Michael Rietzke
Michael Rietzke (born March 24, 1952 in Leverkusen , North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German composer , musician and author . He has released 20 music albums so far.
His music is shaped by borrowings from rock , jazz , classical and contemporary music. The often satirical texts refer to current social, economic and political events. Rietzke's main instrument was the electric and acoustic guitar. He sang the lead vocals on most of his albums. He also played the electric bass and keyboard . Since 1992 he has been working as a freelance composer. He lives in Isernhagen (Lower Saxony).
Musical career
Rietzke's early musical influences also include Southeast European, Spanish and Arabic music. Slavic music and its scales brought him closer to his family members on his father's side. His father Hans Rietzke was a bass player in the Rhineland for dance music and jazz.
Training and first bands
Rietzke received piano lessons at the city music school in Leverkusen, and he learned to play the guitar himself. In the mid-1970s Rietzke attended lectures in composition at the University of Music in Hanover as a guest auditor. From 1970 to 1979 he played as a guitarist in various rock and jazz groups in Leverkusen , Hamburg and Hanover .
The locals
In 1979 Rietzke founded the tour band The Locals in Hanover. They existed until 1983 and appeared with frequently changing line-ups and occasionally with the support of guest musicians. His debut album Young Lovers , with Thomas Quasthoff as a guest singer, stayed in the Hanover Charts for several weeks under the top 10. Young Lovers was peppered with satirical and political statements on social issues at the time.
MR
From 1981 MR worked on his own productions under his Pizzo Records label. This material also became an integral part of the locals' club tours until 1983. In 1981 the single Ride on with the B-side Dance for me was released , which Rietzke shared with Eruption musicians Morgan Perrineau (bass), Gerry Williams (keyboard) and Ralf Piefkowski produced. The album Never mind , also recorded in 1981 under MR, was conceived as a harsh response to the growing industrially produced and marketed rock and pop music and clearly shows Rietzke's position as an attentive and critical observer of social developments. The MR album Best of recorded in 1982 contains all the remaining and relevant MR songs from the Locals tours from 1981 to 1983, which were recorded by the same cast as Never Mind . Rietzke realized the album in its present form in 1990. With In my heaven , Rietzke released his first solo album with guitar solos in 1983. In the same year he also played the album Love is not easy .
In the spring of 1984 shortly before his tour band The Locals broke up , Rietzke produced with the same musicians. Of your own risk . The Best , the most ironic and musically refined album of his previous work in Frank Bornemann's Horus Sound Studio , was created in mid-1984 , which he has since appreciated for its technical equipment and atmosphere. While looking for a suitable sound engineer, Rietzke met Thomas Stiehler from Berlin, who was currently working with the Hanoverian band Eloy in the Horus Sound Studio. Both hit it off and began working on The Best in mid-1984 . The album was jointly produced by Thomas Stiehler, Ralf Piefkowski, (who also took over all keyboard parts), Rietzke himself, (who played all guitar solo parts and sang most of the songs), and Klaus Schulze , (who started the 1980s became known worldwide) who brought out The Best on his own label.
In 1985 Rietzke began working on the two subsequent pop albums Rendezvous and Michelangelo . The "Basics" were recorded in the Hansa Studio in Berlin with Eric Kingsley, Ex-Eruption (drums) and Derryl Barns (bass), Ralf Piefkowski, (keyboards) under the direction of Thomas Stiehler. Between 1987 and 1989 Rietzke experimented with various synthesizers, sampler and sequencer programs in his own studio. He decided in 1989 to record this material on the instrumental album Don't expect anything . The global political events of 1989 and 1990 prompted him to record another provocative album in 1991: Back to the roots is a sharp and ironic discussion of the supposed winners and losers of the upheavals of those years. From 1991 to 1993 Rietzke worked on the conception of the audio spectacle Der Prediger and began in cooperation with Thomas Stiehler (Gold Album with Marillion 1985) in Berlin on the recording of the three-piece album, which was completed in 1995. Driven by the realization of the preacher , Rietzke processed further authentic sound material that he had collected, written down or recorded over many years in Huéscar (province of Granada) and places in Southeast Europe. He put this material together on the album la visita in 1996 .
Between 1996 and 2006 Rietzke devoted himself exclusively to composing. During these years the 1st string quintet was created in 1997 (rewritten as 1st string quartet in 2009 ) which was premiered on September 5th, 1998 with the young musicians of the NCC Berlin in Isernhagen. The first string quintet was based on a ballet idea called Minka . The story of an archaic dance competition between Slavic tribes. Also in 1997 were the 10 miniatures for mixed sextet , which Rietzke revised in 2009 for a wind sextet . The serenade for string orchestra and the three impressions for orchestra followed in 1998. In the two following years he composed the first concerto for orchestra and the second concerto for orchestra , both of which he revised several times up to 2009, as well as the serenade for string orchestra , which later as a fantasy for string orchestra (sphere IV) was included in the series of spheres concerts .
At the request of Thomas Stiehler, Rietzke wrote the concerto for violin and string orchestra in 2000. With this composition, the idea of composing his own series of solo concerts called “spheres concerts” arose. With the pieces, Rietzke pursued the idea of offering the soloist new possibilities of interpretation, flowing between tradition and modernity. Four more of these solo concerts followed in 2000 and 2001 alone. The series ultimately consisted of: Concerto for violin and string orchestra (2000) op6 (sphere I, arrangement 2007), music for violin and accordion (2000) op7 (sphere II, arrangement 2007 rewritten as music for violin and piano 2009) , the concerto for flute and string orchestra (2000) op9 (sphere III, arrangement 2007), the fantasy for string orchestra (2000) op10 (sphere IV, arrangement 2007), the piano concerto No. 1 (2001) op11 (sphere V, arrangement 2007 ). In 2006, for the time being, the last work in this series followed, Music for Bass Clarinet and String Orchestra (2006) op13 (Sphäre VI). In between Rietzke composed the music for 2 pianos and percussion (2001, arrangement 2007) op12 and 2006 his Ave Maria for 2 voices (2006) a commissioned work by Thomas Stiehler, which was published by Bella Musica, Baden-Baden. In 2007 Rietzke published Experiments as a promotion CD for "progressive" radio stations from the public sector in Germany. The track The Whale on this CD is a thoroughly composed piece for sequencers and samples.
After the years of conventional and classically composed works from 1996 to 2006, Rietzke, after viewing the musical material in his archive, decided to publish the album Musik in autumn 2006, on which he rearranged a wide variety of pieces and songs and cut them together as medleys. He divided the material on three CDs into the areas of instrumental, social statements and pop. On it you can find pieces written early as well as in the early 1990s. Cordula Schütze from Hameln realized the cover design .
From 2009 to 2010 Rietzke rearranged the albums Who's that with the pieces from the Social Statements from the 1980s and 1990s as well as Michelangelo's Rendezvous with the pop pieces from 1986/87 and published them online through his own publishing house in 2011 and 2012. The release of the single Little white horses also followed in 2012. In March 2013 Rietzke completed his last sound composition with the recording of El final de la visita . This 7-track album takes up the conception of la visita from 1996 and takes you into the mysterious world of everyday life in a small town in Andalusia with authentic music, sounds and noises.
Discography
- 1980: Young Lovers - August
- 1981: Never mind - May
- 1981: Ride on / Dance for me - August (single)
- 1982: Best of - June
- 1983: In my heaven - May
- 1983: Love is not easy - November
- 1984: Of ya own risk - April
- 1985: The Best - April
- 1986: Rendezvous - October
- 1987: Michelangelo - July
- 1989: Don't expect anything - September
- 1991: Back to the roots - October
- 1995: The Preacher - June
- 1996: La visita - August
- 2006: Music - October
- 2007: experiment - November
- 2011: Whos that - November
- 2012: Michelangelo's Rendezsvous - September
- 2012: Little white horses - September (single)
- 2013: El final de la visita - May
Videos
- 2011: I'm not wasting my time-Mai
- 2011: Watcha gonna do-May
- 2012: Golden heaven-April
- 2012: Imágenes de Huéscar-October
- 2012: Paisaje de Huéscar-October
Orchestral and chamber music
- 1996: 1st string quintet
- 1997: 10 miniatures for mixed sextet
- 1998: Three impressions for orchestra
- 1998: 1st concert for orchestra
- 1999: 2nd concert for orchestra
- 2000: Concerto for violin and string orchestra (sphere I)
- 2000: Music for violin and accordion (Sphere II)
- 2000: Concerto for flute and string orchestra (Sphäre III)
- 2000: Fantasy for string orchestra (Sphäre IV)
- 2001: 1st piano concerto (Sphere V)
- 2001: Music for 2 pianos and percussion
- 2006: Concerto for bass clarinet and string orchestra
- 2006: Ave Maria for soprano and baritone
- 2006–2009: revisions of the chamber music and orchestral works
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Kölner Stadt Anzeiger March 9, 1957
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung / Nordhannoversche Zeitung, August 1998
- ^ Kölner Stadtanzeiger August 1972
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung October 1980
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, October 14, 1980
- ^ Spanner Hanover, October 1980
- ^ Bild Zeitung, November 29, 1980
- ↑ Bild newspaper July 10, 1982
- ^ Bild-Zeitung August 1982
- ↑ MagaScene, December 2007
- ↑ MagaScene, October 2007
- ↑ MagaScene, March 2007
- ^ Hannoversche Presse, September 8, 1998
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung / Nordhannoversche Zeitung, August 1998
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung / Nordhannoversche Zeitung, August 1998
- ^ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung / Nordhannoversche Zeitung, August 1998
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rietzke, Michael |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German composer, musician and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 24, 1952 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leverkusen , North Rhine-Westphalia |