Ralf Schnell is a classical pianist and composer. He studied the piano, chamber music and contemporary music with Manfred Reichert (Ensemble Modern, Mannheim), Burkhard Schaeffer (Mainz) and Darryl Rosenberg (Boston).

Ralf on For Bunita Marcus:

My first serious studies of contemporary piano music took place during my university years. The works of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Hespos and others were still quite new, and playing them was no fun – not because of the music but because of the instructions given: everything ‘old’ was to be avoided. No phrasing, no rubato, no emotions, and most of all, nothing was supposed to sound beautiful!

These rather intellectual studies ended when I met Darryl Rosenberg and witnessed his performance of ‘For Bunita Marcus’. Darryl personally knew John Cage and was intimately familiar with the works of the New York School (to which both Cage and Feldman belonged), and the intense beauty and musicality of his performance swept all intellectual restrictions away and made me fall in love with contemporary music and particularly with the music of Morton Feldman.

‘For Bunita Marcus’, one of his late works, is a truly epic piece of music. Depending on the piano, the concert hall, and the audience, it lasts anywhere from 75 to 90 minutes. It is a continuous stream of music from beginning to end. Morton Feldman creates a space that appears to have no time, no metre, no specific rhythm. But Feldman achieves the illusion of the absence of a metre by writing immensely complex rhythms and mandating a specific tempo, so that the audience will not be able to recognize that structure. Very typically for Feldman, this complexity is also intended to keep the pianist alert and on the edge at all times.

There are almost no instructions provided in the score: with only two exceptions (very soft, the sustain pedal to be held continuously), everything else is left for the pianist to figure out for themselves. But we do know that Feldman approved of pianists adding rubato and other interpretations; by no means did he expect his music to be played strictly reduced to what he wrote down in the score.

Track list: Disc 1

1. The Beginning

2. Church Bells 1

3. Unrest 1

4. Church Bells 2

5. The Question

6. Unrest 2

7. What If

Disc 2

1. Remembering

2. Finding Peace (The Way Home)

3. Daydreaming

4. A Glimpse of Eternity

5. Home

VOCES8 Records