unseen blue (I) (2002)
(for bandoneon and five male voices)

What do the bandoneon and the Amarcord ensemble have in common?
They both come from Saxony!

The bandoneon is one of the most unusual and ‘theatrical’ instruments in music history with a fascinating and sometimes dramatic history: 

Brought into its final form in 1854 by Heinrich Band from Krefeld, then built in Saxony as a folk music instrument and also an organ substitute in Carlsfeld near Crimitzschau, it was brought to South America by European emigrants at the end of the 19th century and quickly established itself as the main tango instrument on the Rio de la Plata in Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century (in Germany, people continued to play folk songs diligently in bandoneon orchestras - even in Leipzig! ), in the 1930s the proletarian bandoneon clubs were banned by the Nazis, after 1945 the decline of Saxon bandoneon production in Carlsfeld due to nationalisation and new musical developments, survival of the bandoneon as a world music instrument primarily with the help of individual musical personalities such as Astor Piazzolla, Rodolfo Mederos and Per Arne Glorvigen (who, as a Norwegian living in Paris, occupies a special position in the scene).

Enough enlightenment! Enough material for a piece for voices and bandoneon! (and also for a concerto for bandoneon and orchestra, which was written in the same year as the first part of unseen blue...)

Change of scene:
June 2002, Pittsburgh, USA: during a visit to a James Turrell exhibition at the Mattress Factory, the title of a magical, very blue light installation sticks with me: unseen blue.
Over the following weeks, texts in four different world languages (except German) are incorporated into a cycle for voices with bandoneon - the ‘unseen blue’ connects.
Different texts from very different eras and styles: Shakespeare alongside

Rimbaud, Contursis next to Pavese, spoken and sung, whispers, collages and scraps of language, dramatic and static, brutal, cheeky, trivial.
Not the entire breadth of human expressiveness, but nevertheless a great many different things should stand and sound side by side in a small space.

Flashback in March 2006:
After the premiere of unseen blue, part 1, there was an immediate idea for a second part, a continuation of the collaboration with Amarcord and Per Arne.
In the meantime, Amarcord sang the a cappella versions of unseen blue worldwide on their tours, in Europe, the USA and even in South East Asia, including Bali and Malaysia.
The decisive impetus for the new texts came, as so often, from my English writer friend David Bengree-Jones: he suggested bundling the texts cyclically and reverting to the old rondeau form. The result was a conglomerate of two new and three old rondel/rondeau poems. David Bengree-Jones wrote two new poems especially for this cycle in 2005, formally based on the rondeau form of the famous French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut.
The two English poems are counterpointed with two French poems by Machaut and one Italian poem by Lodovico Agostini. I was particularly fond of Machaut and found him inspiring, as my teacher at the time, Siegfried Thiele, familiarised me intensively with Machaut's compositions when I was a student.

In terms of composition, this time I am increasingly drawing on linear and modal structures, working with a wide variety of classical counterpoint techniques, but combining these with modern means such as aleatoric and minimal structures. The old rondo form has naturally influenced my pieces formally. I have tried out different solutions in the compositions.

The two Machaut texts are extremely aleatoric and individually worked, there is no longer a score here, only individual voices or layers. The two texts by Bengree-Jones are composed in a much more homophonic style, sometimes even with a minimalist influence.
The linear approaches were inspired by my interest in Indian, Arabic and Southeast Asian music, in which modal and linear structures are still alive today, and also by musical experiences on my travels through India and Southeast Asia. On the other hand, I have of course also been influenced by sound and verticality, by the classical European musical tradition, but also by jazz, rock and pop music.

The result is unseen blue, a colourful kaleidoscope of different techniques, colours and feelings, reflecting a part of my musical world view.