Composer Reiko Füting to Release DISTANTVIOLINSOUND On New Focus Recordings

On Friday, February 28, 2025, New York-based German composer Reiko Füting will release his fifth portrait album, distantViolinSound, on New Focus Recordings. Aiming to explore the psychological nature of memory through the compositional device of musical quotation, Füting's music engages with temporality and historical reference as a way to explore moral, artistic, political, and spiritual questions. His work takes the listener through an entire spectrum of assimilation, dissimilation, integration, disintegration, and segregation while moving freely between clear borders and gradual transitions. Featuring instrumental works of gradually increasing size, all featuring the violin in some capacity, beginning with Miranda Cuckson on solo violin, performers on the album include violinist Doori Na and pianist Jing Yang, trio Longleash, Quartet121, Unheard-of Ensemble, Noise Catalogue+, and SchallSpektrum conducted by Jan Michael Horstmann.

Commissioned by violinist Miranda Cuckson, Füting's passage: time (copy) (2019) for solo violin is based on quotations from Heinrich Franz Ignaz Biber, August Kühnel, Johann Paul von Westhoff, Johann Georg Pisendel, and Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as self-quotations. In his program notes, the composer explains the meaning of the title: "Passage refers to the passacaglia (specifically the passacaglia by Biber, which is the 16th sonata of the 'mystery sonatas' and generally considered to be a forerunner of Bach's Chaconne); copy refers to a quote by composer Johannes Kreidler: 'Composing for violin means to copy.'"

mo(ve)ment for 2: Choreophonie - Schatten/Spiegeltanz, for violin and piano (2017) was commissioned by New York's New Chamber Ballet and is dedicated to its director Miro Magloire. The composition quotes songs by Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf, Claude Debussy, and Richard Strauss. It is performed on the album by violinist Doori Na and pianist Jing Yang.

Based on the second movement of the Piano Trio Op. 1 No. 3 in C minor by Beethoven, free: whereof - wherefore for piano trio (2020), was commissioned by Five Boroughs Music Festival and performers Longleash, an "expert young trio" (Strad Magazine). Füting writes, "There are also two literary references from Beethoven and Vilém Flusse, which are integrated in the piece in both the original German and in English translation."

Chorale ("those driven out will come"), for string quartet (2021), was written for and is performed by Quartet121. The title refers to the composition's musical reference (the third movement of the String Quartet Op. 132 by Ludwig van Beethoven, Heiliger Dankgesang) as well as two quotes from the New and Old Testaments as literary references.

The next work on the album is act: ab-stain, from, for clarinet, violin, violoncello, and piano (2021), commissioned by the Barlow Foundation for Brooklyn-based clarinet, violin, cello, and piano quartet Unheard-of. It is based on the composition Da pacem domine by Heinrich Schütz, and on the hymn O frommer Christ herzlich betracht as set by Johann Hermann Schein. Füting notes, "Both compositions were written during the Thirty Years' War. The title is a reference to the following question by Hannah Arendt, which appears in spoken form in the last movement: "Could the activity of thinking as such be among the conditions that make humans abstain from evil-doing?"

Commissioned by and dedicated to Amalgama, F/fern, for ensemble (2018), is based on the poem Fern and performed here by ensemble Noise Catalogue+. The specifics of the composition refer to both the English and German meanings of the word. Füting explains that "The piece is part of The Lost Words project which pairs poems by Robert Macfarlane with new compositions, intended "to create a space for children to engage with the issue of environmental crisis with creativity and hopefulness." This piece is characterized as a violin concertino.

The final work of the album is von der Stadt, for ensemble (2023), performed by ensemble SchallSpektrum led by Jan Michael Horstmann with the composer on piano. Commissioned by the Gesellschaftshaus in Magdeburg, Germany, the composition is based on two works, both created during the Thirty Years' War: Johann Hermann Schein's hymn tune, O frommer Christ herzlich betracht and an anonymous text that described the horrors of May 20, 1631, when much of Magdeburg was destroyed and many of its citizens murdered. Füting writes, "At some point after its creation, this anonymous text was coupled with Schein's hymn tune setting, and created a 'song-pamphlet,' or Lied flugschrift. This coupling brought the text to a wider audience and served to alert far-flung parts of Germany to Magdeburg's fate."

distantViolinSound Tracklist

1. Reiko Füting - passage: time (copy) (2019) [10:43]
Miranda Cuckson, violin

2. Reiko Füting - mo(ve) ment for 2: Choreophonie - Schatten/ Spiegeltanz (2017)
[12:44]
Doori Na, violin
Jing Yang, piano

3. Reiko Füting - free: whereof - wherefore (2020)[9:02]
Longleash
Pala Garcia, violin
John Popham, cello
Julia DeBoer, piano

4. Reiko Füting - Chorale ("those driven out will come") (2021) [12:08]
Quartet121
Julia Jung Un Suh & Molly Germer, violins
Lena Vidulich, viola
Thea Mesirow, cello

5. Reiko Füting - act: ab-stain, from (2021) [16:22]
Unheard-of
Ford Fourqurean, clarinet
Matheus Souza, violin
Issei Herr, cello
Daniel Anastasio, piano

6. Reiko Füting - F/fern (2018) [2:55]
Noise Catalogue+
Madeline Hocking, violin
Andrea Abel, flute
Tommy Shermulis, clarinet
Clara Cho, cello
Dániel Matei, percussion
Nacho Ojeda, piano
Alison Norris, conductor

7. Reiko Füting - von der Stadt (2023) [8:54]
SchallSpektrum
Gabriele Zucker, flute
Johans Camacho Aguirre, oboe
Georg Dengel, clarinet
Gerd Becker, bassoon
Özgür Yilmaz, French horn
Alejandro Carrillo, violin
Uta Schiffermüller, viola
Mariko Okabayashi, violoncello
Ronald Vitzthum, double bass
Reiko Füting, piano
Jan Michael Horstmann, conductor

Total Time: [72:48]

1-6. Recorded: 1: 12/7/19, 2: 5/23/21, 3: 9/6/22, 4: 11/14/21, 5: 11/28/21, 6: 5/28/24, 7: 6/10/24 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY, USA
Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber

7. Recorded 6/10/24 at Gesellschaftshaus, Magdeburg, DEU
Recording Engineer: Benjamin Dreßler

Editing, Mix and Mastering: Ryan Streber, Oktaven Audio
Producer/Publisher: Reiko Füting
Cover and Back Image: Sean Curran
Design: Marc Wolf
Reiko Füting Portrait: Hojoon Kim
Post-production Portrait: Hojoon Kim
Text Editor: Bradley Colten
Post-production Advisor: Daniel Lippel

FCR432
New Focus Recordings

About Reiko Füting

Reiko Füting was born in 1970 in Königs Wusterhausen of the German Democratic Republic. He studied composition and piano at the Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Webern" in Dresden, at Rice University in Houston, at Manhattan School of Music in New York, and at Seoul National University. Some of his most influential teachers have been the composers Jörg Herchet and Nils Vigeland, and the pianist Winfried Apel.

As a composer, Reiko has received numerous prizes, awards, scholarships, grants, and commissions. His music has been performed in several countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. It is published by Verlag Neue Musik in Berlin, Germany; most of his recordings have been released on the New Focus label in New York. He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, ensembles, and orchestras, with a particular interest in vocal ensembles and ensembles performing on period instruments. His opera on the life of the mystic nun Mechthild von Magdeburg premiered at the reopening of the concert hall in Magdeburg, Germany in 2022. Reiko was Composer-in-Residence at the Gesellschaftshaus Magdeburg during the 2023/2024 season.

Reiko joined the theory faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in 2000. Five years later, he became a member of the composition faculty and was appointed Chair of the Theory Department. In 2020, he was also appointed Chair of the Composition Department and is currently serving as Dean of Academic Core and Head of Composition and Contemporary Performance Program. Reiko has taught vocal accompaniment at the Conservatory of Music and Theater in Rostock, Germany and appeared as guest faculty and lecturer at universities and conservatories in China, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.