In the second half of 2023 my collective (https://acantunkollektiv.com/) and me decided upon our next project.
We wanted to do a project surrounding the 250th anniversary of Caspar David Friedrich in 2024. We quickly found an orchestra to collaborate with (Sinfonietta Dresden · Kammerorchester (sinfonietta-dresden.de)) as well as a dance group (Perform[d]ance e. V. – Zeitgenössische Tanzvermittlung (performdance.de)) for choreography and dancers.
As it is unfortunately the case with organizing concerts as a non-institutional, independent group, it is always unclear (until the financial situation is set tight) whether the project is going to happen, has to be changed a lot of might even fail. So I hope there is going to be recording later that I can share.
Regardless of the circumstances I still wanted to share my compositional approach give an analysis of my work in parts and explain how i turned this into a score.
Basically the whole piece right there…
The Idea
In search of an idea/concept I researched Caspar David Friedrich and found something I found very inspiring. In order for himself to find inspiration he traveled alone into the wilderness, exposing himself to the forces of nature, only taking a sketch book with him to draw in it.
It quickly dawned upon me to somehow recreate this situation only in a slightly more abstract way:
The orchestra is the force of nature
One single dancer is the lyrical subject
The next decision was to divide “the force of nature” into 4 big formal sections corresponding to (albeit a bit esoteric) Water, Air, Earth and Fire (in that order).
Since my piece was going to be the first we had the idea to already have music and dance happening whilst the audience is still entering. So I divided the first part into two sections: one somewhat improvised-free-form section (which I will analyse in this post) and a second one which follows a more traditional approach. The first part is mostly decided by signs gives by the conductor and can last from 8 to 15 minutes.
For this part the orchestra is divided into two groups: Instrumentalists with lighter instruments (like violins, viola, flute, etc.) are placed in the room around the entering audience, whilst the remaining heavier instruments remain seated at their regular position.
The first group is given material and gestures to experiment and improvise with (also with each other) whilst the second group will be gives signs by the conductor to play their corresponding parts.
Since the score is pretty big - too big for this format - I can only present little zoomed-in snippets, but I will try my best to keep it coherent.
Enough exposition, let’s dive into the main part.
On the first page, the woodwinds are instructed (in German) as followed: they are given pitch material and a little example of how to play with it but are free to break away from it. For them the other notations (like senza misura for 2-3 minutes) do not concern them as they are placed in the room.
Same goes for the upper string section.
Their pitch material can be summarized as followed:
Stacked 4ths with one of them being a tritone (C-F#)
Since the first part represents water, I wanted to use a harmonic landscape which in itself has an archaic feeling to it.
With the F# it also kept a somewhat “major” feeling to it since stacked 4ths tend to become “minor” really fast.
There are two elements: A long sustained chord with improvisations section, followed by a “con misura” section which is conducted in regular time. It begins with the former sections and changes back and forth between the two.
For the Horn and Harp I also gave improvisational instructions , though they stayed at their regular place in the orchestra.
The Horn will play long, sustained notes, whilst the harp will arpeggiate with increasing tempo corresponding to the dynamics.
There is a division and change in this “bar” which has to be synchronized by the conductor.
And at the bottom you have the celli and doublebasses play a very long sustained chord which will change at the same time the harp and horn have their material changing as well.
All Instruments stick to the harmonic system of stacked 4ths in some octave in one way or another (so far).
Basic quartal harmony in the strings
Following this idea of waves, of having two elements going from one to the other, I wanted to also apply the same process to the sound itself: by having it become “deconstructed” and “constructed” - “tonal” and “atonal”
This is an example following the first improvisational part. Now were do have a meter (4/4) and you can see a crescendo-decrescendo (and crescendo again).
Coming from a type of “non-sound” -playing on the bridge - and developing into a way more concrete, ordinario, Cmaj#11.
I tried to use a lot of extended techniques in combination with “regular” sounding techniques to further the contrast - but not always. Sometimes it stays a bit more in the “sound design” category rather than a “pitch” category or sometimes it is only very directly tonal.
This process will repeat throughout the first part.
Similar the horn is also instructed to take the mouthpiece off, flip it around and blow just air through the instrument (this technique creates a much more audible wind sound). First playing a fluttertongue effect and then going into single “breath attacks”.
This gesture happens at the same time as the strings in the example above do their gesture.
In the second iteration of this figure the horn plays as follows:
Again, with a development from air to a concrete pitch, but this time with a little twist: Whilst the player will try to play the low F# (C Score), he or she is instructed to sing a small melody on top (which might have to sung an octave higher if it is too low).
After the second repetition there is going to be a big change in tonality. We are coming back to a senza misura section, which will last 2-3 minutes.
The second group of instrumentalists does a dramatic shift away from the previous quartal harmony.
Since group one will still stick to their material (basically a G major scale) and group two will drift to a “Bbmaj7,#9,#11,b13” scale it will create a tonal disconnect between the two groups resulting in a much more dissonant soundscape.
Reduction
From here the whole tonality will find its way back to the initial “Gmaj” tonality by going first to Eb and then back to C maj. Same process once again: going from sounds to concrete pitch (cello on the bridge, doublebass playing a flageolett glissando with a lot of pressure in the first gesture and cello playing a vertical tremolo - bowing up and down - and the doublebass playing a pitch with a lot of pressure).
Having arrived in Gmaj again we come to the last senza misura part.
This time it is only half as long and ends with the crescendo, ending the first big section.
This is also the point where the roaming instrumentalists are instructed to walk back to their seat by the conductor.
I will cover the second part of the “water section” in my next blog post where we will go into the next bit from the image below. So stay tuned.
