Q&A with Jürg Frey and Reinier van Houdt about Composer, alone“Meeting Reinier was a stroke of luck for my music. The slightest movement in musical feeling is immediately reflected in his body, and at the same time, it becomes audible in the sound.”— Jürg Frey
“Rather than feeling emotions while playing, it's more like sleepwalking towards an experience that only takes shape when you have finished the piece.”— Reinier van Houdt 
Yuko Zama (YZ): Jürg, this triple CD set contains pieces you composed between 1990 and 2024. How did you feel when you listened to them all together after production? Did you notice any changes in your compositional goals over the last 34 years?
Jürg Frey (JF): Even though there is no chronology in the album, it is still possible to clearly distinguish different phases in my work. However, we chose a non-chronological order to enable a lively dialogue between the pieces and to give each of the CDs its own profile. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly discuss the chronology, as this aspect is hidden but still very clearly shapes the album. The pieces I wrote around 1990 were a reaction to my earlier, more intuitive works with tonal two- and three-note chords. Now, one can discern something like a theme in these pieces from around 1990. In Klavierstück, Arrangement I, II, III, the idea is to arrange the same material differently in different pieces and to position this material formally in another way. And the starting point for Invention is J.S. Bach's two-part inventions, each of which focuses on clearly defined musical material. I decided to write a one-part invention and also to work with clearly defined material. After all these pieces, when the Wandelweiser Collective began to take shape, I was completely ready and open for this adventure. Klavierstück 1 (1995) is a clear example from the beginnings of the Wandelweiser Collective. This period was characterized by intense and wide-ranging discussions about aesthetics, composition, and social relevance, but also in detail about the relationship between sound and silence in music. And these discussions, as we know, took place not only in words and texts, but also in compositions. In this sense, the piece very clearly reflects this early Wandelweiser atmosphere. It is a piano piece, but it is also a statement in a new aesthetic landscape and in an environment of lively discussions. It was interesting to see how things continued after this early hardcore Wandelweiser period, and how the closeness between the composers, which had made this intensity of conversation possible in the first place, now began to widen. I think it is a strength of the composers and the collective that different directions and focuses are now emerging, and in what ways. The discussions remained fascinating, but we also sensed that things are moving forward. In my case, I noticed that the increasingly longer pauses in my pieces were putting me in danger of backing myself into a corner where my artistic flexibility was becoming increasingly restricted. How can I continue without simply ignoring the profound experiences with sound and silence that are so important to me? This is where a path has begun in which piano music also plays an important role. And something of this path can also be heard in this album, as it moves from Klavierstück 2 to Circular Music No. 5 and then to the Composer, alone pieces 
Jürg Frey's sketchbooks of music from more than 30 years
YZ: Reinier, how did you feel about the chronological differences between these pieces as the pianist who performed them?
Reinier van Houdt (RVH): There's a kind of radicality in the earlier compositions. A solid determination to start from scratch again, to observe sounds before they are called music, to listen to them again, and try to follow where they could go. Then, with a radical patience, Jürg starts methodically marking out paths and follows them to the end in search of other musical spaces - spaces where our perspective on what we might experience as music will change. In the later pieces, he seems to enter those spaces more immediately from the start. He inhabits an inviting emptiness, lighting it up by letting sounds loose there, or finding them, discovering them, or growing them out of thin air. Sometimes it's like he remembers sounds and gradually starts reclaiming them from the past, taking back harmonies from history. 
Page 1 of Jürg Frey - Composer, alone (1) score
YZ: Jürg, Composer, alone (1) and Composer, alone (2) are your most recent works from 2024. Could you tell us why you titled these pieces "Composer, alone"?
JF: The title refers first and foremost to my feeling of being immersed in my work. It is a sense of independence from everything external, from any expectations that may still exist. Later, when the piece was finished, I found this quote by Maurice Blanchot: L'œuvre est solitaire: cela ne signifie pas qu’elle reste incommunicable, que le lecteur lui manque. Mais qui le lit entre dans cette affirmation de la solitude de l’œuvre, comme qui l’écrit appartient au risque de cette solitude. (Maurice Blanchot : L’espace littéraire) “The work is solitary: this does not mean that it remains incommunicable, that it misses the reader. But whoever reads it enters into this affirmation of the work's solitude, just as whoever writes it belongs to the risk of this solitude.” (English translation) I was fascinated by the idea; it is a brilliant observation that corresponds with my experiences as a composer and listener. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that it is only partially true for me. Or perhaps there is a broader perspective that considers this “alone” in a completely different way. Blanchot conveys a heaviness of thought, but I feel a lightness in composing; my immersion has something light about it, regardless of how the work is progressing, also because it doesn't matter whether the work is progressing. And so this “alone” also means freedom, generosity in dealing with time and with myself, independence. And my impression is that in Composer, alone 1 & 2, something subtle of this immersion always shines through the sounds. YZ: Thank you for this very intriguing discussion on these pieces, Jürg. Reinier, how did you feel when playing these pieces Composer, alone (1) and Composer, alone (2) on the piano? What fascinated you most as a pianist about these pieces?
RVH: Like I described here above, in these pieces it is not like I am following a trail but more like being in a new musical space, intensely focused not necessarily on what I want to do, but on what comes out of the sounds when I play them - to listen to them overlapping or go silent, or in combination with the traces of memory of what has sounded before, trying to hear where they might want to go next. Rather than feeling emotions while playing, it's more like sleepwalking towards an experience that only takes shape when you have finished the piece. What is fascinating are the ever more inventive and subtle ways Jürg employs the repetition of materials. Varying from simple repetitions of single notes to expand your experience of it, to more complex forms of repetition like repeating parts of different lengths in layers that are only coming together after a longer time; or incrementally changing notes inside a harmony around an imaginary axis, or harmonies or melodies not just cycling but also wandering in- or outwards, like a spiral, or down or upwards. There are also mappings of rhythmic cycles on harmonic/melodic cycles of a different length, or unisonos in different speeds evolving into canons. There is a fascinating interplay of all these ways of repeating. 
Jürg Frey
YZ: Thank you for accurately describing the fascinating structure of these pieces, Reinier. Alongside 'Composer, alone (1)' and 'Composer, alone (2)', I also find Rainier's performance of “Pianist, alone (1)” particularly outstanding in this 3-CD set. Jürg, could you share your thoughts on this track?
JF: When I wrote the piece, I had the image of a pianist completely absorbed in his playing; there might be an audience, but it is irrelevant. After many performances by different pianists, it became clear to me that this is only part of the piece. For the player, there are a myriad of questions to be answered when playing for an audience, as opposed to playing alone. And for some of these questions, the solutions can only be found during the performance, when a subtle phrasing unfolds. During the recording, it was particularly moving for me to experience how Reinier moved forward in this subtle field of phrasing and non-phrasing. Always balancing between “doing something” and “just letting it go.” With a few exceptions, the music doesn't actually specify any phrasing, and various shorter and longer connections are always possible. The decision is always in the hands of the pianist. And how he keeps the music suspended between subtle phrasing, a glimmer of connections and energy of a direction - and on the other side, just the sounds, one after the other. This constant weighing up is part of what keeps this long piece alive. YZ: Reinier, could you share your thoughts on this piece Pianist, alone (1) as well? I enjoy this piece as a listener, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts as a pianist.
RVH: I have tried out so many ways of playing Pianist, Alone (1), or listening to it. Clearly there's a process going on here, but it's not mathematical or logical, where you kind of go through a finite process of ticking off all the possibilities; it's rather like how in nature or reality things keep growing and developing seemingly anarchically in all directions. It reminds me of how Pisaro described his fascination for field recordings: "I have always been attracted to things that one knows to have a structure, but which at the same time, can't present that structure completely (...)In a field the growth somehow implies roots without making them visible.." In the piece there are only fifths and fourths, taking steps never bigger than a fourth. It proceeds like taking endless steps through a barren rarefied environment, like through snow; the sound of the steps become the sound of the environment, only occasionally interrupted by low gong-like strikes, repeated notes, silence and single notes, a scale or alternating harmonies . Connected to this is that I don't play or count this piece metronomically. Again comparing it to taking steps, you don't do that metronomically; what dictates your step is the terrain, your breath and the view - in my case listening to the sound and its decay, to accomplish a good transition to the next step without losing your balance. Your body is getting into a rhythm and that comes with drifting and with articulating bigger arcs across time purely by listening at every step. 
Reinier van Houdt during the recording session of 'lieues d'ombres'
at The Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) (Studio 5) in Hilversum (NL) (July 16-18, 2021)
YZ: This 3-CD set is the sequel to the 3-CD set 'lieues d'ombres', which was recorded four years ago. Jürg, you were present at both recording sessions with Reinier. Did you notice any differences between the recordings from four years ago and those from this session in 2024?
JF: The differences are minimal for me. The recording took place again at the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Heilversum, in a different hall, with a different piano, but the acoustics were also very good in this hall. I was present during the three days of recording. It was an intense encounter with my music—and with my past as well. Here and there, I made a comment, occasionally confirming that it could continue exactly as it was, pointing out a nuance. I simply felt the responsibility of listening intently: one person in the hall, so that Reinier wasn't just playing for the microphones. I know from experience that this can change the recording situation. And it is also important to me to be able to compare the acoustic result of the recording with the acoustic reality in the hall at the time. I certainly had the best seat in the hall, and now it sounds exactly as it did in the hall back then. It is clear that this is not a matter of course; it requires a great deal of technical know-how from Micha de Kanter, and then also an aesthetic consensus from everyone involved to strive for this result. 
Reinier van Houdt during the recording session of ‘Composer, alone'
at The Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) (Studio 1) in Hilversum (NL) (September 2-4, 2024)
YZ: How about you, Reinier? Did you notice any differences in your mindset and/or performance between the recordings from four years ago and those from this time?
RVH: No. For me, it all felt like one adventure. YZ: Over the years, you have performed many pieces by different composers as a pianist. When you play Jürg's piano pieces, what are you trying to achieve? RVH: I'd like it to be as if I'm painting or drawing, but not slick paintbrushed lines - a tone is not a pixel, but rather an enigmatic blot, deceivingly simple, oscillating between being a sign or a contour; a patch of living sound on the verge of collapsing, disappearing, mortal but vital if that makes sense. 
Reinier van Houdt
YZ: Jürg, could you please share your thoughts on anything about this collaboration with Reinier that particularly impressed or moved you?
JF: Meeting Reinier was a stroke of luck for my music. The slightest movement in musical feeling is immediately reflected in his body, and at the same time, it becomes audible in the sound. It's incredible how fragility and persistence are brought into balance in his interpretation, It's great, and it is pure musical sensibility. And there were also some pleasant surprises and discoveries as I listened to his playing during the recordings. For example, Klavierstück Arrangement I,II,III. Earlier recordings isolated the individual chords in this piece, emphasizing their similarity to Morton Feldman. Feldman was still quite present in 1991. And the melodic parts are more like strange interludes that have strayed into the piece. That's how I saw it, too. Reinier now played everything under melodic arcs. This was also based on his experience with all my later compositions, in which the melodic element remains perceptible even when it is almost absent. He now plays all the melody notes and also the chords in a flow. And when I hear it today, it's also very clear. But when I composed the piece back then, I didn't want to or couldn't hear it that way. So I can still make discoveries in old pieces, and I'm grateful to Reinier for that too.
YZ: Jürg, I love your watercolor works of dots and lines that we featured for some of the album covers for our past releases. We used one of your dot watercolors for this triple CD cover, and a different set of watercolor dots for the 'lieues d'ombres' CD cover. We also used watercolor lines on the covers of 'Continuité, Fragilité, Résonance' and 'Les Signes Passagers'. I recall you saying that you've been creating watercolor drawings regularly for many years. What fascinates you about drawing dots and lines in watercolor?
JF: I've been doing it for years, yes, sometimes it's intensive, almost daily, then there are breaks of a few months. The craftsmanship, the concentration, the direct contact with the paper, all this is combined in a clear activity. It's very elementary. I can't correct anything, it's happening right now on paper. And it takes a few precise decisions to make each page an individual page: colors, density, pattern, size. It's a very focused activity. And a very fragile activity. It happens in a book, it has continuity. Page after page. There are no attempts, it has to be perfect in its own way. But, to put it simply, what fascinates me is doing it, the activity itself, and filling books with it. It is like a physical need, but it goes far beyond the physical. 
YZ: Jürg, this is a bit of a vague question, but what does this 3-CD set mean to you?
JF: The album means so much! It's the way this album came about that truly resonates with me. The initial exchange of ideas, the considerations for the program, the time in the studio, the questions about editing and mastering, right down to the details of the booklet—everything emerged within this network of participants in a flexible, inspiring dialogue. These are all the names that now appear in the booklet. That's exactly how I like to work! And then there's my own personal view of such a long period of my artistic work – it's a mixture of amazement and satisfaction. The fact that this has happened to me, with my music, that there are people who are so committed to my music – it fills me with gratitude and a great inner calmness. The album is also a document of an intimate musical dialogue between two people. I wrote many of the pieces before I met Reinier. And my idea of how these pieces might sound when interpreted by a musician who could immerse himself so deeply in my music was, of course, vague. It was always clear to me that my music is a music of both/and, a music in suspension. Reinier keeps the music in balance and at the same time he is aware of the extremes that make playing this music so risky. It is music in which you often have very little to play, but at the same time you have an inkling of something absolute in your hands. YZ: What does this 3 CD set mean to you, Reinier? RVH: For me, this 3 CD set is the last chapter in an extreme kind of utopian piano playing I have developed over the years, where I play sounds to have them appear organically or spontaneously instead of being expressed by force, will, or intention. I only use force to dose gravity, never directly. It's physical but not gestural. I experience a lot of contemporary piano playing as very much marked by the digital era's obsession for clarity, transparency, and perfection. Without declaring a contest in who can play the softest, most playing comes off as too loud because this loudness is a result of overacting, of playing too fast, too clear, too controlled. The notes are there or not there; there's hardly anything imagined in between. This avoidance of darkness and ambiguity makes things sound flat. This all sounds technical, maybe, but for me it's a philosophical issue that has to do with staying close to what I hear in sounds. (Interview conducted in July-August 2025)
Composer, alone is a collection of twelve solo piano pieces by Swiss composer Jürg Frey, performed by Dutch pianist/composer Reinier van Houdt. It is the sequel to the 2022 triple album 'lieues d'ombres' (elsewhere 020-3) and the third collaboration between Frey and van Houdt on elsewhere music. The two have cultivated a close rapport, first documented on 'l'air, l'instant - deux pianos' (elsewhere 014) in 2020.
This three-disc set features a wide range of Frey's solo piano compositions from 1990 to 2024, including his latest piano pieces 'Composer, alone (1)' and 'Composer, alone (2)'. This three-disc album traces Frey's journey over the past 30 years as he explores his voice as a composer through piano works. It reveals how his compositional style has evolved, while also demonstrating that the underlying essence of his compositions remains consistent. As a pianist who has a deep connection to the music of Frey, van Houdt skillfully reveals the subtleties hidden in Frey's compositions, as he did in 'lieues d'ombres'. Staying true to the composer's vision, van Houdt captures the essence of Frey's diverse piano pieces from the past 34 years while achieving a perfect balance between fragility, warmth, and clarity. All twelve pieces were recorded by Micha de Kanter at the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) in Hilversum over three days in September 2024, in the presence of the composer, and mastered by Taku Unami. 
*CD preorder and digital album are available on the label’s website and Bandcamp. (CD release: September 20, 2025) back to top |
