The Squid's Ear Magazine

Mitzlaff, Urlich

Ten Sonic Miniatures about the "Scream" by Edvard Munch

Mitzlaff, Urlich: Ten Sonic Miniatures about the

Using Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" as his muse, German cellist living in Portugal, Ulrich Mitzlaff, presents 10 acoustic miniatures from just over a minute to 4 1/2 minutes in length, including wildly interactive moments of delirium to darkly melodic bowed passages, using his impressive technique to create vivid depictions of Munch's work.
 

Price: $15.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Ulrich Mitzlaff-cello


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 5609063405316

Label: Creative Sources
Catalog ID: cs531
Squidco Product Code: 26190

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at ÒIgreja de Santiago de PalmelaÓ, in Palmela, Portugal, on October 13th, 2017, by Emidio Buchinho.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"If there are works of art that, by the mere power of suggestion, have a synaesthetic reach that transcends their support - the canvas, the stone - to mimic a sound property, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" may be the one that first occurs. And if there are musical works that give rise to a visual imagery, that of Ulrich Mitzlaff, a German cellist living in Portugal for many years and an active part of our improvisational community, is one of the best that fulfills his design. In one case as in the other everything is space - the figure painted by Munch is dipped in the background (the Oslofjord dock in Norway at sunset) and the cello comes to us through the mediation of a very particular reverberative architecture (the Church of Santiago de Palmela). There is no perspective: in both cases, the surroundings, the scenery, swallow the human element, with the difference, only, that in one oppression comes from nature and in the other it follows from a construction that is also human, acoustics.

The painter tells us that nature can be oppressive and Mitzlaff that a space usually connoted with spiritual appeasement may also be claustrophobic, meaning that the existential anguish that is intended to lessen by prayer or meditation may even be more pressing when it is specifically located. But if everything in Munch is expounded in a mute cry (understood yet not heard), an effect that closes its causes because the immobility of an image so obliges it, what Mitzlaff presents with his 10 miniatures are the causes that lead to the effect, in situations that foreshadow the scream without ever shouting it - music is not only a representative art because it moves, because it is in process, because it never has a definitive effect. This one anticipates, guess, and just that. It never arrives, and the short duration of the pieces makes this denouement even more distant, no matter how much it announces it, keeping it implicit, in a permanent fantasmization of the situations explored. What is so curious: all the few seconds that are used for each addition of these in motion paintings are an eternity when compared to the instantaneous impact of the Munch painting, and yet the cry of this is infinite, it had no detectable beginning and there will be no end, always continuing, while the music of Mitzlaff appears by cuts, delimited in time, comes in successive waves, each pause between themes allowing us a relief, a breath of air. When we look at "The Scream" we do not breathe. The music, we perceive, is breath, and with it the metaphorization of a scream is made by looking at it like a respiratory flow that comes from before the scream and that is forming it, as free jazz and punk well perceived."-Rui Eduardo Paes, Jazz.PT (translated by Google)


Get additional information at Jazz.PT (translated by Google)

Artist Biographies

"Ulrich Mitzlaff completed his cello studies in the seventies at Tübingen (Germany) with Professor Stefan Zarnescú. Since 1996 he lives at Lisbon, Portugal, where he works as cellist and composer of contemporary and experimental music, improvisation, free-jazz, conceptual composition and sound-art. He collaborates with various artists in multidisciplinary and electro-acoustic projects and he is member of the art-association "granular".

At the moment, he participates in music-projects like: the Duo Ulrich Mitzlaff / Miguel Mira, with a new and very surprising CD "Cellos" that was presented early springtime this year; Separados Frutos, an experimental music and spoken word formation with Nuno Rebelo, Vera Mantero and Manuel Guimarães; the Open Speech TRIO with Carlos Bechegas and Miguel Feraso Cabral; the Duo Carlos "Zingaro" / Ulrich Mitzlaff and the Fruit Music Quartet with Franziska Schroeder, Pedro Carneiro and Pedro Rebelo.

With Carlos "Zingaro" he was performing in many different constellations and formations that had a significant impact on his playing. The same is to say about his collaborations with Nuno Rebelo, Carlos Bechegas, Miguel Mira and Carlos Santos.

He was interpreting the original music composed by Nuno Rebelo in 2001 for "como rebolar alegremente sobre um vazio interior", choreography by Vera Mantero for the Ballet Gulbenkian, and in 2003 for "Silicone Não", choreography by Paulo Ribeiro for the Companhia Paulo Ribeiro. He was collaborating in 2000 and 2001 with Américo Rodrigues in his multi-dimensional piece "...como um relâmpago...".

He composed and presented live in 2008 the music for the choreography created by Romulus Neagu "The Invisibility of the Small Perceptions". With Romulus Neagu he works also in the duo "ImproFormance", an instant dance-performance.

In 2008 he created and interpreted the music for the documentary film by Miguel Clara Vasconcelos over the choreographic project of Romulus Neagu "The Invisibility of the Small Perceptions", and in 2009 he composed and interpreted the music for the dramatic short film by Miguel Clara Vasconcelos "Pedrinez". He interpreted the original music written by Paulo Curado for the animation film "Cândido" by "Zepe" - José Pedro Cavalheiro in 2007.

He participated in many international festivals like "Festival LEM Primavera" (Barcelona 2009), "Festival Portugal and the World" (Brussels 2007), "Metasonic LX" (Lisbon 2006), "Metasonic III" (Lisbon 2010), "Festival Músicas do Mundo" (Sines 2006), "Festival Alkantara" (Lisbon 2006), "Sonorities" festival of contemporary music (Belfast, Northern Ireland 2005), "CAMP 03 - international festival for electronic music, sound art and visual arts" (Tübingen, Germany 2003) and "CAMP 05" (Montemor-o-Novo 2005), "Encontros de Música Experimental- EME" (Setúbal 2000 and 2001), "Ó da Guarda" (Guarda 1999, 2005 and 2008) among many others.

He was playing in various concerts with Fried Dähn, Rodrigo Amado, Emídio Buchinho, Reinhold Friedl, Vitor Joaquim, Thomas Maos, Stefano de Bonis, Josep-Maria Balanyà, Bart Maris, Miguel Cardoso, Pedro Lopes, Hernâni Faustino, Stefano Zorzanello, Gregg Moore, Liba Villavecchia, Paulo Curado, Bertrand Gauguet, Miguel Leiria Pereira, Ernesto Rodrigues, Mark Whitecage, Phill Niblock and many others. He worked in the duo I/O with Carlos Santos (MAX/MSP) in the field of electro-acoustic improvisation and he was collaborating with the Lisbon Improvisation Players of Rodrigo Amado."

-Creative Sources (http://creativesourcesrec.com/artists/u_mitzlaff.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Miniature #1 3:54

2. Miniature #2 2:22

3. Miniature #1 4:03

4. Miniature #4 2:17

5. Miniature #5 3:50

6. Miniature #6 1:50

7. Miniature #7 3:04

8. Miniature #8 2:45

9. Miniature #9 4:22

10. Miniature #10 1:20

Related Categories of Interest:


Creative Sources
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Stringed Instruments
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Solo Artist Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
Creative Sources.


Recommended & Related Releases:
DUOT & ZARM Ensemble (Cirera / Prats / Zingaro / Alves / Mitzlaff / Rosso)
DUOT with Strings
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
The DUOT pairing of Argentinian, Barcelona-based sax player Albert Cirera and Spanish drummer Ramón Prats is joined on their 6th album by the Portuguese string quartet ZARM Ensemble of Carlos Zingaro on violin, David Alves on violin, Ulrich Mitzlaf on cello and Alvaro Rosso on double bass for a dynamic concert at Igreja do Espírito Santo in Caldas Da Rainha, Portugal.
Mitzlaff, Ulrich
Transparent - fluorescent sound fibres
(Creative Sources)
German cellist and pianist living in Lisbon, Ulrich Mitzlaff recorded these two solo works titled "transparent — fluorescent sound fibers" #1 & #2 in 2015 and 2020, each voiced for extended and unusual instrumental technique in an interaction with percussive objects, the first from 2015 performing on cello, the second from 2020 performed on piano.
I/O: Carlos Santos / Ilrich Mitzlaff
Studies on Colour Fields Modulation
(Creative Sources)
Electronic improviser Carlos Santos, whose sound work started with VITRIOL in 1989, a laboratory for experimental sound actions, also studied painting and works as a graphic designer; here he joins with cellist and sound artist Ulrich Mitzlaff for two extended works taking their cue from the visual arts as they study and sonically reflect subtle modulations in color fields.
Mitzlaff, Ulrich
Transparent - fluorescent sound fibres
(Creative Sources)
German cellist and pianist living in Lisbon, Ulrich Mitzlaff recorded these two solo works titled "transparent — fluorescent sound fibers" #1 & #2 in 2015 and 2020, each voiced for extended and unusual instrumental technique in an interaction with percussive objects, the first from 2015 performing on cello, the second from 2020 performed on piano.
String Theory
Tin
(Creative Sources)
The Portuguese String Theory ensemble led by violist Ernesto Rodridgues explores the element "Tin" in this live performance at CreativeFest XIII at O'Culto da Ajuda, in Lisbon, 2019, leading a 10-piece ensemble of strings — violin & violas, cellos, double basses, guitars and piano — through an extended improvisation of remarkably detailed yet controlled interaction.
String Theory
Krypton
(Creative Sources)
The Portuguese large improvising ensemble String Theory is heard live during the CreativeFest#12, at O'Culto da Ajuda, in Lisbon, Portugal in 2018, in an extended improvisation of incredible layering and restraint, making an amalgam of mostly acoustic string sources sound electronic and hallucinatory, an incredible achievement in string sonics.
Lisbon Improvisation Players (Amado / Gonzalez / Goncalves/ Pedroso / Mitzlaff)
Spiritualized
(Clean Feed)
Other Recommended Releases:
Garcia, Violeta
FOBIA
(Relative Pitch)
The second album from Argentinian cellist, composer and improviser Violeta Garcia, exploring the amplified, prepared, expanded and extended violoncello through 15 succinct solo expositions in an album that she describes as a "very hyper-sensitive monster", using unconventional, extended and sometimes terrifying technique amidst powerful creative expression.
Vryzas, Dimos
Really Short And Tonal
(Creative Sources)
Violinist, improviser, songwriter and composer from Thessaloniki, Greece, Dimos Vryzas creates a virtual electroacoustic ensemble using violin, voice and effects, contrasting acoustic and electronic sounds in the search for music expression, his studies with Fred Frith and Alfred Zimmerlin a good indicator of the kind of sound approach Vryzas employs.
4! (Patrizia Oliva / Carlo Mascolo / Domenico Saccente / Felice Furioso)
Factorial
(Creative Sources)
Free electroacoustic improvisation from the Italian quartet of Patrizia Oliva on voice, electronics, bawu, & objects, Carlo Mascolo on prepared trombone, Domenico Saccente on accordion and prepared piano, and Felice Furioso on drums, cupa cupa, contrabbassa, & sounded objects, using voice and unusual instrumentation to guide unusual and forward-thinking improv.
String Theory
Tellurium
(Creative Sources)
This supergroup of strings--16 musicians on violins, viola, cellos, double basses, piano, psaltery, zither, and guitar--in an intensely restrained collective improvisation recorded live at O'Culto da Ajuda, Lisbon, Portugal in 2017, as String Theory's 4th album continues their title themes from the physical universe named here for the rare metalloid "Tellurium".
Vazquez, Pablo
Solo 1 (Seres Imaginarios)
(Creative Sources)
Buenos Aires double bassist Pablo Vazquez presents nine solo improvisations using an impressive and diverse set of approaches to the instrument, utilizing every inch of the bass to evoke the supernatural beings of Argentine popular culture, in an imaginative approach to sonic narrative that demonstrates powerful control and masterful technique.
Rodrigues, Guilherme / Johan Moir
Hollow Wood
(Creative Sources)
Swedish double bassist Johan Moir, who focuses on extended techniques, preparations, Just Intonation and psychoacoustic phenomena, joins with cellist Guilherme Rodrigues in the studio in Berlin to record these 9 dialogs of haunting string improvisations, pushing the limits of their "hollow wood" instruments to create a vast palette of sound and approaches.
Lopes, Luis / Fred Lonberg-Holm
The Pinneaple Circumstance
(Creative Sources)
Portuguese electric guitarist Luis Lopes met Chicago free improvising cellist and electronic artist Fred Lonberg-Holm in the studio in Lisbon to record these five improvisations, both using innovative approaches to effect processing to expand their sound into unusual sonic environments, balancing beauty and abrasive sound.
Brand, Ulrike / Olaf Rupp
Shadowscores
(Creative Sources)
An unlikely pairing, cellist Ulrike Brand is best known for her work with John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi, while Olaf Rupp is a regular contributor in a variety of setting in the European Free Improv scene; here they join for an album of free improvisation, finding shared and gripping language in creative and uncommon approaches to their strings.
Lerman, Ayelet
7 Steps
(Creative Sources)
Violist, performance, installation and sound artist Ayelet Lerman presents a meditative voyage through silence on solo viola, a sinuous and fascinating journey pairing melody and unusual harmonic strategies, with Kadima label leader Jean Claude Jones joining on double bass, one of the last sessions that he played on that instrument.
Farhadian, Thea
Tectonic Shifts
(Creative Sources)
Nuova Camerata
Chant
(Improvising Beings)
Lisbon's Nuova Camerata brings together a mix of improvisers and contemporary classical players--Carlos Zingaro, Joao Camoes, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Miguel Leiria on string with Pedro Carneiro on marimba--for a set of improvisations bridging both disciplines in passionate and unexpected ways.
Zabelka, Mia
Monday Sessions
(Creative Sources)
Loriot / Vincent
Bobun: Suite pour Machines a meche
(Creative Sources)
The string duo Bobun celebrates ten years of creative collaboration with this six piece suite, a studio recording of diverse improvisations that runs the gamut from lowercase minimalism to dense and technically exuberant interaction.
Mitzlaff / Mira
cellos
(Creative Sources)
The unusual cello duo format is explored by Mitzlaff and Mira in these experimental contemporary improvisations using acoustics and techniques mimicking live electronics to create a uniquely informed music.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Hodgkinson, Tim / Jason Alder / Chris Cundy / Yoni Silver / Heather Roche / Shadanga Duo / Thanos Chrysakis
Music For Bass Clarinets
(Aural Terrains)
A live performance at London's Cafe OTO from composer Thanos Chrysakis, performing compositions focused on the deeper reeds from composers Christian Wolff, Iancu Dumitrescu, Hannes Kerschbaumer, Georges Aperghis, and Chrysakis himself, in configurations from solo to quintet, with Tim Hodgkinson, Jason Alder, Chris Cundy, Heather Roce, Yoni Silver, and Shadanga Duo.
Conde, Alberto Iberian Roots Trio
The Wake Of An Artist - Tribute To Bernardo Sassetti
(Clean Feed)
A tribute to pianist and composer Bernardo Sassetti from a trio that includes two members of Sassetti's Trio--bassist Carlos Barretto and drummer Alexandre Frazao--along with pianist Alberto Conde and violist Jose Valente, as they interpret Sassetti compositions, a Federico Mompou piece Sassetti played frequently, along with original compositions from all members.
Dunmall, Paul / Jon Irabagon / Mark Sanders / Jim Bashford
The Rain Sessions
(FMR)
Dedicated to Cecil Taylor and taking advantage of NY saxophonist Irabagon's UK visit, this album presents four drum duets "time two", as two tenor saxophonists--Paul Dunmall and Jon Irabagon--meet two lyrical drummers--Mark Sanders and Jim Bashford--following Dunmall long-standing interest in drum and sax duets, the results this ebullient and remarkable album.
Dorner, Axel / Jason Kahn
For Berner Munster (Im Berner Munster)
(Confront)
The pairing of German trumpeter Axel Dorner, and NY-born experimental artist Jason Kahn living and performing in Zurich, brings the tradition of avant free jazz and nonidiomatic improvisation into an unusual merging of techniques and approaches, each applying their advanced virtuosity to this intense concert, recorded during Hamburg's Zoom In Festival, 2017.
Benford, Douglas
For Now
(Confront)
Sprawl Imprint label leader Douglas Benford developed this fascinatingly layered composition with a diverse set of instruments, objects, and field recordings from captures made at the Stockholm Music Museum and at performances in Lithuania and England between 2009 and 2017, assembling them to create this exceptional odyssey of concrete, ambient and ethnic sources.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC