“And now for something completely different”: This phrase is actually the opposite of a smooth transition – and has become a dictum in this useful-unuseful function. The British comedy group Monty Python used to connect the sketches in their television series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (1969–74) with this abrupt change of subject to something “completely different”. What does this have to do with Johannes Maria Staud’s trio for flute, bassoon and piano?

For long stretches in the trio the music is in swinging twelve-eight time; the most frequent performance instruction is “groovy,” the urge to hum along is great. Staud has drawn song material in part from his operas “Berenice” and “Die Weiden”. For the four main sections, he also tapped freshly into his popular vein – and from the very first section, it seems possible to follow how the composer, like a musical Munchausen, pulls himself out of the swamp by his own hair, semitone by semitone, in rapid succession from F major. As the tonal center rises, the mood also seems to rise: a welcome effect. For the three interludes, which are as unifying as they are divisive – Monty Python! – Staud draws on Beethoven. He quotes twice from the opening movement of the “Grande Sonate pathétique” in C minor op. 13 and once from the slow movement of the "Archduke Trio" op. 97, but both are heard in a different form, partly transposed, partly blended with his own tonal language: “I used to detest quotations, but I've become more relaxed about that too – at least in this work. For me, there is nothing postmodern about them; they are more like objets trouvées that fit in perfectly as hinges.”

The commissioning musicians responded with amusement and enthusiasm to this music that does not shy away from being cheerful and thus also providing pleasure. “My approach to innovation has become more reflective,” says the composer, “while the spontaneity of creativity, perhaps even naivety, has shifted further into the center of my attention.”

Something truly different in New Music.

(Walter Weidringer)