Konstantia Gourzi - Music for Piano and String Quartet (2014)

Athens-born but Munich-based composer Konstantia Gourzi makes her ECM New Series label debut with a recording of chamber music and music for solo piano. "What historical voices commingle in the current idiom of a composer whose cultural roots lie in the birthplace of rhetoric, but who emigrated to take a musical apprenticeship in European constructivism?" asks Ingrid Allwardt in the liner notes. "What wordless airs, echoes of past ages, thread their way into the present day of her instrumental songs?" Gourzi's album supplies the answers. With the exception of the early piano piece "noch fürcht' ich", composed in 1993, all the music is of recent vintage. It includes a number of piano miniatures, pieces dedicated to Lachenmann, Kurtág, Raue, Abbado, Barenboim and Rexroth, two string quartets ('Israel' and 'P-ILION, neun fragmente einer ewigkeit'), and 'Vibrato 1' and 'Vibrato 2' for string quartet and piano. Greek pianist Lorenda Ramou and the Ensemble Coriolis deliver committed performances. The album was recorded in Munich's Himmelfahrtskirche in 2012, and produced by Manfred Eicher. Personnel: Lorenda Ramou (piano), Ensemble Coriolis: Heather Cottrell, Susanna Pietsch (violin), Klaus-Peter Werani (viola), Hanno Simons (cello)

TRACKLIST
1. Eine kleine Geschichte (2005) für Klavier solo op.25
2. P-ILION, neun fragmente einer ewigkeit - Ensemble Coriolis
3. Aiolos Wind (2010) six piano pieces, op.41
4. Israel (2004) Streichquartett Nr.1, op.19 - Ensemble Coriolis
5. noch fürcht' ich(1993) Sieben Miniaturen für Klavier solo op.8
6. Vibrato 1 (2008/2009)für Streichquartett plus Klavier op.38 - Lorenda Ramou/Ensemble Coriolis
7. Klavierstücke I-V (2004)5 Miniaturen für Klavier solo, op.24
8. Vibrato 2 (2010) für Streichquartett plus Klavier, op.38 - Lorenda Ramou/Ensemble Coriolis