Wachstum, massenmord

Instrument &...series.
"Instrument &" is not a piece. It is an open project in which every single manifestation is only a splinter of a whole never appearing.

The first performance - Oct. 26 2006 in Berlin at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse - had the subtitle "No Concert" and was more of a public rehearsal, where the players received the musical text only on stage; Parallel to this - and like a primer of this non-concerto process - I read a text - "Program Notes For One Composer"...

The second performance in the Berlin gallery Coma at Jan. 9 2007 has a different musical text to its basis ("Rain Piece") which was rehearsed before as usual, and is derived from the spectral analysis of a rain recording. A type of counterpoint of different times result from a temporary installation of a drip noise (water from a wet rag drips on a drum. The absolutely foreseeable but not repeatable Ritardando of the real water drops and the Da Capo-repetition of a "rain" score remains unforeseeable for the perception- even after repeated reruns.

The third performance or manifestation, premiere on Feb. 1 2007 in the old city hall in Potsdam- combines the instrumentalists (the score can appear in different instrumentations) with a school class. As in the earlier "versions" of the piece, different presences are confronted with each other: Presence loaded with aura and the everyday, the artificial/the fiction (or poetry) and the Here and Now. During the pauses of the "16 pieces" (this time a music that seems rather to listen than to present itself to hearing) the pupils, seated scattered between the audience, simply say what they hear -while the music is silent. (This speaker part also can be performed variably or even taken by the instrumentalists themselves.)

The number 4 of the cycle: A piece for solo cello and a display-window or for a situation in which the cello player is acoustically but not visually separated from the audience. Inside (or in the room of the instrumentalist) there is a microphone on a stand. Outside (or in the audience space) a single loudspeaker is located. Between the microphone-input and the loudspeaker-output is a delay of 500 ms. The sound of the cello (resp. everything which happens in the room of the instrumentalist therfore will be transfered with a delay of half a second to the outside (resp. the audience space). The performer does not know the score and will receive it only immediately before entering the performance space.

Number 5 again is a "rain piece" and its set-up is related to the second piece: A temporary installation (water drops on percussion) is overlayed by a concerto intervention (a recording of rain orchestrated for conducted ensemble). Between the two layers is a third, static continuous level of independent strings with major chords gliding slowly through all registers.

Like the other parts of the cycle the sixth piece also brings up the concert situation as such. This time in the perspective of Schoenberg's chamber symphony, originating from 100 years earlier - and so to speak the foundation piece of new music ensembles. The conductor here is part of the instrumentation because, again, a good part of the piece is not rehearsed before but is presented in the state of a rehearsal.

How this not-piece altogether will continue is uncertain. Elements of earlier performances may reappear in later; the "rehearsal" of the first performance might be continued occasionally; the project's tendency of delay and eternal suspension will maybe continue within other instrumentations and constellations. What else - I don't know yet. And that's the good part of it.