Episode 176 “Wochnik’s Weekend”: Unfinished music

Bertolt Brecht as soon as put it succinctly: “The smallest social unit just isn’t an individual, however two individuals.” As a result of it is just within the in-between of human interconnections that life, fascinating anecdotal gossip and, final however not least, artwork can emerge. This yr’s version of the Competition for New Music, the Klangwerkstatt, goals to unravel this credo.

And since the identify says all of it, what’s new about new music and the workshop character of the works are as soon as once more within the foreground: what has simply been composed, what’s at the moment being completed and momentary intermediate levels of collective composition processes are to be carried out.

A lot for the terminology. The entire thing then turns into actually fascinating on a sensual degree. For instance, if, when listening to the music premiered right here, one expresses a elementary doubt concerning the work, listens for what’s unfinished, what just isn’t totally thought via, for hints of futures and issues that won’t final past its premiere. For instance, with one of many works by Jürgen Kupke, Denis Stilke or Florian Bergmann, which the Kreuzberg clarinet collective premieres on Monday afternoon.

The latter, by Florian Bergmann, anticipates the potential of its disappearance in its personal title: “al niente” (into nothingness) for clarinet ensemble appears on the identical time just like the antithesis of the well-known “Dal niente” (1970), i.e. “out of nowhere” for clarinet solo by Helmut Lachenmann.

“The Undanced Tango” by Christian Korthals, which might be premiered on Sunday morning within the model for chamber orchestra by the Free Youth Orchestra Faculty of Berlin, additionally has the negation of itself in its identify, whereas “Floating Rotation” by Charlotte Seither suggests permanence. And rightly so, because the rating was created in 2003.

When you additionally take into account how a lot meals a small group of individuals can eat throughout a live performance, the ephemeral nature of the sound is met on nearly all ranges. Synesthetic “desk music with lunchtime snack” might be offered 5 occasions over the course of the approaching week, not simply the weekend, from Spain, Austria, Nice Britain, Armenia and Romania.

How smug Schopenhauer instantly mentioned: “What makes individuals sociable, however, is their incapability to tolerate loneliness and themselves in it.” This was not meant uncritically. You your self, he additionally mentioned, are solely in solitude. However who desires that?

There’s undoubtedly no hazard of turning into lonely through the 9 days of sound workshop. You possibly can hear acts reminiscent of Ensemble Mosaik (picture) & Klexos, the piano duo Sugawara & Hemmi, Ensemble Lux:Nm & Bazar Électrique, Georg Katzer Ensemble, CoMA Allcomers Orchestra with Ensemble KNM Berlin, Collective Unruhe, the Ukrainian vocal ensemble Alter Ratio and lots of others worldwide performers.