Writing about contemporary art music requires a high level of music-theoretical and analytical competence. If that were true, I would not be allowed to discuss Dieter Ammann's music here. But when asked by an interviewer to what extent "analysability" is an aesthetic criterion, Dieter Ammann replied:

"I can think of a concert visit where I made a very positive comment to my seat neighbour (a musician) about a piece that had been performed for the first time. His answer was that he could not say anything about it without having analysed (!) the piece. But he also had two ears on his head! If not in sound, where does the legitimisation come from to put musical processes in writing and thus expose them to repeatability? I do think that well thought-out treatment of material (e.g. forward and backward references, the formation of variants, derivations, etc.), a certain complexity in terms of internal structure and large-scale form, conscious shaping of the dramaturgical progression and the like should be indispensable features of composed music; much of this could be logically demonstrated by analytical means. But in my opinion, elevating analysability to an aesthetic criterion misses the point - the music. For me as a listener, music is simply what I hear - and this does not have to coincide in any way with structural conditions."

Dieter Ammann is receiving increasing attention in the field of contemporary compositions. His orchestral piece "Glut" is on its way to becoming an orchestral standard work of the 21st century and most recently his piano concerto "Gran Toccata" with pianist Andreas Häfliger is also celebrating great success (a CD has even been released at the end of 2020!). I turn here to his violin concerto unbalanced instability. The title alone refers to states that one would expect to find described in modern physics. Dieter Ammann says in his commentary on the work in Bärenreuter:

"The title of the concerto movement unbalanced instability refers on the one hand to the manner of the compositional process, and on the other hand to the resulting multi-layered design of the course of form." And further: "My music unites a great variety of different textures. To put it bluntly, this means that anything can happen at any time in the course of a piece, that the only constant is constant change in all its forms, from flowing transition to rupture. The music is in permanent communication, so to speak, on the one hand towards the outside, but at the same time also towards the inside, in that it questions itself, sometimes even calls itself into question.

These are two "main themes" of my composing: on the one hand, the (invention of) individual forms of shaping time by means of sound, but without renouncing the communicability of the sound result."

I experienced the first immediate auditory opener to this violin concerto myself at the Swiss premiere on 7.9.2013 at the Lucerne Festival. Carolin Widmann, the dedicatee of this concerto, began the concerto with its energetic starting impulse, with what the score calls a fingernail pizzicato, and bang... her E string snapped. She had to put on a new string and then start again. But I have never been so attentive to this re-played fingernail pizzicato that I created a sound inside myself, in the tense hope that everything would go well. And it did go well, and the listener's expectation could abandon itself to what was happening sonically in this concerto movement (without traditional movement structure), haptic and fragile, but also overwhelming and often leaving the violin alone. A violin concerto that is recommended to every listener.

A live recording of this concert can be seen and heard here.

Listening Guide: