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STRICTLY OFF LIMITS
is a most outstanding 'classical' production, yet at the same time some of the best rock ever composed. Two exciting composers, both displaying an incomparable originality in their music, are Frank Zappa and Tommy Fortmann. They deal with the complexity of contemporary music by connecting formalistic ideas with expressiveness, that communicates with the listener immediately. Both have a similar history and met several years ago.
T.F: “I got to know Frank Zappa in the seventies because he wanted my rock group of the time on his label. We hardly spoke about the contract, but mainly about composition. On the one hand, rock music with its commercial direction was too restricting for true composing and, on the other hand, contemporary ‘classical’ music with its edict of ‘organizing the material’ was too one-dimensional and boring. Due to our differing origins, our paths between, or beyond, these boundaries led to different outcomes. Frank is an American composer through and through; between Bernstein, California and Steve Reich.
A journey is more than just passing signposts along the road! In terms of music this means: form should serve the content and expression of a composition and not the other way round. Although most of my works are complex forms, my intention is not to create mere sound structures, but to explore and play with them.
Examples of this are Catholic Blues, where I bind serial composition methods into the heavy tonality of a blues in order to give ‘catholic’ the meaning of ‘all encompassing’. A hexatone scale in Politician expresses the black-and-white-thinking and War Haiku is in homage to Paul Hindemith. In contrast, joy of life plays the principal role in Alinghi and in Eben eben – a love letter from my wife which I returned to her set to music.
The essence of Strictly OFF Limits is Sherry at Songkran: a disguised rock song which actually hides a completely serial composition.
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