Schönberg Improvations

The album was presented on 7 February 1990 at the Wiener Konzerthaus, one of Vienna’s two great concert halls, where Puschnig and Reisinger played live along with the self-playing grand piano while Pepl operated only the sustain pedal. The review in Tschinnbumm called it a musical quantum leap. The 2004 reissue (Universal/EmArcy, 986 661-1 and -8 respectively) is mistakenly titled “Schoenberg Improvisations”, gives the opener as “PM Syndrom” instead of “FM Syndrom” and adds “Wide One” as a tenth track. Dates given: Zlabinger and AllMusic 1989, concert programme and Daniel Pepl 1990.

From the liner notes: Harry Lachner, who wrote the booklet text, opens with the record's paradox: apart from “The Last Bars Of Mankind” you hear only piano, “And yet, it is not a sampled sound, it's a Bösendorfer grand piano”, played on the guitar. He calls this “a most radical use of technology: to play on a midi guitar connected to a computer just to return to a natural, acoustic sound” and quotes Dave Liebman: “if you're a great instrumentalist, you want to be able to express anything of the instrument, even beyond the instrument. It's not an instrument any more but an expression.”¹ The “piano” track, he writes, is completely improvised, inspired by recordings of Arnold Schoenberg's piano works. Lachner points to the lyricism of “Alone Is A Golden Stone” and the trance-like 4/4 groove of “Magnet Resonance” amid highly abstract, atonal pieces, and names Glenn Gould as another source of Pepl's inspiration. His conclusion: “The simulation is complete, the circle is fullfilled and we should not be puzzled by the technical method but by the musical result.”¹

Credits according to the booklet: all compositions by Harry Pepl (published by Antenna Music, Vienna); digitally recorded at the Sing Sang studio, Vienna, in November 1989; recording engineer Richard Österreicher jun.; digital editing by “Ton Eichinger”, Vienna; produced by Harry Pepl; executive producer Wulf Müller (PolyGram, Vienna). Thanks to director Peter Lemell of Bösendorfer for the 290 SE computer piano, to the Bösendorfer technicians Michael Hahn, George Kolasis and Michael Kindler, and to AKG for the microphones. Front cover concept Marie-Luise Rausch, photography and album design Wolfgang Plenk, booklet photos: Fischnaller.¹