Karlheinz Essl & Jeremy Joseph

Becoming One

free improvisations for baroque organ and modular synthesizer
2 Dec 2024, St. Ursula (Vienna)

Notes | Listen | Biographies | Organ

Karlheinz Essl: MakeNoise 0-COAST synth
Jeremy Joseph: Italian baroque organ

Notes by Jeremy Joseph

Since moving to Vienna in 2003 I first became acquainted and intrigued with the music of Karlheinz Essl. Although we both lecture at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, I only quite recently had the good fortune of meeting him personally. I have however had for some time a strong desire to begin a collaboration between my organ class and his composition class. In due course I approached him for a possible combined class concert of organ improvisation and electronics which he readily agreed to. As an initial step, he suggested the two of us ‘break the ice’ with an improvisation session, which eventually resulted in the music on this recording.

We met in St. Ursula, a beautiful baroque church which houses three fine organs, one of which - a sublime 7-rank Italian instrument from the 18th century - is used on this track. There were no preconceived musical ideas or any kind of preparatory sketches for the improvisation. It is simply an atmospheric late-night ‘jam session’ recorded in the darkness of the sanctuary. It captures us getting to know each other, finding one another and it illustrates the process of musical consolidation through improvisation.

Notes by Karlheinz Essl

I have been obsessed with the organ for many years. In my youth I often listened to Peter Planyavsky's concerts at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. But when I studied composition in the 1980s, I suddenly lost sight of this instrument. Decades later I returned to the organ when I was working with the organist Wolfgang Kogert, which eventually led to our CD ORGANO/LOGICS (col legno 2023) with all my compositions for organ.

A few years ago I got infected by another instrument: an experimental analog modular synthesizer, which helped me to overcome a creative crisis which blocked me for a couple of months. I discovered complete new ways of composing, performing and instrument building without the use of computers - my main instrument and working tool for electronic music since 40 years. After playing many solo concerts and some gigs with my band m!ndf*kc, I felt a strong desire to improvise with an organist.

Out of the blue this happened for the first time on a wonderful December evening in St. Ursula when I had my first musical encounter with Jeremy Joseph. I had brought only my little 0-COAST and a tiny battery-powered loudspeaker. But what happened in that half hour is still a mystery to me. Without a word, we plunged into the unknown, touching strands of Messiaen, Stravinsky and Progressive Rock without losing sight of creating a shared musical language together in which organ and synthesiser merge into a new hybrid. Pure bliss! To be continued for sure.

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Performed live at St. Ursula (Vienna) on 2 Dec, 2024

Biographies

Jeremy Joseph is organist of the Vienna Court Chapel, where he performs the weekly Sunday mass together with the Vienna Boys Choir and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied privately with Hans Fagius in Copenhagen and furthered his studies under Martin Haselböck at the University of Music in Lübeck and with Jürgen Essl at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart.

Winner of the Gottfried Silbermann International Organ Competition in 1999, Joseph has performed as a soloist at festivals and venues throughout Europe, such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik-Festival, Nuremberg International Organ Week, Hildebrandt-Festival in Naumburg, Silbermann Festival in Freiberg, Tallinn International Organ-Festival, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Auditorio Nacionale de Música in Madrid, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, as well as in Hong-Kong, Seoul, USA, Mexico, Brazil und Argentina.

Jeremy Joseph’s improvisation CD recorded at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City was listed as “CD of the year” in 2018 by Fono Forum Magazine.

As a continuo player he has performed with ensembles such as the Wiener Akademie Orchestra, Freiburger Barockorchester, Kammerorchester Basel and Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble.

In 2019 he was appointed Professor for Organ and Improvisation at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.

Jeremy Joseph © Moritz Schell

Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, improviser, software developer, media artist and composition teacher. He studied composition in Vienna with Friedrich Cerha and completed his musicology studies with a doctorate on Anton Webern. Composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer School (1990-94) and at IRCAM in Paris (1991-93). From 1995-2006 he taught algorithmic composition at the Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2007 he has been a Professor of Composition and Electroacoustic Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Between 1992 and 2016 he was music curator at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg.

His work with computers and a long-term preoccupation with the poetics of serial music have been formative influences on his compositional thinking. During the 1990s he carried out various projects for the Internet and became increasingly involved in improvisation. In 1997 Karlheinz Essl was a featured composer at the Salzburg Festival.

In addition to writing instrumental music, Karlheinz Essl also works in the areas of electronic music, interactive real-time compositions and sound installations. He develops software environments for algorithmic composition and live electronics.

As a performer and improviser he plays his own computer-based composition environments as well as instruments such as toy piano, electric guitar and analogue synthesizers.

Karlheinz Essl © Martin Leitner

Italian Organ

Built in the 18th century

Restored 2018 by Giovanni Pradella

Tuning pitch: 440 Hz

Temperament: meantone 

Slider chest, mechanical keyboard and stops

One manual (C - c3), no pedal

Disposition

Principale

Voce Umana

Ottava

Flauto in XII

Quinta decima

Decima nona

Vigesima seconda

Ripieno

Zampogna [Bordunton]

Updated: 9 Dec 2024