"Film/Music" — Concert 2

The music “extends” Gerhard Richter’s experiment of decomposing a reproduction of one of his Abstract Images into vertical stripes around the domain of sound and time. The title refers to the attempt to translate Gerhard Richter’s artist book Patterns: Divided, Mirrored, Repeated (2011) into a film with music for the Ensemble Musikfabrik.

This “extension” takes place at the level of the material and the musical syntax. Formal parts are repeated and mirrored in different scales. Complex chords are pushed closer and closer into each other on a vertical level until they produce microtonal lines. These are repeated and unfold again into motivic material, finally becoming audible as a spectrum augmented into the world of overtones.

Furthermore, Richter’s Patterns is a double “extension” of Richter’s conception: on the cultural level as well, the composition reflects the process to which the famous painter subjects and reworks his own material. The relationship of painting as well as music to patterns, models, ornamentation — and thus to decor as well — has been repeatedly problematized and de-problematized in the theory of 20th-century art. It becomes a springboard, a trampoline for Richter’s patterns, as varying epochs of music and art from the second half of the 20th century are seemingly reflected in the composition.

More information on Marcus Schmickler and his work can be found here.

On first viewing, the film Moving Picture 946-3 is simply astonishing – its radiance, its mesmerizing and absolute focus, and in particular how one’s sense of time becomes suspended. Observing the minute particles of the visual image, one seems to be drawn right inside fragments of colour. The music in turn investigates the filigrane nuances of each musical fragment: tracing the grain of sonic colour, going into the core of a timbre, and tracing the very particles of sound.

The music to Moving Picture 946-3 draws on the numerous sound sessions I have shared with Marco Blaauw over the last 17 years. When the trumpet plays, I close my eyes and I hear a voice, not an instrument. It is as if Marco is singing – a strange song, but still a voice. The natural lyricism of the trumpet is almost like an ancient song and it lends well to a timeless static music. This music is essentially melodic, but the lyrical lines are extremely elongated, stretching the material, following and developing every timbral nuance.

More information on Rebecca Saunders and her work can be found here.

Together with young people from Lucerne, the Icelandic composer, poet, and performer will develop a vocal sculpture to get audiences in the mood for the concerts over the course of a five-day workshop. Festival dramaturge Mark Sattler interviewed Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir about her project.
 

More information on Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir and her work can be found here.