Christian Muthspiel unveils with “Dancing Dowland” his new program and takes us on a musical journey into the past. Together with his two colleagues Franck Tortiller and Georg Breinschmid, the musician picks up the instrumental cycle “Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares” of the Renaissance composer John Dowland and leads it to a contemporary interpretation. On the 13th of June 2010, the trio will perform at the Viennese venue “Porgy & Bess”.
Christian Muthspiel is a true all-rounder. As a musician, composer and conductor, the versatile artist enjoys an excellent international reputation. He is precisely one of those musicians, which can not be simply reduced to a single genre. The trombonist does not only feel at home in jazz, where he transacted his first steps, but also in improvisation and contemporary music. For his latest project, “Dancing Download”, the musician looks back to the past.
Even though the instrumental work “Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares” by John Dowland is four hundred years old, Christian Muthspiel believes there are parallels between the music of the Renaissance and jazz. For instance, the free choice of instruments, the outline of harmonic progression and its form through improvisation.
The interesting thing about such old compositions is that the artist is free to find an interpretation. Nobody knows exactly how the original sounded four hundred years ago. The composition receives its power from reading between the lines, which gives the artist room to fill this space. The compositions of the new program are all extracted from Dowland’s instrumental cycle “Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares”. Muthspiel tries to realign himself as close as possible to the original theme and to wrap it in a modern contemporary interpretation. It is important to maintain the thematic essence and character.
Together with his two colleagues Franck Tortiller and Georg Breinschmid, Christian Muthspiel enters into an artistic dialogue that unfolds between the poles of pure improvisation and composition. The three musicians continue to use, reinterprete and place the underlying harmony of the composition into a modern context.
The trio has already put their musical standards to the test with their program “against the wind”. Back then, the musical focus was placed on the compositions of Werner Pirchner and Harry Pepl.
Photo credit: Lukas Beck