"Give me the Kingdom of Heaven"

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Rotwelsch? The name of the trio consisting of Philipp Maria Rosenberg (p) (piano), Florian Kolb (double bass), and Jordi Pallarés (drums) refers to the traditional rogue language, which creatively and vividly draws from the vocabularies of various languages and dialects; the same applies to its music, a testament to its own playful interpretation of jazz and improvisation.

 

"He respected the audience and wanted to offer them good music that they could listen to and love, music that was not primitive but true." This description, aimed at the largely forgotten operetta composer Joseph Beer, also applies to the essence of Rotwelsch's music. The ensemble brings the "good" and "true" music of Beer and other operetta composers, which it listens to and loves, into the present by using it as a kind of "Great European Songbook" as the basis for its own work.

 

Based on this versatile historical material, new pieces are created, in which the "true," immediate musical expression is at the center. The wonderful melody lines, often of almost "heavenly" length and often shaped with touching, yet never primitive pathos, are transferred by the trio into instrumental form – even the hammers of the piano begin to sing. And the harmonically subtle garments in which the melodies are dressed give the music room to breathe, as well as to explore the very different sound palettes that these three acoustically used instruments bring with them. Thus, in many places, a rich sound develops in which the instruments merge with each other. Above the sound fields, there is room for improvisation, sometimes thematically unbound, sometimes picking up melody fragments and motifs and partially breaking the tonality, subtly expanding them into noise. This creates a consistent complexity, a panorama of musical expression.