Eto Bieri And Meta4*, Johannes Brahms Gérard Pesson Salvatore Sciarrino – Quasi Morendo

When he wrote his second String Quintet, op.111, in 1890, Brahms thought, strangely enough, that it would be his artistic testament, to be followed by "some glorious farniente, a little time between life and death". But this serene work, which disconcerted the composer's friends by its complexity and by the importance it gives to the viola, was to be succeeded by another quintet, this time with clarinet, which was inspired by Brahms's fascination with the playing of the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. The supreme masterpiece among his chamber works featuring the clarinet, this sublime opus 115 is undoubtedly one of the composer's most popular works.

The development of Salvatore Sciarrino's piano philosophy cannot, of course, be divorced from the development of his musical philosophy as a whole. It is therefore worth remembering that Sclarrino's production of works for solo piano offers reflections of the most stunning, innovative, cultured, magical adventures in contemporary musical creativity.

from the attached CD booklet

Salvatore Sciarrino is one of the greatest figures in contemporary European music.
Most of his music, which develops within a personal and very refined sound space that is immediately recognisable, is based on the relationship between sound and silence, which, though apparently contradictory, are indissociable. In each of his works both silence and sound play an essential part. This puts his music at the limits of the imperceptible and sometimes creates great dramatic tension; the listener is called upon to lend a very attentive ear to a multitude of 'muted breathings'. Sciarrino says: 'There is a sort of inversion in that sound in my works retains a trace of the silence from which it came and to which it will return - silence that is itself only a twittering of microscopic sounds.'

from the CD booklet