Études (1992)
(for orchestra)

Giving a work the title Etude seems – more than is the case with other compositions – to put the composer under an obligation; perhaps this is why the original meaning of the word has hardly changed up to the present day. It is exactly this limitation to one aspect of the given problem, whether it be the aspect of rhythmic, melodic, harmonic or coloristic character or perhaps an arbitrary combination of these elements, which gives the imagination enough material to conceive music in the most manifold way. From the beginning the endeavours of many composers to make more than a school of fluent perfection out of a mono-thematic idea run through the whole of musical history. And thus the schematic five-finger exercises developed into rampant structures making their own aesthetic demands: high grades of difficulty and the expression of high-quality musical language were expressly allowed to be coupled with one another.

This observation accompanied me when I was working on the Etudes. It was clear to me that it was not to be a case of the transference of solistic virtuosity to all members of a big orchestra; it is not at all necessary to make such demands on individual musicians with a structure of these proportions. The attractiveness of the orchestra is still based on the immanent complexity of the mixtures of sounds and the continual renewal of the principles of interpretation. Every collection of musicians playing together is really worth an etude; the instrument which is created by the formation of an ensemble can master unison polyphonies just as well as archaic settings in several parts or the highest grade of disorder.

My First Etude, commissioned by the Spanish radio station RTVE, is based on rhythmic cells in constant metre, which like cog-wheels of different sizes interlock with one another and continually create new, unexpected rearrangements of the texture. The combinations and quality of the tonal colour are then the result of a constant metamorphosis, whose changes decisively influence form and function; a work of absolute music in the purest sense of the term thus comes into being.

The Second Etude, commissioned by the Bruckner House in Linz, is similarly non-anecdotal. The whole sounding body is built up – like a gigantic organ – by means of the coupling-together of instruments into definite registers. And just as in the art of organ-building, the disposition stipulates manifold combinations; tender and screaming, transparent and impenetrable, cheerfully glowing and darkly muffled.

The harmonic framework of the piece is consistently divided into four-bar sections, whereby each section is dominated by only one single chord, put together according to conditions laid down by a row with a differing number of notes. Supported by abrupt changes of tempo, the chords define the sound character and at the same time the essential nature of each individual section. And thus the amalgamation between logical construction and organically evolving expression, between reduction and extreme denseness, is put into effect in this second piece as well.

As in the two previous numbers of the cycle, there is no change of time in the closing Third Etude, which was commissioned by the Concertgebouw Orchester Amsterdam. The rhythmic patterns of the tone-colours and the metre are interwoven so closely with one another that it is possible to vary this combination in manifold ways. Whereas the
1st Etude was written in 7/4 (4+3) and the 2nd Etude in 5/6 (2+3), the 3rd Etude is based on a 9/8 metre, which is consistently beat in 4 (e.g. 2+2+2+3 or in the variants 2+2+3+2, 2+3+2+2, 3+2+2+2). The 3 as an odd number plays a rôle which – if I may be permitted to say this – could be compared with the malfunction of a floating kidney. (In the course of the work, however, I became aware that no patient would be likely to survive such violent movements of his renal organs in the long run).

I cannot rid myself of the impression that many of the frequent changes of time in the music of this century, including some of my own compositions, are not absolutely necessary or at least were not dictated by urgent necessity. Innumerable changes of time may well come about as a result of the consideration that continual re-determination of metre  is a way of achieving complexity of musical presentation. This can, however, only be the case above all in contexts where the rhythmic structure is intended to emphasize the change from periodicity to aperiodicity. If the metre is composed as an independent parameter, however, and correspondingly treated as if it were in fact a sounding and not a silent framework, then in most cases the resulting effect is not convincing. Such changes of time fulfil no compelling function, neither do they represent an indispensable benefit. Not for the listener and not for the performer either, but rather an increased tension when reading the score. According to customary opinion, complicated notation can have an excitingly positive effect on the visual perception of the piece. The insistence on one single time signature, if this is understood as a restriction consciously imposed on the composer’s craft, must not necessarily lead to monotony. Rather, it is what happens within the bar, the numerous thematic and spatial correlations and relationships of the notes to one another, but also the impressiveness of the way the tone-colours are treated, which play a decisive role in the rhythmic richness of the whole work.

The concept of rhythm takes on in this kind of approach to music an overriding function which permeates all constitutive elements. There is no doubt that theses considerations also played a decisive role in the composition of the Third Etude, which I completed while staying at the Villa Massimo in Rome as an honorary guest of the German Academy in the autumn of 1996.

M. K.