Kordzaia, Cathy van Eck, Peter Conradin Zumthor, Jannik Giger, Dieter Ammann, Martin Jaggi, Roland Moser, Felix Profos, Antoine Chessex, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Musikfestival Bern

“the biggest Beethoven fan ever.”

Interview with Michael Wertmüller by Gabrielle Weber: The 10th Symphony @ Cologne & Pandemic Premiere @ Donaueschingen

Michael Wertmüller continues composing Beethoven’s fragment of the 10th symphony and the result can be heard in the Kölner Philharmonie on October 14. Immediately afterwards, a new work will be premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage*: a true tour de force for the SWR Symphony Orchestra, having to face the increased hygiene requirements in a reduced size.

The Berlin-based musician masterfully mixes musical styles, genres, formats and formations. He travels internationally both as jazz drummer and composer and his pieces are always shrill, fast and highly complex. Thus he constantly shakes up new music clichés and cannot be allocated to any fix place.

Wertmüller and Beethoven or Wertmüller and the pandemic conditions: is that possible?

It certainly is, reveals Wertmüller in an interview via zoom from Frankfurt, where he was discussing an upcoming music theatre production.

Full blast, Peter Broetzmann sax, cl Marino Pliakas e-b Michael Wertmueller dr

Gabrielle Weber
You are currently in Frankfurt, working live with people again, travelling. Has your work changed since the pandemic?  More online, less travelling?

My work as a composer hasn’t changed at all – even before Corona I was alone at home for weeks and saw no one. At the moment there are fewer meetings, of course and I work more via zoom – like everyone else I suppose. Apart from the fact that live performances are on hold, little has changed.

Have you lost many live concerts?

In the last fifteen years I have experienced kind of a cross-fade: proportion and ratio have shifted from many tours and occasional composing to the opposite. That’s why it wasn’t so drastic for me: only one big USA tour with my trio was cancelled.

Your trio: Full Blast?

Yes, exactly, my jazz trio with Peter Brötzmann and Marino Pliakas. A big USA tour was planned, across the country from east to west. This cancellation hurts of course, especially since we had some successful tours in the States in the past. We had been invited to various festivals and were often on tour without state support, almost self-sufficient.


Michael Wertmüller, Full blast, Suzy, 2008

You are in the middle of the preparations for your 10th symphony in Cologne and the piece is part of a trilogy**. Part one had to be postponed due to the pandemic, part two was conceived differently: were there moments of uncertainty regarding the project?

Not really interestingly, as it takes place in the Philharmonie, which is huge, with its over 2100 seats and the project was always conceived for a chamber music setup. I don’t know if anything else is coming… but only 200 people are admitted.

Still three weeks to go… what does your project look like?

My piece, the 10th symphony, will take place in the great hall. It’s in the form of a music theatre. I wrote music to individual sections of a text by Gesine Danckwart, a younger Berlin author. Three singers, two string quartets and two ensembles will be interpreting it, for a total of some 25 musicians altogether.

There is also another, separate project, a sound installation distributed throughout the building, whichs can be experienced over four days.

You continued Beethoven’s 10th?

That was more of a working title, as there are only very small fragments, no more than four-five-bar sketches. I only used a tiny theme. In this project, Beethoven is relatively irrelevant to the tones themselves. Novoflot, the opera company who’s responsible for the project, asked itself and me the (big) question: what would Beethoven sound like today?

What matters most to me is that I was actually asked to do some Beethoven related work in the first place, as I would almost have been offended if I hadn’t been able to do anything about the great Beethoven anniversary. I am the biggest Beethoven fan ever.

“I am the biggest Beethoven fan ever.”

How did this fascination come about?

I was already a fan of his music as a child. As well as of Miles Davis’ and John Coltrane’s. I am actually a simple, rather romantic type of guy who easily gets enthusiastic.

Portrait Michael Wertmüller

Can this enthusiasm be heard in your composition?

Beethoven is constantly present in the back of my head. The music I love accompanies me always and everywhere, even in everyday life. Like Coltrane, Miles, or Bruckner and Shostakovich. This automatically flows into my music, whether I play or compose.

Will it become more tangible in Cologne or will it remain subconscious?

It’ll remain subconscious. The question of how Beethoven would compose today is answered by our line-up: Johnny La Marama, a hip Berlin jazz band, the “Ensemble of Nomades”, which brings in New Music, and three singers with a classical-romantic background. These are the three worlds that are valid for me today and combining them could certainly be something that Beethoven might have wanted to do in the present days.

Word’s out that musicians are completely overwhelmed when they have to interpret your pieces, as well as the audience… will that be the case this time?

The music will be relatively digestible, even pleasing. Very harmonious and also danceable. The only thing that could hurt is its intensity. But I have made the experience that I can trust the audience a lot – I don’t underestimate it.


Michael Wertmüller: Musikfabrik Köln, Antagonisme contrôlé, 2014

In Donaueschingen a new piece of yous will be presented in the Baarsporthalle immediately afterwards…

Donaueschingen is always a big challenge with its whole ongoing tradition. Even though I have been invited several times, I always think of something special for it.

..a ” grandiose piece…”

The piece had to meet the new increased hygiene requirements… a chamber music miniature…

It is absolutely not a miniature. On the contrary: it has on purpose become “grandiose”, megalomaniac, because of this corona affliction. It is everywhere and I have it too.

“Megalomaniac”? So in your case, the new guidelines resulting from the pandemic were inspiring, not annoying?

The instrumentation has been reduced and the normal symphony orchestra practically cut in half. I had no problems with that. I chose a soloist approach for the piece and wrote extreme virtuosity into it, which made it haunting, pathetic, shrill and very virtuosic. I have no trouble anticipating. As musicians, as artists, we must be able to anticipate, otherwise we are lost.

…anticipate…?

I take the situation seriously and have full confidence in the government, in the experts. But now it is important to carry on and to be consistent.

Every little thing I am allowed to do right now – and at the moment we can be thankful, if culture even takes place at all – I want to do right: full on. I want to cry out now, really loud and really furious – that’s what I do with my work. It will be a scream, an outcry.
Interview: Gabrielle Weber


Michael Wertmüller, Zeitschrei for Piano, Bass, Percussion, Steamboat Switzerland, 2015

———————————————————–

**as part of the “Labor Beethoven 2020” project – Contemporary music festival for Beethoven’s anniversary, in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste Berlin


#3 The 10th Symphony, 14.10.2020, 20h: Philharmonie Cologne: Novoflot Opernkompanie, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael Wertmüller.
Further performances are planned for December in Berlin (dates & locations tbc)

Neues Werk Donaueschinger Musiktage, 16.10.2020, 18h / 21h*:
SWR Symphonieorchester, opening concert, Dirigent Titus Engel: Paul Hindemith, Kammermusik Nr.1 (1922), Michael Wertmüller, Neues Werk / UA; Oliver Schneller, The New City / UA, Lula Romero, displaced / UA, Klaus Lang, Neues Werk / UA, Cathy Milliken, Neues Werk / UA

*DONAUESCHINGER MUSIKTAGE canceled at short notice (12.10.20):
On Friday, October 16 at 8 pm, 
SWR2 will broadcast a rehearsal recording of the opening concert.

Michael Wertmüller, SWR Symphonieorchester, Titus Engel,  Novoflot Opernkompanie Berlin, Steamboat SwitzerlandPeter BrötzmannDonaueschinger Musiktage, Kölner Philharmonie, Gesine Danckwart, Johnny La Marama, Ensemble of Nomades

Neo-Profiles: Michael Wertmüller, Steamboat Switzerland, Donaueschinger Musiktage