Frank Michael Beyer

Three works by the Berlin composer Frank Michael Beyer, written between 1975 and 1981 and taken from German radio recordings. Griechenland (Greece) honours in a very concrete way the so-called cradle of the West. It is joined by a closely related trio for oboe, viola and harp and by the single-movement orchestral piece Diaphonie.

Beyer was a German composer and teacher, born in Berlin on 8 March 1928 and died on 20 April 2008. He received numerous international prizes for his orchestral and chamber works, and his scores are published by Bote & Bock in Berlin. The three recordings on this disc come from three different broadcasters and span the years 1978 to 1983. Griechenland comes from a public concert of 4 February 1983, recorded by Norddeutscher Rundfunk with the Sinfonieorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks under Karl Anton Rickenbacher. The trio is a Süddeutscher Rundfunk recording of 28 June 1983 with Heinz Holliger (oboe), Hirofumi Fukai (viola) and Ursula Holliger (harp). Diaphonie was recorded by Bayerischer Rundfunk on 17 October 1978, with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Cristóbal Halffter. The label also credits the Sinnhoffer-Quartett.

Griechenland (1981) is music for three string groups, about seventeen minutes in three movements. A passionate "Mosso e rubato" opens it, a "Molto vivace" follows, and it ends with a "Largo con espressione". The Trio für Oboe, Viola und Harfe (1980) was written at the instigation of the Holligers, who play it here. Beyer refers in it to the ideas of melos, rhapsody and dance. Its movements pass from "Molto sostenuto" through "Con vivacità", in taut quavers, to an Andante in slowly flowing minims. Diaphonie für Orchester (1975) is a single span of nineteen minutes. As its title suggests, it holds both the diaphonic and the symphonic.

Each work was recorded within a few years of its composition, the trio by the two musicians who had asked for it. Together they give a compact picture of a composer who drew on Greek ideas of melody, rhapsody and dance. The cover reproduces Franz Marc's Kleine Komposition IV (1914).

CD, Wergo WER 6621 2, released in 1997, total time 52'56".