partitur (score download)

*note: These recordings are uploaded to the Leider (my art-song ensemble) Soundcloud profile for reasons of managing space. The composition is by me, and performed by Martin Sturm*

Organ: Martin Sturm. Unreleased demo recording, recorded at the Liszt Organ, Denstedt DE

PROGRAMME NOTE

“mewl infans” was written following extensive research into the organ landscapes of Saxony and Thuringia, Germany.

The historical organs in these regions, despite the hundreds of years between their respective constructions and renovations, offer great flexibility in tone colour, timbre, wind pressure, articulation, and dynamic range. Any seeming lack of diversity in stops and manuals is more than compensated for by the very “human” aspects of these instruments. It appears to me that, when playing these instruments, the organist is involved in a deep relationship with the physicality of the instrument and the wide array of sounds that they can make together.

In my music, such human flexibility is crucial. The huge variety in colour and volume, and the universe of tiny details within each sound really encourage the organist to be, first and foremost, a virtuosic listener.

“mewl infans” can be thought of as a drawn-out, microscopic investigation into the physicality of a single organ note: the journey it goes through from key pressure to wind noise to tone to reverberation and finally dissipation is extended over four movements and 40-plus minutes.

The relationship between organist and instrument is key throughout the work. Sometimes the piece asks of the organist to relinquish ideas of any sort of control they might have over the instrument; at other times the piece calls for attempts at constant, intervening control of the instrument and especially the specifics of the way air travels through each of the pipes.

Finally, the piece concludes through the agency of the instrument itself: switched off, it contains only a limited amount of air with which to produce sound. So the final movement ends whenever the instrument can longer emit sound from wind pressure alone, no matter how far into the movement the organist has played.