Press archive
What was written and broadcast about Harry Pepl: reviews, portraits, interviews and obituaries, with summary and source. The originals are protected by copyright and kept in the archive; we provide them to researchers and the press on request.
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24 December 1996 · Report · DE
Wiener Zeitung (p. 4, column „Jazzignal“): „Swinging Christmas!“
Christian Rösner
Christmas survey among Austrian jazz musicians about their music for Christmas Eve, among them Peter Legat, Andy Manndorff, Harry Sokal, Art Farmer and Christian Muthspiel. The „Supergitarrero“ [“super guitarist”] Pepl spontaneously answers “Silent Night” and also names Sting, Jack DeJohnette, Weather Report and classical music.
What do I listen to at Christmas? Well, Silent Night!
His spontaneous answer to a Christmas survey of jazz musicians by the Wiener Zeitung, a Vienna daily, in 1996; he also named Sting, Jack DeJohnette, Weather Report and classical music
Harry Pepl
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18 October 1996 · Report · DE
Der Standard (p. 706): Veranstaltungstipp „Ballett“ (steirischer herbst: 13. Jugendmusikfest Deutschlandsberg)
initials „knei“
Listings note: at the 13th Jugendmusikfest Deutschlandsberg, part of the steirischer herbst (festival of contemporary art in Styria), Pepl’s “Exzentrik Egometrik” is premiered at the Laßnitzhaus on Saturday, 19 October 1996, and repeated on Sunday, 20 October, played by the Altenberg Trio. Afterwards the Österreichisches Ballett Theater presents Ernst Widmer’s “Die letzte Blume”.
Harry Pepl’s “Exzentrik - Egometrik” will receive its premiere.
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25 April 1996 · Interview · DE
Tiroler Tageszeitung (culture section): „Den Musikern vorsingen, mit ihnen atmen“ (Werner Pirchner feiert in Kufstein sein Debüt als Konzertdirigent)
Rainer Lepuschitz
Interview with Werner Pirchner before his debut as a concert conductor with the Camerata academica in Kufstein. The article recalls that exactly 20 years earlier Pirchner had given his first concert as a vibraphonist in Kufstein, with the Jazzzwio together with Harry Pepl.
For it was in Kufstein, exactly 20 years ago, that he also gave his first concert as a vibraphonist with the JazzZwio, together with Harry Pepl.
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26 February 1996 · Review · DE
Kronen Zeitung (p. 16): „Mythos und Zielpunkte“
Review of two CDs by Günter Meinhart’s STUDIO PERCUSSION graz. Extraplatte 242, with pieces by Pepl, Wolfgang Muthspiel and Armin Pokorn, offers in the reviewer’s words colourful, electronically supported expression; Pepl wrote „albträumerische Filmmusik“ [“nightmarish film music”].
Richly coloured, electronically supported expression with an enormous range
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1996 · Other · DE
PAO Records (CD-Booklet, CD 10140-2): Booklettext zu „Flow“
Georg Pepl
Liner notes by Georg Pepl, musicologist and Harry Pepl’s elder son, for the solo piano album “Flow” (recorded on Sunday, 10 March 1996, in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein), printed in the booklet also in Stephen Ferguson’s English translation. The text presents the improviser at the piano as an image of isolation and of freedom and draws a line from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s free fantasias via Mozart and Beethoven to jazz, which built dams against the “flood of improvisation”. He reads the flowing that gives the album its name through Rousseau’s “Reveries of the Solitary Walker”, Goethe’s “Werther”, Freud’s “oceanic feeling” and Herbert Marcuse. At the piano Pepl enjoys losing himself in the moment, the notes stream out “all by themselves, as silent water or as a flow”; in “Grace & Gary” and “2 Klavierpianos” he improvised a second piano track over the first. On the titles: “Man könnte Klavierspielen müssen” as a reminiscence of Glenn Gould, “Improv 2” of Schubert’s impromptus, “Grace & Gary” of the film “High Noon”; on “3 Mo” he quotes Pepl himself (“mothy, momenty, minory”). The German text is freely available as a text PDF, Ferguson’s English version for signed-in users.
While playing the piano Harry Pepl enjoys being able to elevate himself to the mood of the moment, or to plunge into a different sense of being. The notes are independent, streaming out all by themselves, as silent water or as a flow.
Just looking at the titles of his pieces one recognises that Pepl is a deeply musical and romantic artist. Musically his playing is related to language itself, he has listened to its rhythms and double meanings.
The improvising pianist flows out into the world of tones, the piano player melts into oneness with the piano, desists in his identity as a subjective entity.
3 Mo stands for mothy, momenty, minory. Mothy because the music sounds as if the moths are waiting to pounce.
Word play on his piano piece “3 Mo” from the album “Flow” (1996): three German adjectives beginning with “mo”, echoing Motten (moths), Moll (minor key) and Moment
Harry Pepl
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1996 · Other
PAO Records (CD-Booklet, CD 10140-2): Booklettext zu „Flow“
Stephen Ferguson
English liner notes by the pianist and composer Stephen Ferguson for Harry Pepl’s solo piano album “Flow”, recorded digitally in a single take on Sunday, 10 March 1996, in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Ferguson calls Pepl “a musician who hears”, who immediately translates what he hears into music from his own fingers and his own voice; on the guitar he is “one of Europe’s undisputed jazz masters”, on the piano a virtual stranger, which is exactly what gives the music its magic. He hears “a dream played awake”, a pure music played without technique, only with musicality and flow, a response to the big black Steinway in the acoustics of the Musikverein, and in it the pianistic heroes Gould, Jarrett, Debussy, Cecil Taylor, Bach, Schoenberg and Schubert. Pepl has the jazz man’s joy of real-time composition; the titles are chosen for personal reasons (childhood, “High Noon”, Gould). It closes with the master of the strings as “a masterly novice full of music”. The booklet also names Ferguson as editor (with Daniel Pepl) and as translator of Georg Pepl’s text. The text is available as a text PDF for signed-in users.
his very own instrument–the guitar–where he is one of Europe’s undisputed jazz masters
Harry Pepl is a musician who hears. He has that seldom gift–to immediately translate what he hears into music coming from his own fingers, into music coming from his own voice.
It is a dream played awake, full of snatches of music, gestures, spaces.
he is simply unafraid of any musical task, and has the jazz man’s joy of real time composition.
Let us simply enjoy the novelty and richness of this master of the strings becoming a novice at the keyboard, a masterly novice full of music, in a fast stream of rhythms and thematic lines, flowing.
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1996 · Press release · DE
information sheet (press kit, 5 pages): Infos Harry PEPL
Undated biographical information sheet, produced in 1996 at the earliest. It contains a short biography, collaborations, festivals and a discography, the method of Real-time Composing and a list of works with premieres for Ensemble Wien, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, Kronos Quartet, STUDIO PERCUSSION and Artis-Quartett.
has come to the fore since 1984 as a composer of European contemporary art music