Thomas Pernes, Andy Manndorff
Perndorff

Label: NotTwo (2005)
Catalogue No: MW 759-2
Format: CD

Composing is a very conscious process to handle musical material. Basis is the abstraction of a concrete material. To abstract abstract material is absurd. But this happens since the development of the pure structural thinking after the Second Viennese School: the abstracted abstraction. On the other hand a misunderstood opening of the borders considers a frozen improvisation over musical material as composing. Both mentioned proceedings to record sounds, tones and noises have nothing to do with the process of "composing". "Composing" is a clearly defined process. Today it is important to articulate this definition very clearly to prevent its loss through a slow leveling out according to the spirit of the times.
Thomas Pernes, October 1999

Line up:

Andy Manndorff - guitar
Thomas Pernes - piano
 

Recorded:

at Pernes Private Studio - Vienna, Austria, September 5, 2003

About:

Andy Manndorff  was born in Vienna. Lived and worked in Amsterdam from 1980 to 1987, then in New York until 1994. Since 1995 his base of operation once again has been Vienna.  With his stunning and headstrong playing technique Manndorff has developed an unmistakable style and one of the most distinctive sounds in the international guitar discourse. Born in Vienna, he lived and worked in Amsterdam from 1980 to 1988, then in New York until 1995. Since his return to Vienna in 1995 Andy Manndorff has concentrated on his own projects, from solo performances to projects that deal with a tightrope walk between composition and spontaneous intuition.  In these works he frequently refers to Jewish – Viennese composers of the 20th century. He has written Chamber music, musical theater and an opera for the „Künstlerhaus” in Vienna. Manndorff has done extensive touring all over Europe, Russia, India, the US and Africa. In whatever musical idiom Andy Manndorff moves, he never loses himself in virtuosity as an end in itself. He is always mindful to leave himself and his musicians enough space to explore new paths and byways.

Thomas Pernes was born in Vienna in 1956. He studied piano with Bruno Seidlhofer and composition with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati. The start of his career in contemporary music was marked by the première of the 1st string quartet at Wiener Konzerthaus in 1976. Already in the early 1980s he had widened the narrow sphere of interest of the classical avant-garde. At a time when the term ´crossover´ was not yet known he worked with elements of folk music and jazz just as he used electronics to enlarge the possibilities of composition. In the 90s he started developing his own form of music theatre, known as Klangtheater: “When Thomas Pernes speaks about sound theater as representation or reproduction of reality, one should think not only superficially of the everyday elements such as sound, fragments of conversation, thought, and quotation that are built into the montage. It is rather and above all the unity that arises paradoxically from disparate and divergent elements and their individual motions that corresponds in its dialectical structure to reality. As Hegel says about reality and truth, so too is the sound theater the Baccahanalisn revel in which no member is not drunk.” Thomas Pernes has had performances and commissions at: Donaueschinger Musiktage, ISCM World Music Days in Jerusalem, Daiichiseimei Hall / Tokyo, IRCAM / Paris, Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts / Washington, Pan Music Festival / Seoul, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Europäisches Musikfest Stuttgart, Holland Festival / Amsterdam, Biennale/ Venice, Musikprotokolle im steirischen herbst, Wiener Staatsoper, Internationales Bucknerfest Linz, ars electronica, Wiener Festwochen, Wiener Musikverein amongst others.