Volume 5 of Cybele Records’ absorbing documentary series „Künstler im Gespräch“ — awarded the Deutscher Hörbuchpreis in 2011 in the category „Beste verlegerische Leistung“ — is now out, devoted to the grande dame of Belgian composers, Jacqueline Fontyn.
Her life and work form an absorbing contrast to Vol. 4 of the series, which was concerned with the piano music of Pierre Boulez.
Jacqueline Fontyn never committed herself to any particular musical creed or submitted to any dogma. She wanted to approach her creative work as free as possible of doctrines and constricting articles of faith. She never worked by the rules of serialism. „It was all too intellectual for me“, is her summing-up.
In her works „there is never a moment of dryness or academic severity“, says the violinist and pianist Kolja Lessing, who appears in this edition both as soloist and as Mirjam Wiesemann’s interlocutor . An „enormous sensuousness of sound, colour, freshness and no ideological trench warfare“ — thus the violinist sums up some of the important pillars that distinguish the composer’s work.
Jacqueline Fontyn herself calls the orchestra „her favourite instrument“, since it offers exactly the many-shaped possibilities that suit her wealth of form and colour: „With an orchestra you can achieve anything. There are no limits here…“.
Four different concertos by Jacqueline Fontyn thus make up the musical part of this edition (SACD 1): a violin concerto, a concerto for two percussionists and orchestra, a cello concerto and a double concerto for flute, harpsichord and string orchestra.
To complement the music, Mirjam Wiesemann held a long conversation with Jacqueline Fontyn (SACD 2) at her house in the Belgian village of Limelette near Brussels, where she has lived for more than 50 years — about her youth as a „child prodigy“, the early loss of several important people in her childhood, her positive and humorous outlook on life, her love of nature and, of course, about her work and the values that shape her life and music.
A further conversation was held by Mirjam Wiesemann in Würzburg with Kolja Lessing (SACD 3), the composer’s long-standing confidant and colleague. Here too the subjects reach far beyond reflections on music theory, leading by way of personal experience and avowal into the very midst of the artists’ human and musical lives.