The Blue Piano Mathias Rüegg

• 1 Ein Kleines Lied 01:42
• 2 A Little Song 03:16
• 3 Musik Im Mirabell 02:54
• 4 Das Meer Singt 02:01
• 5 The Sea Sings 03:57
• 6 Bist Du Manchmal Auch Verstimmt 02:10
• 7 Serafina an ihr Klavier 02:55
• 8 Serafina to Her Grand Piano 03:23
• 9 Das kleine Lied 02:38
• 10 Happy Little Song 03:40
• 11 Wer einsam steht im bunten Lebenskreise 02:06
• 12 Die Nachtigall 02:19
• 13 Song of the Nightingale 02:40
• 14 Music 02:48
• 15 Musik 02:53
• 16 Der eine Klang 02:11
• 17 In mein gar zu dunkles Leben 02:31
• 18 Das erste Lied 02:09
• 19 Faunsflö”Tenlied 01:59
• 20 Pan Flute Song 02:46
• 21 The Hurdy-Gurdy Man 02:35
• 22 Der Leiermann 03:05
• 23 Mein blaues Klavier 02:18
• 24 The Nightingale 03:12
• 25 Nachtigall 02:52
• 26 Gestern war in meiner Mütze 00:52
• 27 Yesterday Under My Cap 02:55
• 28 Die lydische Kuh 01:01
• 29 The Lydian Cow 01:30
• 30 Mozart: First Movement (Playing Around Lovely with a Fragment) 06:43
• 31 Mozart: Second Movement (Playing Around Lovely with a Fragment) 06:24
• 32 Mozart: Third Movement (Playing Around Lovely with a Fragment) 03:52
• 33 Liszt: A Personal View of the 4th Movement of Liszt's Dante Symphonie 03:42
• 34 Sonnengesang 07:33
• 35 Satie: Variationen über ein Ostinato von Erik Satie 02:32
• 36 Kopf hoch, Sophiechen! 04:18
• 37 Sam - A Hero 03:44
• 38 Fagur - A Friend 03:26
• 39 Lea - A Hope 01:56
• 40 Lucciridari - A Play 03:40
• 41 Svenja - An Artist 03:42
• Total Runtime 02:04:50

Info for The Blue Piano

Late romantic art songs meet a cornucopia of cultivated jazz tones. The young pianist Soley Blümel and the baritone Benjamin Harasko provide the first part of the Blue Sound. The 18 poems by Ebner-Eschenbach, Heinrich Heine, Th. Storm, R. M. Rilke, W. Busch and others set to music were brought to maturity in acoustically perfect surroundings. Blümel's impeccable touch blossoms luminous timbres that prepare an ideal ground for Harasko's versatile baritone. It's like being transported to another time - for example, to an afternoon concert in Schubert's living room.

11 of these pieces appear in a cool, elegant jazz garb. On the second part of the album we hear solo piano pieces by Mathias Rüegg based on arrangements by Mozart, Liszt and Satie. After his successful career spanning decades, "The Blue Piano" is Mathias Rüegg's last compositional work.

"Jazz inspirations do not appear immediately or in every composition, but all the performances inspire with their artistry, presenting the whole spectrum of textural, expressive and expressive solutions. The whole works gracefully in this context, both in serious, thoughtful pieces and in joyful compositions with a lively character." (jazz-fun.com)

Benjamin Harasko, baritone
Soley Blümel, piano
Lia Pale, vocals, flute (track 23), bass flute (tracks 21, 25, 26 & 27)
Ingrid Oberkanins, percussion, vocals (track 29)
Hans Strasser, bass
Mathias Rüegg, piano
Sabina Hasanova, piano
Soley Blümel, piano

Mathias Rüegg
Born in Zurich in 1952, Mathias Rüegg completed his studies to become a primary school teacher and taught for a while in various special needs schools. From 1973-1975, he studied classical composition and jazz piano in Graz. In 1976, he moved to Vienna, where he worked as a free-lance pianist. After a while, he got tired of solo work and created the Vienna Art Orchestra in 1977. Since then, he has written almost all of the VAO’s programs, and has handled the management and organization of the orchestra all by himself. From 1983-87, he also led the Vienna Art Choir. In the years 1984-86, he was voted No.1 Arranger by Down Beat the leading American jazz magazine. He wrote commissioned pieces for other jazz orchestras, such as the NDR Big-Band, SDR Big-Band, Umo Big-Band Helsinki, Swedish Radio Jazz Group and the RTV Big Band Slovenia, as well as for classical orchestras, such as the Wiener Symphoniker, Basler Sinfonietta, Opus Novum, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, Die Reihe, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Orchestre de Normandie Basse and l’Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. He also led workshops in Vienna, Cologne, Hanover, Berlin, Bern, and Trento. As part of his collaboration with George Tabori and the Serapionstheater, he composed film and theatre music. From 1983 to 1990, he engaged in special projects combining music and literature with the Viennese poet/lyricist Ernst Jandl. Rüegg also worked as artistic director for numerous festivals, including the U & E Third Dream Festival, Jandl Total, Vienna meets Paris, Vienna meets London, and the Alpentöne Festival in Altdorf (CH). In addition, he headed numerous multimedia projects, including Der achte Tag (Wiener Festwochen 1980), Jonny tritt ab (Donaueschingen 1981), SENS (Wiener Festwochen 1987), Fe & Males (1989), and La belle at la bête (1992).

For the 1991 Mozart Year, he produced the music film NOT MOZART, on commission by the BBC. Founder of the Viennese jazz and music club Porgy & Bess and also its head until he assigned it to Christoph Huber, he also recently established the Austrian jazz award, the Hans Koller Preis. Since 1994, he has devoted himself increasingly to chamber music and has written compositions for soloists and chamber orchestra for Corin Curschellas, Michel Portal, Wolfgang Puschnig, Matthieu Michel, and Wolfgang Muthspiel, in addition to a variety of works for other classical ensembles. During 2003, together with Bill Frisell, he was the musical director of the Ruhr Triennale/Festival Century of Song dedicated to the European Song of the 20th century. In 2008, he discontinued the big band and changed the VAO into a chamber group with jazz soloists. The new line-up staged its premiere in May 2009 with the program Third Dream. In the same year, his Piano Concerto No.1 was premiered in the Wiener Konzerthaus.On 9 July 2010, due to financial difficulties, he disbanded the VAO, after their last concert in Viktring/Klagenfurt, at which he presented six of his own arrangements of Mahler lieder. His new area of activity is the composition of chamber music, which will be published by the Viennese music Publishers Doblinger. From 2010 to 2011 he taught at the IPOP (Universität für Musik & darstellende Kunst) in Vienna.

In 2011 he composed the music for the New York based Big Apple Circus and their show Dream Big, which he also rehearsed on-site in the circus as the band leader. Furthermore, he was invited by various big bands to conduct workshops, such as the Conservatory of Vienna (2010), Generations in Frauenfeld, which also led to a reunion of the 80s-line-up of the Vienna Art Orchestra, or the HGM Jazzorckestar Zagreb (2013). Since 2012 he has been working closely with the singer Lia Pale, with whom he had his comeback as an arranger/piano player at the Porgy & Bess with Gone Too Far, a new adaption of parts of Schubert’s Winterreise on February 14th, 2013. Since then, he has been touring with Lia Pale. A second album followed in 2015: My Poet’s Love, lyrics from Rainer Maria Rilke and Heinrich Heine, set to music by m. rüegg. For the L’Orchestre of Jean-Christophe Cholet et Alban Darche, he arranged Francis Poulenc’s La Rhapsodie Nègre & wrote a couple of chamber music pieces in the spirit of Poulenc. In 2016, he was nominated for the Swiss Music Prize in Switzerland, and in Canada, for the Prix Opus, catégorie Concert de l’année - Jazz et musiques du monde with The Orchestre National de Jazz de Montreal. In 2017, he was asked by the Salzburger Festspiele to write the music for Jedermann. Also in 2017, the albums A Winter’s Journey(Schuberts Liedzyklus) and The Schumann Songbook, both with Lia Pale, were published on Lotus Records. In fall 2018 rüegg/Pale present The Brahms Song Book.

Booklet for The Blue Piano