SCHWANENGESANGE

Markus Schäfer writes of his new release: "A musical interpretation should always strive to breathe new life into a composer's legacy by making it audible and understandable in accordance with the here and now. In this new recording we have once again dared to open up our performance experimentally to the sort of effects that emerge from spontaneous improvisation. Faithfulness to the original begins with a willingness to decode, decipher, and interpret the score; it is not achieved by staring fearfully in awe at the manuscript. To the contrary: we are fully aware that any confrontation with a masterpiece of the past can only be justified if we recreate it anew while maintaining a fragile balance between faithfulness to the musical work and faithfulness to the "text"."