Silence Is the Only Music collects six works by Klaus Hinrich Stahmer that bring East Asian instruments together with Western ones. Koto and shakuhachi, sheng and guzheng, kayagum and changgu meet accordion, recorder, flute and cello, in music that seeks a common path between the traditions without hiding its European roots.
Stahmer, born in Stettin in 1941, taught in Würzburg from 1969, where he founded the Tage der Neuen Musik festival and directed the Studio für Neue Musik, and has long written for non-European instruments. The performers include Wu Wei on sheng, Xu Fengxia, Makiko Goto, Stefan Hussong, Jocelyn Clark, Il-Ryun Chung and others. Five tracks were co-produced with Bayerischer Rundfunk, Studio Franken, and recorded between April 2006 and May 2007 in Chemnitz, Nuremberg, Hellerau, Dresden and Darmstadt, with Jürgen Rummel as Tonmeister. The sixth dates from 2000, recorded at the Würzburg Musikhochschule, and is licensed from MARA-records.
The title piece (2004), also known as "Stille ist der Klang des Abschieds", is a duo for guzheng and sheng. Zansetsu (Remnants of Snow, 2006) sets bass koto against recorder and flute, with a clay bell and the wooden clappers hyoshigi. Ning Shi (Frozen Time, 1994/2007) for sheng and accordion is the longest of the recent pieces, almost fifteen minutes, while Pulip Sori (Wind over Grass, 2006) joins cello to the Korean kayagum and changgu, and Ima (Now, 2007) is a duo for shakuhachi and bass koto. The disc ends with To Lose Is to Have, a piece of more than twenty minutes for accordion, Chinese bronze bells and ear trumpets.
The label describes Stahmer's position as an intercultural dialogue marked by respect for the unfamiliar and responsibility for one's own heritage, with musicians from the Far East meeting virtuosos of the new music scene. The record joins his other work across cultures on the same imprint, such as Gesänge eines Holzsammlers on poems by Fuad Rifka.
CD, total running time 73'11", released in 2009 by artist.cd / Wergo as ARTS 8116 2, with a 12-page foldout booklet.
