Elena Puszta, Soprano – Denis Ivanov, Piano – Margarita Rumyantseva, Violin & E-Violin – Yuriy Broshel, Saxophone (alto & baritone)

Andreas J. Winkler: with and without words
Chamber Music, Lieder and Works for Piano solo
[World Premiere Recordings]

"Creating a CD with my own music was not my idea. It was Elena Puszta who, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting closures that put the cultural sector to sleep, came up with the idea of recording a CD of Winkler Lieder.
A pure Lied CD, on the other hand, would not have been particularly appealing and also not very representative, since piano and chamber music play a quite significant role in my slowly growing oeuvre. The musicians of the A-Trio were quickly recruited as instrumentalists for the recordings. The “Auf-geht‘s-Stipendium” scholarship of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia offered the four of them the perfect opportunity to record a cross-section of my work, which of course delighted me immensely. [...]
The composers to whom I am particularly indebted are spread fairly evenly over three centuries and are usually discreetly, sometimes clearly, discernible. “Power and colour” ("Kraft und Farbe"), my musical creed, is complemented, especially in the case of the Lied, by the demand for "comprehensibility", a demand on myself which I do not quite meet now and then, as I ruefully confess here. The literary model itself, however, is taken seriously and portrayed faithfully (again, in the spirit of Schumann, with exceptions); deconstructing and vivisecting the language is out of the question for me. I also do not share the view that one cannot, shall not or must not write sonatas, fugues and certainly not Lieder any more (for whatever reason), above all also because prohibitions in art are no longer attractive, not even for the possible tempting transgression’s sake. Moreover, I am one of those composers who seem to be becoming rarer and who definitely care about being understood, even liked, as an artist. I believe that moving listeners with music is a good thing, and I hope that this recording will do just that."
Andreas J. Winkler

Andreas J. Winkler, born in 1974, began his musical career on the piano. From 1997 to 2008, he was a songwriter and keyboard player in the indie band “The Fluids”. From 2007 to 2012, he studied composition and music theory at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In 2012, he founded the composers' collective "zeitKlang" with some Cologne colleagues to add a new and rich facet to the Cologne new music scene. Since 2016, Winkler has been teaching composition, aural training, counterpoint, score playing and piano practice as Senior Lecturer at the University "Mozarteum Salzburg" (Austria). He lives with his family in Cologne and Salzburg. "Power and colour" is Winkler's musical credo. He tries to harmonise his unmistakable jazz influence with sounds à la Stravinsky and Berg and discovers many an untrodden side path in the process.
[further info see booklet text]

CD programme / Tracklist: