Trio Accanto

Other Stories documents the repertoire of Trio Accanto, whose unusual line-up of saxophone, piano and percussion has led many composers beyond their usual horizons. Six composers are heard, with Helmut Lachenmann at the centre: his music frames the programme, and he even lends his voice to two of the pieces.

The trio grew out of a conversation between saxophonist Marcus Weiss and pianist Yukiko Sugawara in 1992 and gave its first concert in 1994, with percussionist Christian Dierstein as the third founder. On this recording the pianist is Nicolas Hodges, who played with the trio from 2013 to 2025. Lachenmann speaks in the first and last tracks. The album is a production of Südwestrundfunk, licensed by SWR Media Services.

Lachenmann describes Marche fatale, here in its piano version, as a kind of musical derailment. It is a virtuoso march in which the master of noise-like instrumental sounds shows a full command of major and minor tonality, still frowned upon in parts of the avant-garde. His Sakura pieces are anything but noisy. These melodic collages appear in three versions: Sakura mit Berliner Luft for the trio, Berliner Kirschblüten for solo piano and the closing Sakura-Variationen. Martin Schüttler's xerox plays with the trashy aesthetic of everyday electronics, its glittering metallic sounds turning out to be those of a copy machine. Martin Smolka's fff (Fortissimo feroce Fittipaldi), for baritone saxophone, piano and percussion, is short, wild and extreme, a Formula One race with the Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi.

The longest work is Michael Finnissy's Opera of the Nobility for soprano saxophone, piano and percussion, about 18 minutes in four sections with a clear symmetrical architecture. Finnissy mixes original material with quotations from works performed by the historical London opera company of the same name. History and present, private and political, inner musical life and outside reality are no longer kept apart. Yu Kuwabara's In Between offers an abstract scene of contrasting sound characters and gliding wave motions. Taken together, the pieces show a demanding yet accessible repertoire built around one ensemble.

CD, Wergo WER 7393 2, released in 2020 in the series Trio Accanto on Wergo, total time 67'34".