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Schneewitte (Snow White- Youth Opera at the National Theatre Mannheim)

MANNHEIMER MORGEN, 1/12/2008 --- (...) the German premiere of Schneewitte by Jens Joneleit (music) and Sophie Kassies (text) was a great success for the Young Opera at the National Theatre Mannheim with regard to music, aesthetics and education. ...more

SWR 2, 1/12/2008 --- Internationally one of the most respected young German composers, Joneleit makes a seductively beautiful music using beguiling cantilenas and surprising eruptions of sound in his orchestration. (...) Tempo and wit on the one hand and pondering and sadness on the other. The children listen quietly to the ariosos,, then they scream and laugh, along with the action.

Piero

FAZ, 1/10/2008 --- Joneleit's work Piero, performed most authentically by Ensemble Modern under the baton of Yuval Zorn, reveals with remarkable intensity, as indicated in the title, "wandering sounds". These dense sound structures include calm sequences from which violent eruptions of sound break out again and again. Related to a high leading note, the music seems like a water of sound, upon which the situations are floating.

FRANKFURTER NEUE PRESSE, 1/10/2008 --- The solemnity of the music may remind one of melancholy, depression, hopelessness. Nonetheless, it is an invitation to enjoy the whole range of musical impact on the mind calmly, concentratedly and secretly. And this with a new piece of music theatre!

OFFENBACH-POST, 1/10/2008 --- As bold the scene, as magically intensive the music with the quasi lifted choral singing, winged by mezzo-soprano Niina Keitel who soars like an archangel in an aria, constantly changing spatial positions and timbre, the artful melange of natural instrumental sounds and live electronics surprises.

DIE WELT, 3/5/2008 --- The final premiere at the 11th Munich Biennale was the one work that finally managed to captivate: "The Hörstück for Theatre of Wandering Thoughts and Sounds", as Jens Joneleit and his librettist Michael Herrschel name their work, is based on a motif from the Alfred Andersch novel "Die Rote" ("The Redhead") and reminds one in many respects of Luigi Nono.

SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, 2/5/2008 --- His „Piero" turned out to be an extraordinarily powerful, eclectic, inspired musical event, superbly performed by Ensemble Modern under the direction of Yuval Zorn. Sustained sounds, calm, weavings with eruptions and impulses perched up on a high fixed tone for long periods, developed the pulling effect intended by Joneleit.

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REUTLINGER NACHRICHTEN, 6/3/2007 - Beim Wort --- In [Hölderlins texts], Joneleit discovers the potentiality of friction between ego and world which he transforms immediately into a direct and gripping musical language. He so finds the sung and the frizzled, the whispered and the mundane told with an intentional contrast, as modes of speaking and attitudes that hit the listener's as well as Hölderlin's nerve (especially in the piano) with an abundance of differentiated emotions and consequent asceticism.

Le tout, le rien

FONOFORUM, January 2007 --- This is a most expressive music not flinching from clear cuts and extremes of all sorts, but taking them consciously into account. Joneleit (...) is no purist. In fact, his music shows exuberant tonal fantasy as well as a high level of plasticity. Elements of highest resilience are juxtaposed with insisting passages with a tone, a sound that is again and again re-differentiated, coloured and illuminated. (...) It is a music of extremes. (...) These permanent contrasts, occasionally within a very short time, prevent the tension of this full-length work from waning.

SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, 21/10/2005 --- (...) the composer (...) shimmers virtuosically between le tout and le rien, between everything and nothing with vigorously rising chords collapsing immediately and fading away to susurrant misty sound. Pulling effects emerge like in another universe. (...) However, these violent eruptions result in structure, the seemingly involuntary leads to order condensing towards the end, even allowing a dramatic tension.

SÄCHSISCHE ZEITUNG, 4/10/2005 --- Music with this much diversity of timbre will be not heard again for some time. Whether delicate weaving or powerful concentration, Joneleit proves to be a magician with an inexhaustible range.

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AUGSBURGER ALLGEMEINE, 22/5/2006 --- Nah und Fern is a relentless and independent work, that neither the performer nor the listener are able to elude.

Im Bann

SÜDWEST PRESSE, 26/1/2005 --- The highlight of the concert was the very beginning, the premiere of the piece Im Bann composed by the 37-year-old Jens Joneleit. (...) The music is marked by a floating pianissimo of violins with surprising eruptions again and again. This excellent and exciting interpretation by the Christophorus Symphony Orchestra made it quite clear that contemporary music does not require cheap effects, that it can be composed clearly and immediately comprehensible, appealing to an attentive listener.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/7/2003 --- Music you can see and touch... There is nothing both refreshing and oddly nostalgic about a new CD of chamber works by Jens Joneleit, a 34-year-old German composer. Mr. Joneleit’s main concerns are timbre, texture and space, and he uses them inventively and with an almost visual sense of placement. ...more

FONOFORUM, July 2003 --- Jens Joneleit finds home not only in music but also painting – that can be sensed also from his music scores, which possess pleasure for color modulation. The daring venture of a much open creation-process with all its crumbles and questionmarks becomes much more weight than friendly mannered constructions. The ensemble yellow sound turns this finely-granulated – despite manifold reference points (not only Feldman, Nono and Rihm) refreshingly individual chamber music – into a sizzling intensity. A thoroughly (also in terms of sound-quality) brilliant recording. From Jens Joneleit there will much more to be heard yet!

NEUE MUSIKZEITUNG, November 2002 --- Surprisingly deep-felt composed pieces out of its own unique world, which may become more recognizable upon considering Joneleit’s reference to Bruckner (his ability to draw from silence), Feldman and nono. Very much inspiring musicianship.