A CD of selected works by René Staar has been released in August 2012 on the »Edition Zeitton« of ORF (Austrian Broadcasting). It is available at selected dealers and through orfshop{at}orf.at.

The earliest work on the CD, »Hommage à un temps perdu«, was written before Staar had begun to occupy himself with the music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. The impact of the Second Viennese School can then be discerned in the orchestral piece »Just an Accident?« (awarded the Ernst Krenek Prize of the City of Vienna) and in the two short homages »Ständchen« and »Sitzchen«, written for Krenek’s 85th birthday. But the CD also includes works written after this realization of stylistic independence. Here Staar structures his work into various work complexes, each of which has an individual significance and delivers an individual statement, to which the single pieces are subordinated. One example is the work cycle »Divertissements Suisses«, op. 10, several pieces of which are presented here. Another is the large cycle op. 22, in which Staar unites a large group of works that he refers to as »my own Theory of Harmony«, a group which includes the work »La Fontaine du Sang«. The last piece on the CD has its context and origin in Staar’s pedagogical projects: experimental violin pieces in various quarter tone tunings, a kind of byproduct of the Violin Method in several volumes on which Staar is currently working.

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