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MUSIC BETWEEN PHYSIS AND OU-TOPOS Christian Morgenstern describes the »gallows brother« as »an enviable intermediate stage between man and the universe«. Michael Quell's music calls us to this non-place between worlds. In φαντασία – let the molecules race (2016) for soprano and speaking pianist, for example, he sets one of the gallows songs with the appeal: »Let the molecules race […], keep the ecstasies sacred!« – but an ecstasy that more closely resembles the moment when, after hours of chasing after the ecstatic, the lights go on in the club and the people expelled from paradise Warriors of Joy look into the questioning eyes, while the molecules are still racing in the bodies. This ecstatic cross-state of stasis and explosion, of fantasy and materiality, micro- and macrological register represents the driving force that configures the composer's work. Michael Quell opens a space inhabited by music, transcendence, hyperactivity, timelessness, physical and metaphysical substances. Let's start with the first track of the CD, Dark Matter (2011) for oboe, clarinet (bass clarinet) and bassoon. The trio d'anches instrumentation (reed trio instrumentation) has a thoroughly ambivalent position in contemporary music, since the individual instruments have been researched very extensively in their tonal possibilities - think, for example, of the richness of multiphonic playing techniques -, they but surprisingly little has been done in this formation so far. This is where a first peculiarity becomes apparent, which runs through all of Quell's compositions: the use of extended playing techniques is not external, but emanates from the instruments in their relation to the compositional substance, the formation of the musical movement. In case of Dark Matter an impulse from the oboe sets the »primal material«, which is already differentiated in the composed aftertaste. When this process suddenly overturns in its radicalization and we find ourselves in a fundamentally different world of multiphonic, internally moving soundscapes in which time stands still, this is not a superficial turn, it is not a frivolity towards the musical form. Rather, it is the effect of a formal principle that itself deliberately remains in the background, in obscurity - similar to the eponymous motif of dark matter, a scientific hypothesis that itself is not (currently) empirically verifiable, but whose acceptance is necessary in order to to explain observable phenomena of the universe. This leads us to Quell's work titles and ideas and the related formal aspects of his oeuvre. The microscopic, high-resolution definition of each individual sound, no matter how quiet, that comes from the practice of the instrument seems to stand in opposition to the cosmic, transcendental dimension of the work titles, which are mostly figures from natural science, especially (astro)physics and philosophy and theology. These references are by no means external, but crystallize in the concrete structure of the work and its inner dynamic. Musical autonomy is shown by her ability to include what appears to be her exterior in her process. For Meister Eckhart and Suhrawardī: the sound of the wing of Gabriel – ḥikmat al-ishrāq (2017) Quell worked with microtonal guitars developed by guitarist Tolgahan Çoğulu, which not only provide scordatura, but also have a rail under each string that can be used to move frets on each string individually - microtonality is, that shouldn't come as a surprise , anyway a central coordinate in Quell's composing. Originally designed for the realization of maqams (non-tempered modes from oriental music), Quell uses the instruments in the context of contemporary music in order to not only use the guitar in quarter and eighth tones, which would be feasible with scordatura, but also in sixth tone systems and further spectral ones to use soundscapes. This specific microtonal potential finds its exemplary development in a spectral sound symphony over the note Eb in the middle part of the composition. The work is inspired by the 12th century philosopher Suhrawardī, especially the tension between his philosophical Ḥikmat al-ishrāq (philosophy of enlightenment) and the apparently opposite mystical-allegorical Āvāz-i par-i Djabra'īl (The sound of Gabriel's wing), which is articulated in the ambivalence of linear and cyclical time, of »static and dynamic, structure and structural dissolution as well as time and timelessness« (Source) in the structure of the work. The stepping through of a completely new sound cosmos in the sound symphony of the middle section corresponds to Suhrawardī's idea of an additional inner sense between cognition and intuition, which he calls "active imagination" and later "the land of nowhere". This non-place, the ou topos, is the vanishing point of the energetic tension between the micrological articulation of the individual sound and limitless opening - the transcendent formulates modalities of something that is impossible in the conventional horizon of experience, going beyond the given. Quell calls it the »nowhere place, which stands for the transgression of the sensually perceptible in physics, which transcends the known world horizon for which there is only a feeling. I would like to get there with some kind of probe, but at the moment I don’t have the formula language like the mathematician, I have to look for the respective instruments first.« This is less surprising than it appears at first glance. Slavoj Žižek draws attention to the constitutively filled gaps in exact science, for example when Newton, in order to calculate the acceleration of empirical objects, had to start from the ideal situation of an absolute vacuum, which we never find in reality. »So modern science has to start from the impossible-real in order to explain the possible«. (Zizek) And isn't Michael Quell dealing with exactly this constellation? The articulated musical figures seem to follow a structural core that remains hidden while the consequences of its assumption are perceived. This assumption becomes active in characteristic musical settings. The previously mentioned motif of a "pure primal tone" not only sets in Dark Matter, but also in Master Eckhart and A Blurring Cloud musical development in progress. In String II—Graviton (2015/16) for Nonet musically the opposite seems to be taking place, the development proceeds from an indefinite, rushing »uratem« (source), which gradually develops into a clear tone. However, both approaches – from single tone to differentiation / from noise to single tone – are based on a principle that works in the background, but which never appears in the foreground and thus enables the enigmatic character, the visionary. The formal envelopes in which e.g. Am Dark Matter and especially in A Blurring Cloud in a middle part the time comes to a standstill or as in dust aggregation at the end of which it seems to melt away. In these decisive moments, the form does not proceed as a simple linear process, but rather the »turning« of the form at a hidden pivot opens up »again and again new sound universes of multiple energetic processes«. (source) This constellation becomes thematic in the composition A Blurring Cloud – Creatures of the Journey (2012), which is sparked off by a quote from Botho Strauss: »Because we are only creatures of the journey and our form is fluctuation, rustling cloud«. The fluctuation translates into a fractal musical expression on all levels, on the micro level as a movement between the spread of fixed material and its constant transformation in all registers, on the macro level through a constant shifting of the formal perspective, so that the piece takes us from a musical world in the next falls without the transitions appearing as breaks. The question of what is actually happening here only arises when it has already happened. Musical form is not a container that we fill with tones, but rather this passage between the spheres and A Blurring Cloud – Creatures of the Journey, the composed manifesto of this fluctuation. Of course, the concept of the manifest contradicts Quell's formal approach, which does not consist in the manifestation of a tangible principle, but - on the contrary - in its withdrawal and simultaneous transcending. Whether in Dark Matterin dust aggregation or in A Blurring Cloud – Creatures of the Journey, the musical dynamics do not follow any previously fixed and simply processed construction plan, but rather takes place in its transcendence, which is articulated anew in every musical form. Such a manifesto can therefore only be music. Jim Igor Kallenberg program: [01] Dark Matter for oboe, clarinet (bass clarinet) and bassoon (2011) 13:09 [02] φαντασία – let the molecules race for soprano and speaking pianist(2016) 06:28 [03] Meister Eckhart and Suhrawardī: the sound of the wing of Gabriel – ḥikmat al-ishrāq for four microtonal guitars and piano (2017) 11:34 [04] dust aggregation for flute, double bass and piano (2017) 11:51 [05] A Blurring Cloud – Creatures of the Journey for violin, guitar and piano (2012) 16:45 [06] String II—Graviton for ensemble in nonet formation (flute, two clarinets / bass clarinets, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass) (2015/2016) 11:15 Total playing time: 71:37 Ensemble Adventure Guests:
World premiere recordings Press:
165 / May 2020 Beckmesser's Choice Fantastic imagery Max Nyffeler
December 2019 (...) Quell's mastery lies in being able to tell a story musically, to create dramaturgical sequences, to think in coherent structures, without indulging in cheap singing. (Tilman Urbach) |
