Fiktive Tänze (Zweiter Band) (2008)
(for 16 wind instruments)

Arnulf Herrmann

Fiktive Tänze (2008)
Second volume

For 16 wind instruments

I    Unscharfer Tanz (Zweite Eröffnung)
II   Derber Tanz (Kurzer Rausch 2)
III  Spiralförmiger Tanz
IV  Breiter Tanz

The tension between abstract compositional treatment of material and immediacy of musical effect plays a major role in my work.

For this reason, I was particularly attracted to the genre of dances. Because here an aspect of immediacy is given from the outset through the reference to physical movement.

In any case, the two poles in this field of tension do not represent opposites for me - on the contrary: abstraction usually serves me to be able to describe what I want to express more precisely step by step. It is a necessary tool of approach to find something I don't know at the beginning.

In Fiktive Tänze, Vol. 1 und 2, a simple movement model (a sequence of twelve quarters) is explored in various contexts. The individual dances ultimately describe one and the same object from different perspectives or in different states.

In the first volume, various models were developed that gradually eroded the large temporal unit of twelve quarters from the inside. Put simply, the question was how much irregular things can seem regular and, conversely, how much very regular things can seem irregular.

The second volume now takes one of the models obtained in the first volume and projects it into different contexts. A musical material is sent on a journey, so to speak. The result is a very strict, tightly woven play with rhythms and metres on the most diverse musical levels.

First performed 06 February 2009, Paris, Cité de la Musique (Grande Salle), by Ensemble Intercontemporain, cond.: Susanna Mälkki