"Und ich war scwach und "poetisch" genug, die Brache seines Geistes mit der "winterlich ruhenden Erde" zu vergleichen, in deren Schoß das Leben, neues Sprißen vorbereitend, sich heimlich fortrege..."
Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus
The title of the piece is a quotation of Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus. Mann compares the apparent non-creation of the personage and composer Adrian Leverkusen with the winter sleep of the earth, in which new life starts slowly to grow under the earth, but becoming visible later, long after the process already started.
This metaphor of the visible and invisible world, was an inspiring impulse to work on a kind of process that I would call of organic; that is, processes that due the extreme time expansion are perceived as having no change (almost regulars).
In another context, the sentence of the title is used like a musical poem, where the time flowing is determined by the rhythm of the words:
Win - ter - lich
Ruh - en-de
Er - de In this piece there are two kinds of compositional processes: those that are perceived as a periodic gradual changing - the dramatic process -, and those that, due the time expansion, are perceived as having no change (almost regulars) - the organic process. On one side the tension between the expectation created by the listener and the sonorous reality, on the other side, the process that mirrors, so to say, the internal life of the work (like the biological life of a living being is in permanent evolution).
During the writing of the piece, the re-reading of initial processes took me to other processes that go against the first ones introducing a new dimension, eventually becoming more important. There are also parts that suggest a improvisation, using the structural inertia of previous sections.
A continuous dialogue between structure (the abstract), writing (the real), and freedom (the imagination).
"...Winterlich Ruhende Erde..." is dedicated to Leonor and Adriano.
Luís Pena
Circulation
Work
Type
Date
Organization/Event
Venue
Town
Country
Performers
Notes
Inv Row
... Winterlich ruhende Erde ...
Premiere
2001/May/17
Folkkwang Hochschule Essen
Essen
Germany
Thomas Piel (cello)
Notes
... Winterlich ruhende Erde ...
Performance
2007/Dec/11
St. Matthäus Church
Berlin
Germany
Ensemble Adapter:
Wolfgang Zamastil (cello)
Notes
"Singles.2"
12th concert of the "Klangnetz" series
"Singles.2"
12th concert of the "Klangnetz" series
