The German composer Eva-Maria Houben, a member of the increasingly influential Wandelweiser Group, seems to view notes less as musical building blocks than as discrete entities with complex life cycles, and absence as a substantive presence. Her newest disc on the group’s label is an excellent entry point, pairing her spacious, mantralike “Traumverloren I” (“Lost in Dreams I”) and Piano Sonata No. 10 (“Les Cloches du Songe: Traumglocken — Dream Bells”), a sequence of finely wrought tributes to Mussorgsky, Enescu, Schumann, Liszt and Messiaen. (Steve Smith)
Tracklisting:
1. ‘Traumverloren I' (lost in dreams I) (2010)
2. ’Klaviersonate nr. 10' (sonata for piano no. 10) (2013), 'les cloches du songe' (traumglocken - dream bells)
3. I: in memoriam modest mussorgsky
4. II: in memoriam george enescu
5. III: in memoriam robert schumann
6. IV: in memoriam franz liszt 7: V: in memoriam olivier messiaen
Available as a 16bit FLAC or 320k MP3
Eva-Maria Houben has been performing works for the organ for more than 30 years. As she is related to the “wandelweiser-group” of composers, her compositions are published by “edition wandelweiser”, Haan. Her list of compositions up to now includes works for the organ, piano, clarinet, trombone, violoncello and other solo instruments, works for voice and piano, for wind and chamber ensembles, for orchestra and for voice and orchestra, works for choir (www.wandelweiser.de). She publishes on subjects of contemporary music (Steiner, PFAU, Edition Howeg, bis-label Oldenburg). Since 2000 her music has been published by Edition Wandelweiser (Haan). CDs have also been released by Another Timbre, Irritable Hedgehog and Makro. In 2012 she founded her own label diafani (www.diafani.de).
