A violin note is not a rough rock, nor is a bird croaking above the snow, and the breath from a flute is not the wind blowing over the Sami National Park in the far north of Scandinavia. The sounds in these five audio landscapes are far from naturalistically reproducing reality. Yet, to stay with the image, they lead to a state of aural "contemplation." They transform landscape experiences into music that—and this is what makes it so special—can be experienced like a landscape.
All of the places of inspiration are noted in the titles. However, the translation of actual experiences into music never becomes concrete. Nevertheless, something essential is conveyed: colors, rhythms, topographies, tempos, and densities of acoustic events. The material is almost always very limited, one could almost say barren, but perhaps these are precisely the landscapes that leave the deepest impressions on Dorothee Schabert. All five compositions refer to remote regions: the Sami National Park north of the Arctic Circle, a valley in the French Massif Central, or a stay in rural Sicily. What the chosen motifs have in common is that they do not overwhelm with an abundance of information, but rather with a concentration on a few, yet elementary elements. One can listen to this music at one's leisure. The materials become more familiar bar by bar, while the slightly varied repetition leaves room for one's own thoughts, feelings, and images.
The composer and author Dorothee Schabert studied history, philosophy and German studies (state examination 1977) in Freiburg as well as music at the Berlin University of the Arts: graduate sound engineer plus compositional subjects (until 1985).
From 1987 to 2017, Schabert worked as a sound engineer, initially for the SWF in Tübingen, and from 1992 onwards for SWR2 Musik in Baden-Baden, she was responsible for the musical direction of radio and CD productions (chamber music and especially contemporary compositions) with the SWR Symphony Orchestra under renowned conductors and well-known soloists. With the SWR Experimental Studio and its former director André Richard, she produced the late electro-acoustic works of Luigi Nono for SACD and radio.
At the same time, she created compositions for instruments and voices in various ensembles, as well as acousmatic works and sound installations – often in collaboration with artists from other art forms. Her works have been performed in Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Cologne, Darmstadt, Rome, New York, and Berlin, among others.