Gesänge der Unruhe (2003)
(for ensemble)

The Songs of Restlessness refer to texts by Fernando Pessoa, which were published in the volume ‘The Book of Restlessness’. Nevertheless, the four movements of the work are purely instrumental chamber music, i.e. without a vocal part. Pessoa's world is populated by numerous fictitious poets he created, his so-called heteronyms, who spread out a polyphonic and heterogeneous song. This contains a turn to the spirit, to a form of spirituality, which, however, renounces any outward appearance: ‘but what metaphysics would be better than that of the trees, which do not know what they live for, do not know that they do not know?’ In my music I also seek this radical nakedness, through which a questioning, tender and fragile spirit can find its space.

Sidney Corbett, November 2003