Stille und Umkehr, Sketches for Orchestra by Bernd Alois ZimmermannReview by: Brian FennellyNotes, Second Series, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Sep., 1972), p. 125Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/896291 .

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some ways traceable to certain early Berg- Schoenbergian considerations, it seems more typical of what might be termed a French neo-romantic style, based upon a a colorful and richly decorated orchestral palette.

DONALD HARRIS The New England Conservatory of Music

Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Stille und Umkehr, Sketches for Orchestra. [444, alto sax., contrabsn; 422; perc.; accor- dion; harp; str.] Mainz: B. Schott's S6hne (Associated), 1971. [Study score, 30 p., $5.00]

The title of Zimmerman's Stille und Urnkehlr (Orchesterskizzen) is unusually appropriate. "Stillness and return" there most certainly is; the music never rises above mezzo-piano except for a few ac- cents. The suggestion that this one-move- ment work consists of sketches is also apt; the implication of incompleteness rings quite true. The piece is generally without any tangible character and seems rather undeveloped, in spite of what may be an elaborate rhythmic plan in the pacing of events.

Written in 1970 and scored for mixed winds, strings, and percussion, the work is essentially a simple study in non-syn- chronous ostinati. The first of these is an eight-bar blues rhythm (except for one curious ten-bar exception) played on the side drum and later on the tenor drum, by "ein Jazzer," seventeen times. A pedal D, passed through various instrumental groups, is also a constant. Played with these are other ostinati, the most promi- nent being intermittently-appearing blocks of sound, often based on repeated chords or superimposed circling melodic patterns containing various rhythmic sub- divisions, as 5:7:9. While these constitute the changing pitch events of the piece, they are rather bland, and interest lies mainly in the relation of the pacing of these events to the unchanging blues pattern.

A shift of instrumentation at measure 89 seems significant in that it not only introduces the tenor drum, antique cym- bals and musical saw, but also the trumpet in the first solo melodic gesture of the work. This and subsequent solos, however,

do not relieve the basic dullness of the procedure. The quarter tones introduced here are also of little significance.

In search of something substantial, I iuvestigated the possibility of a pun on Umkehr; the effort was fairly fruitless, although the twelve-note chord at mm. 76-77 and 81 is rhythmically partitioned into two inversionally-related hexachords. More obvious are the retrogrades and permutations observable in the opening flute lines and in later passages. As a whole, this work is perhaps more of an understatement than its composer in- tended.

BRIAN FENNELLY New York University

Philippe Boesmans: Correlations pour clarinette solo et 2 ensembles. Paris: Ed. J. Jobert (Elkan-Vogel), 1970. [Score, 24 p., $6.25; performance mate- rials on rental]

Lean in idea but rich in mood, this showpiece reverie for clarinet spotlights the soloist between two tandem ensembles that balance each other from either side of the stage. Each ensemble consists of clarinet, harp, piano, percussion, and strings. Except for the wood and glass chimes of the left-hand group, they mirror one another instrumentally, though not musically. The trio of clarinets strung horizontally across stage-front sometimes merge in the spinning-out of clusters of trills.

The pointillistic score, abrasive in har- mony while refined in texture, shuns meter as well as phrase. Motivic rather than melodic, the score eschews lyric breadth; often the solo part swirls around a point or exploits the dynamic shading of a single tone. When the chordal shards of the accompaniment are not being splin- tered by jazz-spurred rhythms, they gen- erate a sustained background for the focal antics of the clarinet. The solo part, first performed by clarinetist Walter Boeykens (to whom the work is dedicated) in Sep- tember, 1967, is written for B-flat clarinet. Trills from C-sharp to B-natural chal- lenge the player on this instrument, but technically the work is witllin the grasp of any professional accustomed to playing Schoenberg, for example. Sometimes the

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