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.
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Ulrich Mitzlaff-cello
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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.
"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)
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Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Ulrich Mitzlaff "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." ^ Hide Bio for Ulrich Mitzlaff
1/27/2025
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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
Creative Sources
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Stringed Instruments
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Solo Artist Recordings
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