MEDIA
September 2022
Musik-Panorama
Touching Universes – Kompositionen von Eres Holz
Dunkle Risse for string quartet (2018)
Commissioned by the German public broadcasting radio station (Deutschlandfunk)
Asasello Quartett:
Rostislav Kozhevnikov - violin
Barbara Streil - violin
Justyna Sliwa - viola
Teemu Myöhänen - cello
Touching Universes and Ends (2019)
MACH for harp and live-electronics (2021)
MACH for cello and live-electronics (2020)
Excerpt
"MACH" is the name of a constantly growing cycle of solo pieces that the Berlin composer Eres Holz has been working on since 2011. [...] The music shapes the individual being thrown back onto his own self. Five of these works were created during the corona pandemic. In two large ensemble compositions, Holz, born in Rechovot (Israel) in 1977, deals with grief and loss, by letting those experiences become sound forms in a reflective manner in a sometimes painfully intense way. Eres Holz's music is existential and deeply touching.
Touching Universes
Release: 26. August 2022
Label: NEOS Music GmbH
EAN: 4260063122071
Order number: 12207-08
Number of discs: 2
Duration: 156 minutes
Nomination for the OPUS Klassik
"Touching Universes" was nominated for the OPUS Klassik in three categories: "Composer of the Year", "Chamber Music" and "Contemporary Music"
June 2023
In addition to Sarah Nemtsov, Eres Holz contributed an outstanding work to this rich, thoughtful Forum. His string quartet Dunkle Risse wants to set the negative pole to our society, which focuses only on positiveness. Beauty arises here from pain, from carefully developed, fragile, repeatedly broken up sound spaces in which the transience of the sound leads us straight to the meadow of paradise.
Forum neuer Musik 2021
NZM - Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
1/2022
For Eres Holz, the microtones stand »as a sign of the imperfection of human – human as a biological being, and not a sterile, not a 'well-tempered' machine. Microtones as an expression of pain, but also of passion and eroticism.«
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Ingo Dorfmüller
NEOS
2022
Harmony is essential as a frame of reference for the melodic: “I work harmonically so that the melodies obtain a relevance of meaning, as Bach does. And that is precisely why I allow myself melodic freedom, because it is harmonically well-founded.«
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Ingo Dorfmüller
NEOS
2022
Holz does not want to unfold a deceptive paradise in his music, but to raise questions about fears and existential situations. This means creatively facing the contradictions of life.
Forum neuer Musik 2021
Eres Holz's great string quartet also relies on emotions; it is inspired by thoughts of crossing borders and internal state of extremity.
Frank Kämpfer
Forum neuer Musik 2021
An extensive insight into the composition of Eres Holz provides his CD with various solo and ensemble pieces. They convey an impressively intense music whose existential impetus is always present, without expressive platitudes [...]
9/2022
Eres Holz deals with grief and loss in two large compositions for ensemble. In doing so, he allows one to reflect on the experiences and then converts them into emotional sound forms. This is how he creates fundamental and deep arising reactions.
September 2022
What Eres Holz wants, how he composes, that can be heard in the string quartet Dunkle Risse (2018). In five sections, the work addresses dark introspections from fascinatingly alien landscapes of the soul. [...] Extroverted expression is avoided: the composer pulls the strings in the background. The Cologne Asasello Quartet pays tribute to this by taking on the exciting work with aplomb and sensitivity.
September 2022
In „Touching universes and ends“ for ensemble and electronics, the composer Eres Holz processes the death of his mother. Intense, painful increasing waves lead to calming piano chords. The large-scale composition reaches orchestral proportions.
Badische Zeitung
July 2021
»MACH ist der Imperativ von machen, eine Form der Aufforderung, Befehl oder Einladung«, schreibt Eres Holz
in einer kurzen Einführung zu MACH, und er präzisiert: »MACH ist eine
Art Einladung, das zu machen, was nicht trivial ist«.
Es ist in der Tat keineswegs
trivial, was Eres Holz seinem Soloinstrumentalisten aufgibt. Zum einen handelt es sich
um ein hochvirtuoses Stück. Zum anderen folgt Eres Holz hier auch formal einem komplexen Plan.
MACH, so Holz, »folgt der Idee formaler und lokaler Differenzen. Die Kontraste zwischen den musikalischen
Objekten (lokal) und den Teilen (global) ermöglichen eine hierarchische Organisation erkennbarer musikalischer
Beziehungen. Die hierarchische Organisation war nicht im Interesse einer komplexen oder abstrakten Konstruktion
gedacht, sondern sie verleiht dem Ganzen einen rhetorischen Charakter.«
Im OEuvre von Eres Holz taucht der Titel MACH gleich mehrfach auf. Es gibt (bisher) vier verschiedene Versionen, für Trompete, Klavier, Klarinette und Orgel. Die Fassung für Trompete ist...«
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Rainer Pöllmann
Ultraschall: Festival for Contemporary Music
Berlin, Germany 2018