Johannes Fritsch, born in Bensheim-Auerbach in 1941, studied in Cologne, among other subjects viola and composition with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, was a member of the Stockhausen Ensemble from 1964 to 1970 and in 1970 founded the Feedback Studio with David Johnson and Rolf Gehlhaar, followed in 1971 by the Feedback Studio Verlag. He organised the Hinterhausmusiken concerts and the Weltmusik congresses in Vlotho, edited the Feedback Papers and the Feedback Studio’s CD series, directed the composition class and the Seminar for New Music at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt from 1971 to 1984 and was professor of composition at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1984. He selected the works for this CD himself.
“Hochtöner” (1974) was premiered in May 1974 at the Pro Musica Nova festival in Bremen; the line-up of the studio’s three musicians and the live electronics make the piece, according to the booklet, a typical example of the Feedback Studio’s work in the 1970s. Overtone sounds such as natural harmonics and whistle-tones on the flute stand beside “undertones”, which a frequency divider built by David Johnson draws out of a high fundamental; the ring modulation between flute and viola supplies sum and difference tones. In addition there are self-quotations, quotations and allusions to music history and to non-European music. Since all the instruments are amplified and blend with tape and synthesiser, it is often impossible to tell what is being played live; the figures appear as in a dream, as fragments in a wide, ever-changing space of sound. The recording was made in 1975 at the Feedback Studio.
Fritsch wrote the “Trio 1977” in September 1977 in Alpbach in the Tyrol; it was premiered in Darmstadt the same year with Jon English and Kevin Volans and then played several times on tours of the Feedback Studio. Via microphones, the sounds of viola and trombone are ring-modulated with each other in the VCS 3 synthesiser and mixed with the original sound; a few characteristic figures interlock with simple, song-like melodies. The recording was made in 1977 at the Feedback Studio. “RM ’96” was first performed by the Wolpe-Trio on 30 September 1996 at the Feedback Studio’s anniversary concert in the Cologne Musikhochschule. Here too the ring modulation, of flute and cello, determines the harmony of calm melodic fragments, often repeated and varied, which, as in the “Trio 1977”, are interrupted by a few expressive sound formations.
The three trios span twenty-two years and show the same way of working in three stages: amplified instruments, ring modulation and an electronic apparatus that plays along as an instrument rather than as an effect. The CD runs to 45:24; the booklet has twelve pages in German and English, and the production was supported by the Kunststiftung NRW.