07.10.08 | 20:00 | Kleiner Saal

Fredrik Ullén Klavier
 
Olivier Messiaen "Cantéyodjaya"
Giacinto Scelsi "Vier Illustrationen zu den Verwandlungen Vishnus"
Kaikhosru Sorabji Auswahl aus den 100 "Etudes transcendentales" (Nr. 13, Nr. 4, Nr. 83, Nr. 66 und Nr. 10)
Alexander Skrjabin Sonate Nr. 3 fis-Moll op. 23
Alexander Skrjabin Ausgewählte Etüden op. 8 (Nr. 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 und 12)

Black Diamonds

What should one admire more in this pianist: his infallible, discretely relaxed technique, his musical intelligence or his sensitivity? Already the program with which the Swede Fredrik Ullén presented himself in the the small hall of the concert house demands deep respect. Mystical ideas, which many composers found in Indian philosophy and religion, were the programmatic bracket of Ullén.
Olivier Messiaen sees his "Canteyodjaya" as a "love song" of the reconciliation of all oppositions. Aggressively playfyl rhythms answer serially suspended melodies, shrilling discant clusters and meditative chorals. With Giacinto Scelsi's "Vishnu Metamorphoses" Ullén sank into a gloomy sound cosmos, with oscillating tritonus intervals reminding of Liszt's "Trauergondol" - an island of the dead full of black diamonds. Just as Ullén here staged fire-spouting bass tones, equally bright, light and hazy sounded five "Etudes transcendentales"
by Kaikhosru Sorabji, the British piano giant of Parsi-Spanish-Sicilian background whose four hour "Opus Clavicembalisticum" collects every pianistic witchery. The ecstasy of virtuosity is in Scriabin joined with what's more, the ecstasy of fantasy. The f sharp minor sonata as well as selected etudes were with Fredrik Ullén a rapture of clear sight, and also a sound drama with the clearest, coolest structure, in which up to now never before heard thematic connections flashed by.

Isabel Herzfeld / TAGESSPIEGEL