ADDENDUM
In the acoustic production of this short page of text I was not so much intrigued with the more or less ingenious interlinking of music and language - as I had been in my previous audio-pieces - but rather with the disentanglement of music and language in the relation experience / description. Keeping in mind the PULL which takes Arthur Gordon Pym into the antarctic cataract, I, for the first time also, concentrated on working with one voice (that of David Bennent). It is the same pull which takes the fishermen into the maelstrom of the Lofoden - a central motif in the other tale by Poe quoted in the title by Heiner Müller. Having been reminded of that story, I attempt a musical/scenic analysis of its narrative strategy and text structure in the concert "LOOKING UPON THE WIDE WASTE OF LIQUID EBONY". Thus the two performances are separate and complementary.
The music composed for the first performance of MAELSTROMSÜDPOL at documenta 8 last year and recorded exclusively by myself (in quite a hurry), has now been more than rearranged and a completely new recording been made for the performances in Linz and Berlin with the participation of Rene Lussier, Peter Brützmann and Peter Hollinger.
Heiner Müller
MAELSTROMSÜDPOL
The Island of the great bloodshed its inhabitants their customs is it of any use telling about them TEKELILI TEKELILI (that corpse you planted last year in your garden has it begun to sprout will it bloom this year) the southern curtain of mist higher today loses its grey hue the water was gloomy and also looking quite milky heavy surface agitation close to the boat accompanied as usual by a wild flickering at the upper rim of the mist white dust falling on the boat on the water ashen no ashes the mist settles the water is still we ask NUNU why this bloodshed he shows his teeth they are black TSALAL a white animal floating past the water so hot that it burns the hand ashen dust keeps falling the rising curtain of mist changes its outlines a cataract precipitating silently from an enormous weir in the distant sky a white curtain hiding the horizon no sound sudden darkness meanwhile from the milky profundity a radiance a rain of ashes no ashes wanting to bury us OH KEEP THE DOG FAR HENCE THAT'S FRIEND TO MEN OR WITH HIS NAILS HE'LL DIG IT UP AGAIN we are drifting towards the curtain of mist at increasing velocity sometimes there is a rift in the curtain of mist and we look into a whirl of flickering pictures like shreds of photographies in a fire their objects no longer discernible silent gales blowing through the rift across the red-hot water make it flow in their direction huge white birds against the gale TEKELILI TEKELILI we heard their cries on the island but did not see them had they been smaller before the bloodshed the savage twitches with the beat of their wings on the floor of the boat when we touch him he is dead his skin ice-cold his teeth white we cut into his skin no blood after the second cut his corpse vanishes suddenly in the mist reaching for us now THAT CORPSE we are floating on the cataract a wide opening as if to welcome us the foaming curtain of mist closing behind us larger than man an figure in our path THAT CORPSE YOU PLANTED its skin white as snow something is reaching into my brain OH KEEP THE DOG.
