dacapo's members only series MOS (2000)
Together with the musicians dacapo: opened it's 1.000 hours video and music archive to the international music scene.

 The Bremen independant music organisation :dacapo: was founded in 1985 by Ingo Ahmels. Due to it's unique and unorthodox approach, :dacapo: has aquired outstanding international reputation in new music, jazz, ethnic and avantgardistic classical music over the last fifteen years.

 More than 2.000 artists from all over the world have been guests at :dacapo:, cooperating in more than 500 recitals, concerts, workshops and conferences. All :dacapo: events have been documented resulting in an audio and video archive of over 1.000 hours of material. So far this documentation has only been accessible to national and local members of the dacapo donators circle. This has now changed and the contents of this archive will be made available to the world.

 On December 10, 2000, :dacapo: has celebrated it's 15th anniversary with a matinee recital in the Bremen Goethetheater. Herbert Henck play ed early piano music of John Cage in the first half of the concert ,and the Australian pianist, Michael Leslie, presented late Bach (excerpts from Die Kunst der Fuge) in the 2nd. German composer Hans-Joachim Hespos held a laudatio, as well as Bremen mayor Dr. Scherf.

 On the same occasion, :dacapo: presented it's new project to the public, called 'dacapo interNETional'. The success of this unique idea will make it possible for :dacapo: to continue to promote live concerts although scandalous decisions by Bremen politicians had caused a total stop of most of the public funding despite international protest.

 
Members of an internationally open sponsors circle won't need to be satisfied with only one free CD per year anymore. From now on they will be able to receive ten times the amount - audio plus video! - at the same price. Starting in January 2001, :dacapo: intended to bring out every five weeks a new compilation of archive material for it's members-only-series (MOS), edited in cooperation with the musicians whose performance is documentated.
 
:dacapo: members who are capable to download mp3 or Quicktime4-data from the internet will continue to pay only 5 EURO monthly at a one year minimum membership. Members who prefer to receive conventional audio CDs via snail mail have to pay a little more for the burning and posting the CDs.
 
Once the international donatorship has grown to a certain amount, the financial benefits will assure that live concerts will once again be possible - independent from incompetent governmental organisations and ignorant bureaucracies. The project 'MOS - members only series' will be a benifical closed circut.
 
The list of artists invited by :dacapo: within the last fifteen years is a true who is who's in new music, contemporary jazz, ethnic and classical music. (http://i.am/dacapo). Further information about membership conditions (also institutional membership) is available by email at 'dacapo@i.am' :dacapo: offers the summary of fifteen years work to the international public and asks for a comparably low contribution. Please support our idea by becoming a member soon! Ask for a form via dacapo@i.am . We'll soon provide the necessary information.
 

It so far has been impossible to transfer the huge amount of text our website offers to the german speaking world since 1995 into English. Please keep being patient and leave us your email adress, so that we could inform you as soon as the project gets forward. In the meantime you might have fun to go through the following texts, which give a rough idea of what dacapo is all about since 1985.

 
 
 
d'c 0
»silent pieces« - live at dacapo II
© & 0 Ingo Ahmels
Bremen 1993/95
GEMA
 
»silent pieces« - live at dacapo II
 
1 Shishi (»lion«, trad.) Yoshikazu Iwamoto shakuhachi flute - 9'48''
2 Anton Webern »Drei kleine Stücke« (1914) - 2'49''
Hans-Peter Jahn violoncello Yukiko Sugawara piano
3 Morton Feldman »Palais de Mari« (1986) Sven Thomas Kiebler piano - 25'12''
4 John Cage »Souvenir« (1983) Teodoro Anzellotti accordion - 10'00''
5 Hans Otte »Nr. 6« from the »Book of Sounds« (1982) Hans Otte piano - 2'46''
6 Malcolm Goldstein »Ishi/manwaxati« (1987) Malcolm Goldstein violin - 13'00''
7 Dietrich Eichmann »Für A.D.« (1990) Christoph Grund piano - 2'35''
 
silent pieces - live at dacapo is a special members-only-edition. The CD contains an imaginary silent concert and was first released in 1993 as part of the book »nie wieder kunst. dacapo«. The recordings were made during seven of the meanwhile more than 350 concerts already promoted by DACAPO, Bremen's unique concert company which I founded in the autumn of 1985. Shortly thereafter I started to audiorecord and videotape all the concerts. The Radio Bremen departments for new music and jazz have also recorded (and co-promoted) some of the concerts and the DACAPO archive is shure to grow much larger over the years. It has become an outstanding source for connoisseurs, journalists, teachers and researchers as well, as it contains several hundred live documents with thousands of pieces of good music. Many wonderful musicians from all over the world have come to Bremen to perform music from very different traditions for DACAPO: new music, contemporary jazz, ancient music, experimental, classical, ethnic, performance art and happenings still take place nearly every week. Every other year we go through the archive material in order to thematically combine music for special members-only-editions, available to those who join the sponsors' circle and support the organisation's work with individual gifts.
 
DACAPO's professional label, however, is a separate entity, the »d'c records gmbh,« which produces and distributes live-CDs of DACAPO performances in their entirety. Both »d'c records« and the participating musicians donate their work for the production of members-only-CDs and receive no compensation for this. My thanks to Radio Bremen and everyone who has supported this project, and thank you, dear owner of this disc. Please do listen to our growing »d'c«collection! Feel free to send us your address and ask for further information about DACAPO by facsimile to +49 421 508 067 or e-mail »ahmels@uni-bremen.de«.
 
Shishi was performed by the most wonderful shakuhachi player Yoshikazu Iwamoto during the 256th DACAPO-concert on November 29, 1992. Listening to this inimitable interpretation one seems to breathe the spirit of silence, the title of another CD recorded by Iwamoto recently. Shishi means lion, and according to Iwamoto, this ancient title may refer to an old dance from Bobigo, a far-off province, where in the old times boys used to walk through the streets on their hands while their masters played hand-drums. Shishi may also have to do with pairs of lion-like statues, which guard the doors of numerous village temples. Yoshikazu Iwamoto, (1945, Tokyo) studied the classical solo-repertoire with Baisen Onishi and the ensemble-repertoire with Shizue Sasagawa. He has performed worldwide over the last 15 years and published a basic text about the shakuhachi in 1994 (Oxford University Press).
 
Drei kleine Stücke op.11 by Anton Webern
(1883-1945) date from 1914 and were performed by Yukiko Sugawara (piano) and Hans-Peter Jahn (violoncello) in the 262nd DACAPO concert on February 21, 1993. The movements are (1) Mäßige Achtel (»moderate eighths«, 9 bars), (2) Sehr bewegt (»very agitated«, 13 bars), and (3) Äußerst ruhig (»extremely silent«,10 bars). These short pieces are of extreme intensity. They are the very opposite of the music that was beeing composed in those days. One listens to barely perceptable sounds and colours; an enormous richness beyond the silence surrounding these gorgeous miniatures becomes obvious. Yukiko Sugawara, originally from Sapporo, is a great pianist specialized in modern music. She studied with Michiko Endo, Aiko Iguchi and Aloys Kontarsky, performs at the great festivals and has lived in Stuttgart for many years. Formidable cellist and composerHans-Peter Jahn has also been working and living in Stuttgart for a long time. He is head of the new music department at Süddeutscher Rundfunk.
 
Palais de Mari by Morton Feldman (1926-87)
was composed in 1986. The recording with pianist Sven Thomas Kiebler dates from the 240th DACAPO concert on May 3, 1992. Only 25 minutes in length, this piece is among the really short ones composed by Feldman, who loved long, slow music in which, to the inexperienced ear, nearly nothing seems to happen.Some of Feldman's pieces are longer than four hours. Piano sounds and patterns relate to their own autonomous universe of silent sounds - an attentive listener becomes aware of a vegetative kind of metamorphosis. Sven-Thomas Kiebler (1964) studied piano with Jaime Padros and James Avery at the Freiburger Musikhochschule. Kiebler was member of the ensemble recherche and now works as soloist with the ensemble avance and with SurPlus. He has contributed many CD productions such as DACAPO's »d'c 3 - SurPlus plays Music of Solitude.«
 
Souvenir by John Cage (1912-92) dates from 1983. Originally written for organ it is perfectly suited to Teodoro Anzellotti's instrument, the accordion. Anzellotti performed the piece on December 15, 1991 for the 230th DACAPO-concert. Much has been written about John Cage's philosophy and concept of silence. Cage is the composer of the most silent piece of all silent pieces, the famous »4'33''« from 1952, which consists of three movements of tacet.The music is all the events that take place while the performers refrain from all action and instead listen to whatever happens on its own during the 4 minutes and 33 seconds of the piece. (On »d'c 1 - Kazue Sawai Koto Ensemble«there is a wonderful version of »4'33''« for koto ensemble). The Souvenir on this record, nevertheless, is of a different nature… Teodoro Anzellotti (1959, Candela, Italy) has been living in Germany since 1966. He studied accordion with Hugo Noth and appears as accordion soloist worldwide with a repertoire from early to contemporary music. He also works with ensembles such as ensemble modern.
 
# 6 from the Book of Sounds by Hans Otte
was written 1979-1982 and performed by the composer on June 26, 1991 for the audience of the 215th DACAPO-concert. In 12 most impressive piano pieces the Book of Sounds seeks to re-discover »the listener as a partner of sound and silence, who in the quest for his world, wishes for once to be totally at one with the sound …«. Hans Otte (1926) composer, pianist and, from 1959 to 1984, head of the music department of Radio Bremen, has won many awards in Germany, Italy and the U.S. for a wide spectrum of different compositions for large orchestras as well as chamber groups, music theatre, performances and sound environments. Hans Otte's Book of Sounds, which has been released on LP and CD, has had a worldwide resonance.
 
Ishi/»man waxati« Soundings for solo-violin and voice by Malcolm Goldstein was composed in 1987. The version you hear on this edition was played for the listeners of the 200th DACAPO concert on December 2, 1991. Ishi was the last living member of the Yahi people, who inhabited a territory in northern California until the beginning of this century. In theYahi language ishi means man (person) and man waxati stands for spring (source of water). The Yahis were completely destroyed by the intrusion of European civilization. In a metaphorical sense the re-tuned violin serves as man waxati (source) for the structured, improvisational unfolding of the music. Malcolm Goldstein (1936) has been active in the creation and presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960's. Numerous composers have collaborated with and written pieces for him, amongst them John Cage, Hans Otte, Ornette Coleman and Christian Wolff. Goldstein's violin improvisations (Soundings) have received international acclaim for having extended the sound possbilities of the violin. On our CD »d'c 2 - Goldstein plays Goldstein«, dedicated entirely to Goldstein as a composer/violinist, we recently published a new live-version of the piece; extensive comments can be found in the CD booklet.
 
Für A.D.(1990) by Dietrich Eichmann belongs to the cycle »New Distinction of a Bump, Oh., Katzenwiegenlied, Für A.D.« which was performed for the 173rd DACAPO concert on April 20, 1990 by pianist Christoph Grund. Dietrich Eichmann (1966) studied piano and improvisation with Alexander von Schlippenbach and composition with Wolfgang Rihm and Frederic Rzewski. He lives in Berlin and Bruxelles. Christoph Grund (1961), composer and pianist, studied piano with G. Hauer and W. Genuit. He works as a soloist, with orchestras such as Michael Gielen's SWF-Sinfonieorchestra and with many chamber music groups.
 
Ingo Ahmels, July, 1995
 
 
Fotos: Silvia Otte (Goldstein), others from »nie wieder kunst.dacapo,« © Bremen 1993, ISBN 3-930105-01-2. Recordings by Ingo Ahmels except: »Ishi« and »Für A.D.« by Andreas Heintzeler, courtesy Marita Emigholz, Radio Bremen department for new music. CD-mastering by Karola Parry, Tonstudio ES-Dur. Thanks to Leslie Strickland for text editing, Harald Falkenhagen for layout improvement and d'c records gmbh for producing this textbook.
 
 

 

d'c 2
»Goldstein plays Goldstein«
recorded live and produced by
Ingo Ahmels
All rights reserved
GEMA / BMI
© & ® d'c records
Bremen 1994
 
 
I follow the line,
am molded by it, yielding, as I mold it
like a brook after rain pours through dirt,
rocks, trees and grass, finding new subtle twists
and turns as things move, are moved in the flow…
 
I start from where I am
which is not the same
as starting from nothing;
there is a lot in all/around us
all the time. Nothing
prearranged or anticipated.
It is just a matter of letting
whatever is necessary
come forth to be heard
which is not the same
as repetition of habits…
 
As one sound unfolds,
I follow it with my bow
bent thick or thin upon the line;
gut and metal enfolding,
stretched taut full length
the black wood a pathway
of no stepping stones
while fingertips find footholds
and swaying, sing a resonance
of lush green…
 
 
Malcolm Goldstein (1936) has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960's, as a composer/violinist, co-founder (with James Tenney and Philip Corner) and director of the »Tone Roads Ensemble,« and as a participant in the »Judson Dance Theater,« the »New York Festival of the Avant Garde« and the »Experi-mental Intermedia Foundation.« Over the last three decades he has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, presen-ting solo violin concerts and perfor-ming as soloist with various new music and dance ensembles.#1 Numerous composers have collabo-rated with and written pieces for Malcolm Goldstein, amongst them John Cage and Ornette Coleman (as recorded on his CD »sounding the new violin«)#2, as well as Hans Otte and Christian Wolff. Goldstein's violin improvisations, which he calls »soundings,« have received »international acclaim for having extended the range of tonal/sound-texture possibilities and revealing new dimensions of ex-pressivity.« The present d'c, recorded live at the 294th »DACAPO-Konzert« at the Galerie Rabus in Bremen is the first one dedicated exclusively to Malcolm Goldstein's soundings.
 
Since the middle of the 1960's improvisation has been an essential ingredient of Goldstein's music. As a composer for chamber music, vocal and orchestral ensembles he creates music of structured impro-visational settings using a variety of inventive musical notations. Gold-stein works with professional new music ensembles, with students from universities and dance schools and other interested people. His workshops focussing on the practice of improvisation are unique. His book »Sounding the Full Circle (con-cerning music improvisation and other related matters)«(1988)#3 brings together many of his separately published articles and essays. Goldstein here specifies his particu-lar concept of the improvising musician as one centered in the process of discovery, unfolding moment to moment in the gesture of enactment /sounding.
 
#1Some recent activities include: »New Music America« festivals; »Inventionen (The Relative Violin),« Festival Berlin; »Acustica International,« Hörspiel-Festival WDR, Köln and New York; »Pro Musica Nova,« Festival Bremen; »Wiener Fest-wochen,«; »Sound Culture,« Festival Tokyo; and as director for the »John Cage/Anarchic Harmony Festival,« Frankfurt, »Neue Musik Ensemble des Hessischen Rundfunks.«
#2 ¿What Next? recordings, WN No.5, NY 1991
#3 ISBN 0-9621508-0-0
 
 
Ishi/»man waxati« Soundings
Ishi was the last living member of the Yahi people, who inhabited a territory in northern California until the beginning of this century. In the Yahi language »Ishi« means »man« (person) and »man waxati« stands for »spring« (source of water). The Yahis were completely destroyed by the intrusion of European civili-zation.
 
The violin solo piece on the present d'c evolved out of the Hörspiel (ra-dio play) »Ishi/timechangingspaces« created in 1988 at the »WDR-Studio Akustische Kunst« in Köln. In his Hörspiel Goldstein combined layers of Ishi singing traditional Yahi songs - wonderful examples of early sound recording technique - with a layer of himself singing and playing violin with strings re-tuned, so as to integrate the violin textures with the timbre quality of Ishi's voice.
 
In a metaphorical sense the re-tuned violin serves as »man waxati« (source) for the structured impro-visational unfolding of the music. »Water as nourishment of our living,« as Goldstein says.
 
gentle rainpreceding mushrooms (in memoriam John Cage)
This music for violin/voice solo is a sounding celebration of the person/ name CAGE and was finished in 1992, just a week after John Cage's death on August 12th. In a corner of the score the inscription is written: »Death rattle of wings / dragonfly at my doorstep (Vermont, Aug. 11th, 1992)«.
 
Goldstein tells a story about the first performance of the piece:
 
»The premier performance of ðgen-tle rain preceding mushroomsÐ took place after a dinner party in Köln on September 10th, 1992. Bunches of grapes for dessert. I put aside one that seemed to be dried up, hard. Then during the music, it opens up and slowly walks across my plate and onto the napkin where it rests throughout the music. Afterwards, it returns to the plate, across the bridge of the knife, closes itself in and sits still. It had revealed itself to be a snail, with elegant neck and feelers sensing the air… John Cage carrying his own house on his back, as audience?!?…«
 
 
qernerâq; our breath as bones
This piece for violin/voice solo uses word fragments from a song-poem by Padloq, an Iglulik Inuit, as trans-scribed by Knud Rasmussen around 1920. It is a healing song to be sung in times of mortal danger:
 
See, great earth,
these heaps
of pale bones in the wind!
They crumble in the air
of the wide world,
in the wide world's air,
pale, wind-dried bones
decaying in the air!
 
To know the health of the body the Inuit shaman sees the condition of the afflicted person's bones. To see »bones crumbling in the air,« like cloudforms in the sky, is to have the vision of a crisis, perhaps as a reflection of a much larger social condition.
 
»The original composition from 1986 was conceived for solo voice with unspecified instrumental ensemble. Soon after the premier performance with The New Perfor-mance GroupÐ of the Cornish Insti-tute, I began to perform it as a violin/voice solo: a song offering for peace in these times.« (G.)
 
Soundings for violin solo 1994
»Soundings« is a special term intro-duced by Malcolm Goldstein to de-scribe his improvisational music: »Soundings: plumbing the depths of sound and in/of me. All sounds. Touch releasing things into motion; gesture realised/resonances of texture becoming song. (Music: the process of living, sounding.) Impro-visations, my violin playing…an overflowing of myself in space. Sound as a physical reality, touch-ing upon the ears of the body; (ðupon the string, within the bow... breathingÐ)... reverberations within the skull becoming a changing landscape - a new music.«
 
Goldstein's soundings then are »improvisations exploring the rich sound possibilities of the violin. There is no pre-set structure; rather it is the process of discovering new quali-ties and relationships that is the flow of the music. Melodies of sound (timbre/texture/articulation) are created that evolve out of the interplay between the resonance of the violin and the gesture of the violinist.«
 
 
 
d'c 6
»Mike Svoboda's Alphorn Special«
the complete alphorn, part one
 
recorded and produced by
Ingo Ahmels in kunstkopf technology
All rights reserved
GEMA / BMI
© & ® d'c records
Bremen 1995
 
 
also available
d'c 9
» Mike Svoboda - Alphorn in Manhattan«
the complete alphorn, part two
 
recorded in Manhattan and produced by
Ingo Ahmels in kunstkopf technology
All rights reserved
GEMA / BMI
© & ® d'c records
Bremen 1998
 
 
Michael Svoboda was born 1960 on the island of Guam and grew up in Chicago where he gigged around playing trombone in various jazz bands and conducting musicals. After receiving a degree in composition and conducting from the University of Illinois, he came to Europe in 1981 and completed his trombone studies in Stuttgart, Germany. Since then he has built a career as a trombone soloist performing at major Festivals (Holland Festival, Berliner Festwochen, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Wien Modern, etc.) with orchestras (Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Ensemble Modern, ASKO Ensemble Amsterdam, etc.) and recording for television, radio and CDs. Besides his varied concert activity, Svoboda has worked with composers such as James Tenney, Yehuda Yannay, Sid Corbett, Helmut Lachenmann, and Frank Zappa creating over 100 new works for trombone. Since 1984 he has collaborated closely with Karlheinz Stockhausen in whose opera cycle Licht Svoboda has appeared in the role of Lucifer at La Scala, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, etc. With a repetoire extending from the earliest works for solo trombone to the most experimental contemporary scores, including chamber music projects such as avance and the duo Metal Brass with percussionist Andreas Boettger, and improviser groups (e.g. with Derek Bailey, Phil Minton, and Malcolm Goldstein, see »d'c 2«), Michael Svoboda is one of today's most sought after brass players.
 
 

 

 
Mike Svoboda's Alphorn Special is a tounge-in-ear hommage to the complex simplicity in our simply complex world. The adventure began in the summer of '94 , when I asked Mike Svoboda, if he could play an entire evening on the alphorn for the DACAPO concert series. Imagine a world class trombonist limiting himself to only the natural overtone series of this unreliable primitive instrument for an entire concert - an unheard of handicap! Nevertheless, sports fan Mike Svoboda accepted the challenge without further ado and, thanks to his virtuoso creativity, the result was an unforgettable, profound, and at the same time, amusing evening at Bremen's Museum of Anthropology (Übersee-Museum). Although this 305th DACAPO concert from the 11th of September, 1994 is partially documentated on this »d'c 6« and some of the wonderful concert atmosphere can be heard in the enthusiastic audience participation on l (a Svoboda composition for choir and didgeridoo, a sort of south pacific euculyptis-log-alphorn hollowed out by termites, see below), the alphorn is the open-air-nature-instrument par excellence, and combined with modern Kunstkopf (artificial-head) recording technology, the CD medium offers the perfect chance to take an extraordinary sonic adventure.
 
We didn't want to miss this opportunity and therefore, for the rest of this CD, we let ourselves be provoked by the first of the ten rules for playing the alphorn found in A.L. Gassmann's Alphornbüechli (published by Hug & Co., Zürich 1938):
 
»The alphorn belongs in the mountains.Test your location's sound and, above all, the echo.«
 
Particularly the beginning of this alphorn first commandment was food for thought; so off we went to the Nebelhöhle cave near Tübingen. There we dragged the alphorn, Johnny our Kunstkopf microphone (thanks to Dr. R. Weber, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg), the rest of our recording equipment and ourselves 400 m (437.44 yards) down into the mountain. Gassmann obviously knew what he was talking about! In this space, where calcium rich waters dripping from the cave celing at a constant 7û degrees centigrade have formed bizarre rock formations, the sound and echo (see 1st commandment) exceeded all our expectations and we recorded the alphorn traditional Alter Muotathaler c. In front of storage hall #25 at the Neustadt Harbor in Bremen (thanks to Frau Degener and the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft (Storage Company)), the mountains were missing, but not the echos bouncing off the harbor walls or the clashing of enomous metal sewage pipes and the groaning of the cranes unloading them - an ideal location for M. Christian's alphorn tune De Berner a.One of the few North German topographical high-points is the north seating section of the Weser (soccer) Stadion, home of the 1993 German soccer champs, Werder Bremen, to whom we dedicated the alphorn pep-song Dem Tüchtigen Freie Bahn! (Onward Champs!) e. As you can hear, the fans really got the spirit…
 
For the Hans-Joachim Hespos (*1938) artsy one note aplhorn fantasy »Q« f, our cue was a public symposium in the artsy art-park Die Wiese at Ganderkesee near Bremen during which we recorded this auto enriched Hespos composition (thanks here to the A 28 highway). Less artsy but more biologically sound were the cows at the biological farm Waldhäuser Ost, Tübingen, who we serenaded during their early (!) milking with the famous Viotischer Kuhreihe b. The music provided a decidedly moving and not to be overheard effect on their digestive systems. Directly thereafter, we tested the Gassmann 1st comandment ex negativo and went with Mr. S. Koch from the University of Stuttgart's Frauenhofer Insititute for Physics into an anaechoic chamber - a completely dead acoustic. There we recorded Weltenenden g by Adriana Hölszky (*1953) who was inspired by the spirits of the four ends of the world. Since this recording location was devoid of all sound reflexion, mouth and air sounds as well as the scratching and rubbing noises could be localised extremely well in the stereo panorama. Headphones enhance this effect and one can hear the sound traveling the 3.5 m (11.5 feet) back and forth between the mouth piece (upper left) and the bell (lower right). Unfortunately, the closest we got to a real mountain was the Reutlingen community garbage dump - a mountain of trash accumulated over the past 30 years which is over 60 m (65.6 yards) high. There, amidst the dumpsters and the overwhelming stench, we recorded the appropriately titled Anstieg d (Assent). Finally, on a lovely November afternoon we met with 17 amateur alphorn afficionados in the Bühler Valley near Tübingen and recorded Svoboda's Alpen Air n. Not only the joggers, hikers, horseback riders, insects, dogs and the grandma in the wheelchair all documented aurally on this track came out to enjoy the nature preserve's healthy air, but also the retired carpenter and alphorn maker Reinhold Pregizer was there to listen to 18 of the more than 100 alphorns he has made being played. As a final nocturnal celebration, Mike Svoboda accompanied Heinz Zimmermann in his idyllic garden greenery amidst waterfalls and the Dettenhausen town churchbells on M. Christian's old alphorn favorite Zwei Freunde (Two Friends) o.
Mike Svoboda's other compositions were recorded live at the afore mentioned DACAPO concert at Bremen's Museum of Anthropology amidst a reconstructed original south pacific island village. It was a fitting setting for these light-hearted works for alphorn D'r Brahms h with cowbells and it's alphornesque cousins based similarily on the natural overtone series. Besides the didgeridoo (V as in cool k and VW Boogie j), you can hear a conchshell (Calling l and Hommage à Badesaison m), a glass of water and the common garden hose (Airbag 9) literally swing musically into action.
 
»The alphorn belongs in the Mountains! Well, that might just very well be, but…«, was the consensus of our not yet quite finished evaluation of Gassmann's first commandment and The Complete Alphorn seems to call out for a sequel. Due to the artifical-head recording technology used, listening to »d'c 6« with headphones will enhance these various and sundry site's spatial image making the enjoyment of this CD a truly extraordinary aural expedition into the realm of this elementary alp instrument. Many thanks to the numerous persons and institutions whose compassionate support made this (part one!) CD possible!
[1998: Mike Svoboda - Alphorn in Manhattan , The Complete Alphorn, Part Two]
 
Ingo Ahmels