The way down is the way up II (2010)
(for orchestra)

The starting point for The way down is the way up occurred two years ago when GMD Gabriel Feltz and the Director of the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Dr. Michael Stille, asked if I would be interested in composing a piece for Orchestra with a connection to the Prelude of Wagner’s Rheingold and relating the colour blue and the key E flat major

My composition The way down... is not concerned with the subject nor with the plot of the opera “Rheingold”, and neither have I been influenced by the Saga of the Nibelungs.

The chain of associations was rather: an innovative and exciting Work of the 19th century – an extremely minimalistic Overture restricted to one key – a large Crescendo – The Rhine – Water – Flowing.

I developed these thoughts further:
Water - Flowing - Faltering - Movement – Overtone Series –Harmonic Series - Atmospheres (Colours/Rasa) – Outside – Inside - Denseness – Fields of Energy – Differing perspectives and directions of mobility – Four Movements – References to Symphonic Form and to Symphonic Genre.

Again and again my sources of inspiration draw me to my concerns with natural, physical, sociological and philosophical phenomena, and sometimes also lead to a distancing from European and Eurocentric ways of thinking. 

Movement 1: Water - Flowing - Faltering – Damming up – Differing directions of mobility - Spirals - Waves - Overlappings – Overtone structures - Organic structures - Moveable - Rigid - Mobile -Outside.

Movement 2: Scherzo – Inside – Variations on a chord – The orchestra divide into various layers/streams – continual changings/movements.

Movement 3: Adagio – from the inside and the middle to the outside - a Cantus develops more and more from a linear homophonic structure to a  Polyphony, splintering apart.

Movement 4: Three steps /three parts – Outside – Contrary directions of mobility compared to Movement 1 – Decreasing denseness - Perforation - Deceleration - Compositional Ritardando – As in the first part, several layers – Interval wedges/fourths - Reduction- Bridges to the beginning of Movement 1.

Many Works in the history of music have programmes, develop ciphers, icons, leitmotifs, extra-musical ideas, and stand in the most differing contextual forms to other epochs, arts, genres, people, ideas etc. 
This was also my concern and my inspiration which led me to the personal tonal quality of The way down is the way up (II).

21.8.2010     Bernd Franke