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| "Giger`s
music is undisciplined to the extent that it sounds more like improvisation
than a written out composition. In the range of its references it is unashamedly
eclectic; the naive and the rhetorical rub shoulders; traditional, experimental
and psychedelic happily cohabit; everything is embraced from organum to
Penderecki, from folk-fiddling to the song of the humpbacked whale. Nor
is a single trick of the violinist`s craft missed. Harmonics, glissandos,
multiple stops, devil`s trills, fancy bowings, the noises of wood and
horse - hair, all have a place in the design. This
may sound unpromising, but in fact Giger`s spectacular technical control
of his instrument saves the day. In virtuosity he far outclasses many
concert violinists, and his resourcefulness and assurance breathe vitality
into the work At best, in the concluding `Holy Center` (much
indebted to La Monte Young and Stockhausen`s Stimmung), there is a marvellous
sense of a man totally at one with his violin, voice and instrument simultaneously
lost in contemplation of the marvels of natural harmonics" J.M. Gramophone "Im Innersten, möchte ich am liebsten schreiben, hat mich diese Musik getroffen." Michael Engelbrecht, Jazzthetik "Soon enough, though, it becomes clear that Giger is not in the cathedral for a free ride - he puts as much into the sonic economy as he gets out. The music is eloquent and rhetorically weighty, and - what is often difficult in music for a single instrument - it sustains a discursive thread over long stretches of time" San Francisco Chronicle
Probably the greatest, most proficient, most
creative violinist in the world, |
"He
uses pizzicato, ponticello, slurred pitches, harmonics and a technique
that sounds as if he`s playing the strings as he would an Indian tabla.
It`s not the technical aspects of the performance, though, but the mood
that results from intelligence and emotion."
Oliver Roosevelt, The Birmingham News "Was
mich an Gigers geigerischem Pilgerweg fasziniert, ist einmal die technische
Brillanz seines Spiels, Innigkeit ist hier nie eine Ausrede für
handwerkliche Schlichtheit. Giger spielt mit dem Material seines Instrumentes
selbst (und das ist dann doch eine weitere Assonanz an den Jazz), in
Beugungen und Biegungen, jähen Glissandi und weit schwingenden
Obertonreihen, und er scheut sich auch nicht, den Bauch seines Instruments
mal perkussiv wie eine Tabla zu verwenden. In drastischen baritonesken
Doppelstrichen, in äusserstem, gerade noch hörbarem fünfgestrichenem
Soprangezwitscher, in rasenden Arpeggien und Drehleier-Endlostönen,
in `sul ponticello` Effekten und mit dem Mund veränderten Resonanzen
dehnt Giger die Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten seines Instruments bis zum
äussersten - und er lässt solche Klangrecherche doch nie zum
Selbstzweck werden; er spiralt sich in einer konsequenten Schraube über
die Kontraste nach innen"
Peter Rüedi, Die Weltwoche "Henry
Adams wrote half a book about it: `Chartres expressed, besides whatever
else it meant, an emotion, the deepest man ever felt - the struggle
of his own littleness, to grasp the infinite.` But you could listen
to Chartres blindfolded and be impressed by the ancient/pagan power
of Giger`s raw bow scrapes, madly-fiddled chords, high uninflected long
notes, and didgeridoo-like droning. He taps something deep, elemental,
and emotional, beyond or beside the brainbusting computations."
City
Paper, Baltimore
|
