Jürg Frey
guitarist, alone
Cristian Alvear, guitar

Interview with Cristián Alvear

You live thousands of miles from Jürg on a different continent. So how did this disc come about?

After I recorded and Edition Wandelweiser published Antoine Beuger's 24 petits préludes pour la guitare, Richard Pinnell reviewed the préludes for The Watchful Ear. Before he published the review, he contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in recording Jürg's guitar music, and of course, I said yes. I immediately wrote to Jürg and he sent me the scores. He also told me he wanted to write a new piece for the project, which became guitarist, alone. I started working on my versions soon afterwards, making demos for Jürg to listen to and comment on. 

So how long did it to take to produce the final versions of Jurg’s pieces? Was there a long process of trying different things and responding to Jurg’s comments?

The whole process took a year and a half. I sent Jürg demos every month, 3 or more pieces each time depending on the length in order to have time to discuss the final version. Then I went to the studio and made the recording. We did this almost every month. It was a lot of work. I've never worked with a composer in this way, and being able to do so gives you a unique approach and, you might say, a unique perspective on someone's work. I learned a lot.

Go on, tell us a couple of the things you learned.

Antoine Beuger’s préludes were the first Wandelweiser pieces I had played, so, as you can imagine, I was fairly new to this kind of music. While working on Jürg’s pieces I had to develop a series of technical approaches, all quite different from what I was used to. For example, I had to learn how to move and lift my fingers - in coordination with my right hand - over the fingerboard without making any noise. Also I had to think a lot about the use of harmonics so that I could prolong notes and their decay. Basically I had to study and rehearse a lot in order to feel technically fit enough to develop – comfortably - all the musical ideas Jürg and I were discussing during the recording period.

That’s interesting, because I know that you spent ages studying guitar at a conservatory in Santiago, yet there were still new techniques you had to develop to play what sounds like a very simple music. Could you tell us a bit about your training as a guitarist?

I started studying classical guitar in my home town, Osorno, with Mauricio Carrasco for a couple of years. In 2000 I entered the National Conservatory of the Universidad de Chile and I studied guitar there for almost 8 years. During that time I played and studied a lot of repertoire, from renaissance to contemporary, but I ended up playing mostly baroque and contemporary music. At the time I also did a couple of guitar contests, which I despise now, and played a few times as a soloist with several orchestras. My education as a musician was very, very traditional. From that period, I still play a lot of baroque music, especially Bach, and every now and then, contemporary guitar pieces. 

So coming from that more conventional training, what was it that drew you to try out experimental music? You say that you’d never played a Wandelweiser piece before playing Antoine Beuger’s ’24 petits préludes’, but how did you come across Antoine’s music, and what made you decide to give it a try? I don’t imagine that there’s a great deal of it about in Chile.

On 2013 I was looking for new pieces to play. At the time, I was investigating free improvisation in order to widen and explore my playing and, in doing so, I was constantly discussing things with Chilean composer Nicolás Carrasco (he was fundamental for this process). He had been in contact wth Antoine and others from the Wandelweiser collective for some time, and he and some other local musicians had been playing and actualising experimental scores for a while then, so he gave me a score to try: Antoine's préludes. I started working on them that very same day and later that week I scheduled a recording session with Alfonso Pérez (whom I've been working with since 2006). The scope and possibilities this kind of music could provide fascinated me. I had never encountered or heard music of this kind before and it changed the way I related to music and, more profoundly, the way I heard music.

You say that you were trying out free improvisation around the time that Nicolas Carrasco directed you towards Wandelweiser music. Is this something you still do, or does composed music suit you better somehow and if so why?

I sometimes improvise but not as an everyday routine. I had a couple of steady projects to explore the possibilities of improvisation but I stopped them all; it didn't make sense to keep on doing that. Now I do it only if needed, when it's the sole thing the circumstances allow you to do, or if I feel comfortable enough with a fellow musician. Anyway, you never know, this might change in the future. As to composed music, that's where I feel really comfortable now. I really enjoy working with composers, I feel that through the process of sharing ideas and concepts I can explore more and keep on challenging myself as a musician.

Could you describe your situation in Chile. I don't imagine that it is easy to earn money from experimental music. Do you earn your living as a musician, and if so, how?

Indeed it's not easy, not at all. Nevertheless, regardless of the difficulties, some musicians and myself are continuously trying to build networks and platforms such as festivals and concert series, to give some financial support to what we and others are doing. It’s not an easy task, as you may imagine. Fortunately, we can apply to get some funding from the government, and, in fact, that is how I can tour.

As for me, I make my living teaching guitar in a small conservatory in Santiago, and whenever I can, doing projects in rural areas of southern Chile, specifically near Osorno, my hometown. These projects are meant to enhance access to music in these particular areas of the country, and to do so I exclusively use experimental scores, such as Santiago Astaburuaga's for example. The idea and main goal is to use this kind of music to allow everyone to be involved in the music making. So far it has been quite fun.

Reviews

“This softly entrancing double-disc set contains all the solo guitar music by the Swiss composer Jürg Frey – and that means an awful lot of silence and not a huge number of notes. The first piece, Abendlied, contains exactly 10 notes in two minutes, and that’s comparatively hectic. Frey is master of exquisite slow-fi; as a Wandelweiser artist, he considers quietness to be as expressive as noise, and the way a note decays as crucial as how it is struck. Apparently in preparing for this recording, guitarist Cristián Alvear worked to finesse the art of making no noise whatsoever as his hands moved over the instrument while playing – these things matter in music that’s stripped back to absolute essentials. His attention to detail pays off, and he really sinks into the hypnotic pacing. There’s a sense of thoughts being worked out in real time, of musical statements being made, pondered and responded to without an iota of hurry.”     Kate Molleson, The Guardian

“More than two hours of clean and long melodies, beautiful silences, poetic tunes and evanescent harmonics, realized with high precision and great delicacy. Or how silent can be just a beautiful musical material.”     Julien Heraud, Improv-Sphere

"Alvear's playing is exemplary throughout and it is practically impossible to think how his versions of Frey's compositions could be bettered.  The album's two discs are very different. The first one consists of fifty alphabetically-titled pieces that vary greatly in length with nineteen of them being shorter than a minute, the shortest being just thirteen seconds long (altogether, six notes are played in it), and only four exceeding three minutes, the longest by some distance lasting seven minutes fifty seconds. Together the fifty pieces bear the title "50 Sächelchen" and play continuously. Frey's writing style gives the pieces similar tempos and dynamics, with the transition from one piece to the next never being too obvious or intrusive, the silences between tracks being comparable to the brief ones within pieces. Consequently, the fifty can be listened to as a unified whole with a consistently tranquil, soothing mood.

The second disc is in marked contrast to the first in that its seventy-three minutes only consist of three compositions, "Relikt" and "Wen 23", plus the title piece "Guitarist, Alone," especially written by Frey for this album. The three pieces create the same mood as the first disc, but are very different in character to one another. Guitarist, Alone is highly recommended.”    John Eyles, All About Jazz