Peter Brombacher - Peter Brombacher
So why are German pop vocals such an almost inevtiable stinker, if compared to American ones? „The Americans are a very self-conscious people. That s the nearest I have ever got to a generalisation that really covers that great and mixed multitude. (…) They really are artists in life; and it must be a terrible and almost tragic vocation. But there is the same deliberate artistic quality in the commonest und coarsest smoking-room story told with an ever-lengthening drawl by an American drummer in the lounge of an hotel. There is the same self-consciousness in the photograph of the most absurd business founder on the make, who tightens his mouth and swells out his jaws in the advertisements of a cheap magazine. He may not be exactly an artist, but he is far from being an artless character.” (G.K. Chesterton) Or to put it short: The American is an actor of himself. And this, again, explains the huge share of actors among the few accomplished German pop vocalists, from Ernst Busch, Hildegard Knef or Manfred Krug to the fabulous performances on the double album of the “Songs for Joy” project by Erobique/Palminger. And Peter Brombacher, a steady member of the Münchner Kammerspiele theater since 2004, is certainly another worthwhile addition to those scantily-populated ranks. On this cd are assembled five of his unique song interpretations: Rainer Maria Rilkes “Immer wieder”, set to a composition by Ivi Vukelic, mushrooms out into a sort of Minimal Blues Dub. The “Horenlied” from the 16th century, a sort of musical stations of the cross underscored by Carl Oesterhelt’s organ, portrays the happenings on Golgatha hill as a fairground of doom. John Lennon’s posthumous single “Watching th Wheels” is presented in straightforward live version with piano accompaniment only. Even more reduced, i.e. acapella, is the rendition of “Die Wachau” by Wiener Lied composer Ernst Arnold, banned under the Nazi regime for his making ridicule of the Germans’ mandatory swaying-in-the-benches (the so-called “Schunkeln”) to wirtshaus music. And, as grand finale, the epitome of German kunstlied high romanticism, Robert Schumann’s “Mondnacht” (based on Joseph von Eichendorff’s poem, one of the most famous and genuinely popular of th German language). Five songs from five eras, and each with an entirely different musical approach to boot; yet Brombacher makes them all his own and, thereby, administers a bitter yet refreshing concoction to our ears, its mein ingredients being space, time, and death. Furthermore, mention should be made of Gerald von Foris’ cover foto. Very rarely has been a foto more fitting to the occasion. (Martin Lickleder)