»How much more harmonious, independent and sophisticated do the musical voices (in the Zafraan Ensemble concert) of three young Berlin composers seem. They strive for a new rhetorical expressiveness in music without subjecting it to simple programs. The music of Israeli-born Eres Holz, a former student of Hanspeter Kyburz, is one of the most exciting discoveries that could be made at the Ultraschall Festival. […] Johannes Boris Borowski’s music sounds strange and eccentric: his new ensemble piece is called Dex, after the abbreviation of a doping drug. The ensemble work Soma by Stefan Keller, on the other hand, initially spirals upwards with physical force – only to then give way to phases of reverberating dizziness.« (Julia Spinola)
»The excellent ten-member Zafraan Ensemble under the direction of Titus Engel plays two works each (by Johannes Boris Borowski, Eres Holz and Stefan Keller): an older one for a smaller cast and a current one for the entire ensemble as a premiere. Everything under the somewhat sought-after guiding concept of sound speech, which is accurate in that all the pieces speak for themselves without explanation […] All pieces and composers that you would like to hear again.« (Albrecht Selge)
»In Keys, the composer Sven Daigger went on a journey to different sound islands. The trio for violin, clarinet and piano vibrated in the battle with the relentless and hard structures, with the distinctively demanding and springy rhythm setting the marching direction. […] The Zafraan Ensemble, which played excellently, received enthusiastic applause.« (Karin Heineke-Dietz)
»This brilliant recording by the Berlin Zafraan Ensemble with five middle-generation composers, including some first recordings, provides an instructive insight into Spain’s currently particularly lively new music scene. Structural complexity and expressive immediacy enter into dazzling symbioses here. […] Miguel Pérez Inesta, the clarinetist of the Zafraan Ensemble, has compressed music by Luys de Narváez from the 16th century into a piece in which the Renaissance template Guardame las Vacas is atomized in a pointillistic manner. In this beautiful two-minute miniature, the entire sound culture of the international formation is revealed and condensed as if in a magnifying glass.« (Dirk Wieschollek)
Nomination for the 2015/01 best list of the German Record Critics’ Prize in the “New Music” category.
»The compositions on the CD, which are excellently captured in terms of sound, are paradigmatic for the palimpsest phenomenon: Miguel Pérez Iñesta shows his arrangement of the movement, created in 2013 Guard lady reads Vacas (1538) by Luys de Narváez, how the old can be hidden under subtle new sound formations, how the sentence structures can be dissolved into surprising color combinations and thereby create a constant sparkle that wraps the historical harmonic turns in a new, colorful robe. […] No matter which aspect of Palimpsesto you look at: The production shows once again that the Testklang label is not satisfied with conventional releases, but rather looks for something special in order to give the buyer the highest quality possible Responsible for the result.« (Stefan Drees)
