Musical Compositions

The main idea behind the piece is the creation of a dialectic dramaturgy within the mon­o­phon­ic limitations of solo music. During the entire duration, two dialogue partners (played by one and the same mu­si­cian) lead a continuous discussion between two basic motivic materials: long and sustained single notes versus articulated repetitions of short notes.

The piece is subdivided into 7 parts forming three major arcs of suspense: parts 1, 3 and 5 create elongated “dal niente” crescendo lines (in waves), with decreasing durations of the sustained notes and with increasing number and density of the articulated short notes. Parts 2, 4 and 6-7 constitute retrograde “al niente” decrescendo lines. The three culminating climaxes, each at the end of the crescendo and at the beginning of the decrescendo parts, grow in intensity from time to time, resulting in a more and more heated, “wild” and absolutely exhausting debate.

In addition, the majority of motivic cells operates with micro-dynamics (hairpins), thus opening up for the entire harmonic range of the instru­ment, from airy, hollow subtones to high overtones, within short periods of time.

However, these multi-circular behaviours of the dynamics mainly determine the timbre of the instrumental sound. In strong dynamics and due to the exchange of prep­a­ration objects (in shorter sections between the 7 main parts), the prep­a­ra­tions trigger a parallel timbral meta-develop­ment, running from whistling harmonics via sliding harmonics via high animalistic scratching noises to low animalistic scratching noises. This rather linear timbral pro­gres­sion can be listened to as a long timbral glissando downwards und consequently, as a long timbral closing gesture span­ning the entire piece.

Nevertheless, the overall preparation setup for the Paetzold square bass re­corder is arranged in a way that the ordinary recorder sound always remains a well audible sonic foun­da­tion for the aforementioned timbral dramaturgy. During the climaxes, this eventually leads to complex dialogues between up to 4 different timbres of continuous sounds: instrumental sound, vocal sound as well as the sound of two simul­ta­neous preparation objects.

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