"There is a point in all of us where we are alone, which can be a joyful or a lonely place, just like company can be joyful or lonely. Recently some aspects of music making have become more important to me. Playing solo and improvising illuminates these. So I took this recording as a chance to go towards this place that is more and more meaningful to me. I feel that I am just scratching the surface of it.
My personal objective with this record was simply to record music that I like to listen to and that brings me to my center. It was not important to me which scene of music this might belong to or whether the things I played were simple or complex. The only thing that counted was how it feels to me while playing and while listening back.
In that way it is a very private record.
Two musicians have made an impact in terms of their solo performances:
Keith Jarrett, who’s courage to improvise (invent) whole concerts from the first to the last note produced some music that will always stay with me, and Ralph Towner who’s solo record on ECM I listened to a lot about 20 years ago, when I was still playing classical guitar."
Wolfgang Muthspiel, September 2004 |