... in Annäherung (1997)
(for piano solo )

...in Annäherung for solo piano is part of the cycle half-way house - SOLO XFACH (for Joseph Beuys), which was begun in 1988 and is still being continued as a work in progress.

The four-movement through-composed piano part from Solo 2fach - in Annäherung for flute and piano - also part of the Beuys cycle - served as the structural basis for ...in Annäherung. In Solo 2fach there is no score, the two parts function as individual voices, a time code coordinates common but also opposing structures, a stopwatch is used in the performances.
In the three-part through-composed solo version, the stopwatch is omitted and movements 2 and 3 are replaced by a new movement.

The structures are extremely heterogeneous: fully composed complex sections are juxtaposed with graphic notation, cluster-like sound clusters in the first movement are replaced in the second by extremely spartan single interval actions or static blocks of intervals. The beginning of the third section abruptly ends a longer, multi-layered development with the shattering of glass. The following torso is only a shadow of the previous development.

Sound becomes a pantomime gesture, nothingness, energetic rhythm becomes a stuttering something with muffled strings. In the end, all that remains of the virtuosic, booming piano sound of the first movement is a repetitive pulse, produced on the pedals far from the keys.

Bernd Franke (Translation Edition Peters)