Die Stücke der Windrose (1993)
(Südwesten )

In this piece – commissioned by the Kyoto International Contemporary Music Forum and the Goethe-Institut Kyoto – my journey begins on the west coast of Mexico and ends in New Zealand. The Society and Fiji Islands, Western Samoa, New Caledonia and Tuvalu lie on this route. It is these areas, which are still mysterious for music, that particularly appeal to me because I am not yet personally familiar with them. All the more reason to translate the fascination of faraway places into sound from afar.

Characteristic sounds of this region can be heard above all in the percussion instruments: slit drum or log drums, conch trumpet, tam-tam and gongs, bull roarer, angklungs and some sounds produced by instruments that are difficult to describe. The idea is to be inspired by this region of the world in order to write a free realization. The listener should judge whether this was successful enough to set his own imagination in motion.

M.K.
(Translation Edition Peters)