Thomas Fortmann: Lieder Zyklen

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In July 2026 Metier is delighted to present Lieder Zyklen (Song Cycles) by contemporary Swiss composer Thomas Fortmann. Featuring settings for voice and piano trio of poetry and te xt by writers including Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christian Haller, Prolitheus Pfenninger and Fortmann himself, these works demonstrate the composer's eclectic and unusual style that combines postmodern music, serial techniques, rock and jazz. The Swiss tenor Tino Bru¨tsch and Swiss soprano Nuria Richner perform alongside the Trio Accademia Amiata and a Trio of soloists Malwina Sosnowski, Donitille Jordan and Talvi Hunt. The album also includes Fortmann's Hommage to Schubert's Winterreise and his arrangement of this iconic song cycle for baritone and string quartet is given a powerful performance by Florian Prey, son of the great German baritone Hermann Prey alongside the Amar Quartet. Fortmann's setting of the intriguing poem Am Ende des Flurs (At the end of the hallway, 4th floor) by his close friend, Swiss Literary Prize Winner Christian Haller, is followed by The Hofmannsthal Verses. Composed in his early twenties as striking rock songs to poetry by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who became the librettist to Richard Strauss, the lyrics are a collage of Hofmannsthal poems Fortmann found moving for their linguistic power and their social and political statements. Geschichten (Histories) are concise, short songs that intertwine the timeline of a love relationship with that of human history and dimensions of the cosmos. The Prolitheus Songs are based on e-mails from the extraordinary visual artist Prolitheus Pfenninger, complex and often laden with double meanings and wordplays. Schubert was the favourite composer of Fortmann's mother, a well-known soprano - she often sang his songs to him and his sisters, and the music's sensitive emotions resonate deeply. The Hommage an Schubert's Winterreise, Der Su¨sse Ton (the Sweet Tone) is Fortmann's setting of a text collage from Joachim Ringelnatz who often referred to Schubert in his poetry, passages of text from Eduard von Bauernfeld on Schubert's funeral and excerpts from poetry of Schubert himself. The Homage opens with a typical rock riff, reminiscent of how Schubert drew on popular rhythms of his time, and the work refers to the songs of Winterreise in various ways, some of them hidden in contrapuntal forms. Despite the different compositional techniques throughout Fortmann shows his musical-emotional kinship with Schubert. Recreating Winterreise for voice and string quartet was a delicate task of reassembling the work while trying to stay as faithful as possible to the original. Fortmann sought to recapture the mood of the songs, their simplicity and touching directness, and to achieve this with a string quartet some modifications were necessary including extra notes that do not appear in Schubert's original. In the 1970s Thomas Fortmann had a very successful career as a writer of rock music - and also as an international golfing star! At age 26 he abandoned this career to study formal composition which laid the foundation for an extensive body of work that includes chamber music, operas and musical theatre, orchestral, choral, and organ works, as well as several song cycles. Fortmann's distinctly personal style often unites different - and sometimes opposing - impulses of modern music. Lieder Zyklen marks the sixth release of his music on the Metier label. Show more