"in this music you will find among others..
a) maybe a computer programme
b) a prerecorded tape in play-back
c) an exact score
d) aleatory gesture
e) improvisation spaces
and there are also
culminations
concentrated sounds
something soft ...
And all that shall lead to a music which can exist without a big
programmatical background - which is almost always a makeshift solution - and
has a message and is impressive.
Thomas Pernes in June, 1984
ABOUT THE REALIZATION OF THE MUSIC:
The starting point for the production of the tape, which will be used
as a play-back and as the basis of the performance in the Brucknerhaus was
interesting and full of tension.
In an initially very nervous studio atmosphere there should - starting from a
not too exact score (from a proportional note picture via verbal
characterizations to a graphically designed gesture) well, music should be
developed in this deliberately chosen notation (so as to leave space for
spontaneously introduced ideas), a music, strong enough to span a period of one
hour, music of a certain validity in spite (or in consequence of) the
originally demanded spontaneous realization.
In order to get to the desired results from this rather difficult beginning, we needed (and, as I have to stress, we actually had): the total commitment of the musicians, their courage and their unlimited joy to solve these problems with me - the particular joy of musicians, a master in his trade each of them, a joy allowing to realize music that has the power of breaking out in order to be free for the realization of very personal, very intimate - and therefore strong - ideas, dreams and hopes.
WORK DESCRIPTION OF "TOBIAS ZAPFEL"
Classically trained mind
Thinking in terms of development over a long period, thinking in wide arches.
We put up with high concentration, a lot of brainwork in order to come to that point, from where retrospectively everything happened until then becomes logically explicable, where everything is suddenly easy to understand and from where you are carried on. Suddenly everything is quite easy.
-
- And these are points that can be reached only so:
only by this demanded, necessary concentration, which the composer needs as well as the listener.
- these are the points or also "spaces" where one goes deeper and deeper, in advance to experiences (most subtle images of emotion), because we (the composer and the listener) have ACTIVELY created a podium that makes every sound, every motive, every tone, every rhythm sound different (and it does not go farther, for you cannot work with other than your limited material, although in many different combinations, but this does not change the material itself).
Which means: you have to practise magic with musical elements.
Just as Marcel Duchamp transforms a bottle support by putting it quasi on a
pedestal (in a museum), on a pedestal built from a variety of thoughts.
These points in music may be found in every single piece in different
places.
If for instance in "Le Marteau sans Maitre" by Pierre Boulez the wonderful end
has been reached, where the sound consists mainly of soft, resounding
percussion, then this above mentioned point has been reached quite at the end.
In my Linz Music there is an example, which will be easy to watch, that here
the same material is used twice - and for the second time after a development.
Here we have a F sharp, appearing first as centrally oriented, which
means, that the F sharp is used as sound centre, from where one can start, but
also where a goal can be found - quasi as a resolution. (As in functionally /
harmonically oriented music - the "tonal musi" - in the cadence the basic
principle of:
Starting point - leading away - returning - resolving is included.)
The first F sharp (appearing in four sound complexes directly following each other) is the sound center.
And this first F sharp is transformed and made the key-note F sharp at the second time, towards the end of the piece, the key-note for a sound suspended between F sharp major and f sharp minor.
Here we reach a degree of resolution, which is much stronger and goes farther than the one of the first F sharp complex, which is nevertheless not "tonal", because this f-sharp-minor-major stands free in space without functional/harmonical context, but which - if this music has been successfully made - expresses what I have defined above as "Suddenly everything is quite easy".
Thomas Pernes, July 14th, 1984
