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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9 December 1988 · Interview · DE
Wochenpresse (no. 49): „Saitensprünge“
Wolfgang Kralicek
Two-page portrait with an interview around Pepl’s Austrian tour in December 1988. It describes how “Cracked Mirrors” came about in the Wachau studio, with the drums added afterwards in Oslo, the Montreux and ECM (the renowned European jazz label) period with Pirchner and DeJohnette, and Pepl’s work in his home studio in Hernstein. The albums of 1988 are named.
I couldn’t care less that it’s called jazz.
“Wurscht” (literally “sausage”) is Viennese for “it makes no difference”. Said in an interview during his Austrian tour in December 1988, about his music being labelled jazz
Harry Pepl
The Austrian musician Harry Pepl is a man in demand internationally.
They were all thrilled. A sensation, really.
On the Jazzzwio’s performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, in 1981, in an interview in 1988
Harry Pepl
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3 August 1991 · Interview · DE
Der Standard (p. 13): „Harrys Schloß der Töne“
Ljubiša Tošić
Preview of the opening concert of the Lower Austrian Jazz Academy at Zeillern Castle on Sunday, 4 August 1991, in which Pepl appears with a quartet. Pepl says the programme is still open, perhaps it will be an entirely free affair, and enthuses about the seminar, where music is made all day long in the castle.
I like it when things stay open until the very last moment
In conversation before the opening concert of the jazz academy in Zeillern, Lower Austria, 1991
Harry Pepl
What did I want to avoid? Simply playing any old standards.
Harry Pepl
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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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10 February 1998 · Interview · DE
Wiener Zeitung (p. 4, column „Jazzignal“): „Echtzeitkompositionen“
Christian Rösner
Portrait with interview on the piano album “Flow” (PAO Records). After his second brain haemorrhage and a break, Pepl has made the piano his instrument and developed his real-time composing further. He tells how for the recording he sat down in a Vienna concert hall (the article names the Bösendorfer hall), played a note and let himself be guided by the acoustics, and recalls an unprepared festival concert with Jack DeJohnette.
The guitarist and composer Harry Pepl may well be called Austria’s most independent and at the same time most uncompromising jazz voice.
What mattered to me was to play music that really comes from within and that happens in the moment
In 1998, on Real-time Composing at the piano
Harry Pepl
I played one note, then the second, and by the third at the latest Jack knew exactly where I was, and we were together.
On a festival concert with Jack DeJohnette without any joint preparation, in conversation in 1998
Harry Pepl
Pepl’s flowing real-time compositions on “Flow” are in any case full of energy and honesty; understandable in expression and eloquent.
Music is my life, and I cannot not play
Talking to the Wiener Zeitung, a Vienna daily, in 1998 about the time after his second brain haemorrhage in 1994: playing the guitar was out of the question at first, so he turned to the piano, which led to the album “Flow”; the double negative is deliberate
Harry Pepl
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April 1998 · Interview · DE
Concerto (music magazine), issue 2/1998: „Man könnte Klavierspielen müssen“
Martin Schuster
Interview in the Café Museum in Vienna, conducted in connection with the solo piano CD “Flow”. Pepl talks about his beginnings, the Jazzzwio, the brief engagement with Benny Goodman, Real-time Composing and MIDI technology, and announces reissues of “Gegenwind” and “Montreux 81”.
I wanted you to be able to hear the room on the CD as well.
Harry Pepl
My main problem is my high blood pressure. Another contradiction: on the outside I may seem calm, but inside it races around in me like mad.
Talking to Martin Schuster of the Austrian music magazine Concerto in 1998, at the Café Museum in Vienna, around the time of his piano album “Flow”. Pepl speaks openly and with self-irony about the blood pressure that kept him off the stage from 1994/95, and about the contrast between outward calm and inner high voltage
Harry Pepl
I am a man of contrasts, often very funny or ironic and then very sad again. You can probably hear that in my playing too
Talking to Martin Schuster (Concerto, an Austrian music magazine) at the Café Museum in Vienna in 1998; the interviewer describes how Pepl speaks in a deep, gentle voice, giggles at a bon mot and turns serious again the next moment
Harry Pepl
For me music means emotions and memories. And even when I play something I don’t much like, my blood pressure goes up, because then it gets on my nerves.
In Concerto in 1998, about the guitar, which he did not touch for a long time after 1994 because he feared the excitement; „auf den Wecker gehen“ (literally “to get on one’s alarm clock”) is colloquial German for “to get on one’s nerves”, and the remark is self-ironic. At the piano he then found a new freedom
Harry Pepl
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6 February 2009 · Interview · DE
Kronen Zeitung (p. 31, Styria): „Ich glaube an innovative Kräfte“ (gamsbART-Manager Gerhard Kosel im Steirerkrone-Interview)
Interview with Gerhard Kosel about Graz jazz promoters and gamsbART (Graz concert promoter), which was founded by Heimo Steps in 1984. Kosel says that Pepl is not honoured enough in the place that was his adopted home for many years, and describes the Harry Pepl Prize as a means of keeping his memory alive.
Our aim with the Harry Pepl Prize is to keep this flame burning until musicology in Graz also takes up the subject.
Gerhard Kosel
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2 March 2009 · Interview · DE
Die Presse (p. 28, arts section): „Applaus kann auch gefährlich sein“ (Interview mit Wolfgang Muthspiel)
Samir H. Köck
Interview with Wolfgang Muthspiel on the presentation of his guitar trio MGT at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Of his teacher Pepl he says that his music gave expression to inner avalanches and had something risky in every phrase.
As a musician, Pepl gave expression to inner avalanches.
Wolfgang Muthspiel
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13 October 2011 · Interview · DE
OÖ Nachrichten (Rieder Volkszeitung): „Ich werde versuchen, noch viel tiefer in die Musik einzutauchen“
Bianka Eichinger
Interview with the Innviertel trombonist Paul Zauner, organiser of the INNtöne festival. Asked about the most impressive musician he has ever worked with, he names Harry Pepl second.
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4 July 2015 · Interview · DE
Die Presse (Zeichen der Zeit): Gespräch mit Peter Havlicek
DP
Conversation with the contraguitarist and composer Peter Havlicek, co-founder of the Neue Wiener Concert Schrammeln. He tells how he came to the contraguitar during his guitar studies with Harry Pepl in Graz; the box “Zur Person” names his studies with Pepl explicitly.
Later, it was already during my guitar studies with Harry Pepl in Graz, a theatre group was looking for a contraguitarist.
Peter Havlicek
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19 May 2016 · Interview · DE
Die Presse (Online): „Kärntner Jazzer mit langem Atem“
Samir H. Köck
Interview with Wolfgang Puschnig on his 60th birthday. Puschnig names the seven years with Airmail, Harry Pepl’s band, as one of the highlights of his career; Pepl is only a side topic of the conversation.
the seven years with Airmail, the band of the guitarist Harry Pepl, who died in 2005
As a guitarist he was outside every norm. That opened up a new, more flexible approach to phrasing for me.
Wolfgang Puschnig
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20 May 2016 · Interview · DE
Kleine Zeitung: „Der jazzverwandte Kosmopolit“
Otmar Klammer
Interview with Wolfgang Puschnig on his 60th birthday. Asked about the most lasting influence, he names Harry Pepl first, with whom he played for seven years in Air Mail; his planned double CD of duos also gathers recordings with friends who are no longer alive, such as Pepl and Hans Koller.
Harry Pepl, definitely, with whom I played in the Airmail band for seven years.
Wolfgang Puschnig
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12 July 2017 · Interview · DE
Kronen Zeitung (Styria): „Meine Stücke sind wie Räume“
Matthias Wagner
Interview with Wolfgang Muthspiel ahead of his concert at the Judenburger Sommer festival. The Kronen Zeitung recalls that he was admitted to the music academy in Graz at 15, first studying classical guitar with Leo Witoszynskyj, then jazz with Harry Pepl as well.
first classical guitar with Leo Witoszynskyj, then jazz with Harry Pepl as well
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29 October 2020 · Interview · DE
Raiffeisenzeitung (p. 24, Freizeit): „Salut to Jimi Hendrix“
Manfred Horak
Interview with the guitarist Harri Stojka about his album “Salut to Jimi Hendrix”. Looking back on the 1970s, Stojka counts Harry Pepl, with Erich Kleinschuster, Fritz Pauer and Erich Bachträgl, among the outstanding musicians of the Austrian jazz scene of the time, with which his rock band had little contact.
There were Erich Kleinschuster, Fritz Pauer, Harry Pepl, Erich Bachträgl, they were incredible musicians
Harri Stojka
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20 March 2024 · Interview · DE
mica music austria (Online): „Uns geht es darum, Gegensätze in unserer Musik zu manifestieren.“ (Raphael Preuschl, Fabulous Austrian Trio, im mica-Interview)
Michael Ternai
Interview with the bassist Raphael Preuschl on the 20th anniversary of the Fabulous Austrian Trio with Alex Machacek and Herbert Pirker. Speaking of Machacek's guitar playing, he says it seeks to lift the limits of a string instrument, and recalls Harry Pepl's piece “Man könnte Klavierspielen müssen”.
Harry Pepl once wrote the song ‘Man könnte Klavierspielen müssen’. I believe it is Alex's intention to lift the limitation of a string instrument and to take on the polyphonic freedom of a keyboard instrument.
Raphael Preuschl