Hochschulchor Weimar, conducted by Kerstin Behnke
Live at Saal am Palais, HfM Weimar
PROGRAMME NOTE
(excerpts from a transcript of a radio interview between MDR Kultur and the composer. German to English translation: Rishin Singh)
The composition contains a lot of clusters, where the singers can choose a tone to hum. I heard a lot of very interesting ‘harmonies’ and something like interference. What was important for you when you set these tone ranges against each other?
For the duration of the piece, classical European tuning finally breaks down. The choir becomes more of a vocal field or harmonic field.
Does that make sense?
At different times, the score instructs the singers to sing a note that they can already hear in the room, any note, or certain simple intervals. So the harmony is a product of the score, the room in which the piece is sung, and of the individual decisions made by each singer.
This variety of relationships is important to me.
The work is about the relationship of the individual and the group, the single singer and the whole choir. Why was this important for you?
This musical relationship between the individual singer and the choir as a group reflects the text of the piece as well as the concept behind it. The breathing of each individual choir member affects not only the length of the piece, but also the harmony, the rhythm, the melody and what the other singers in their environment might sing or hum.
I wanted the choir members to experience a sense of autonomy within the larger group, and the responsibility that goes with it: maintaining the music in the room and how every single act affects the choir as a collective.
“species counterpoint” can be interpreted as a lament. Was there an inspiration or a key event for this idea?
Yes, the name “species counterpoint” is a play on words. The piece works as a kind of species counterpoint musically, but the subject of the piece is our relationships with other species, extinction, and how we mourn some non-human deaths but not others.