Florian Hoelscher - Posadas: Erinnerungsspuren (2018)

Erinnerungsspuren by Alberto Posadas is an homage to the piano in six parts. In his "reminiscences", the Spanish composer brings to mind some of the best in his profession, taking them as sources for his studies of the piano's sound space. From François Couperin to Robert Schumann and Claude Debussy to Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Karlheinz Stockhausen. What matters to Posadas in his cycle is not to make explicit connections to the past; he rather discerns concepts from the historical repertoire, namely Erinnerungsspuren [memory traces], that find expression in pianistic experiments. Special playing techniques with the pedals, with preparations and inside the piano allow changes of individual sounds and micro-intervals while they are resounding, thus creating a trans-historical sound space. In his cycle Alberto Posadas gives less answers than he raises questions in which the music of his six predecessors can be heard as sounds of remembrance: How can new and old material put each other in a different light and perhaps even redefine themselves? And what can be the meaning of quotations when it comes to building bridges between old and new, between the known and the unknown?