→ Performances
From this World's Black Earth

Concert cycle of 17 pieces
for 2 recorders, chitarrone, viola da gamba, and harpsichord
and 16 poems about exile

(ca. 85 Min.; comp. & FP 1992)
Poems of: → Zafer Senoçak, → Erich Fried, → Mazisi Kunene, → Odia Ofeimun, → BahadurTejani, → Suleman Taufiq, → René Schwachhofer, → Ferreira Gullar, → Martin Gumpert, → Nelly Sachs, → Hasan Dewran, → Noémia de Sousa, → Nicolás Guillén, → Alberto Vanasco, → Şiir Eloğlu and one poem of the Yoruba

dedicated to the → camerata moderna


→ Download legend pdf 300 kB
Download of music at the single pieces

The pieces No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 are composed in commission for the Town of Oldenburg for the awarding the Carl von Ossietzky-Preis 1992. They were first put together with the title „Sechs Stücke mit Lesetexten“ (“Six Pieces with Lyrics to Read“) and edited in the documentation for the Carl von Ossietzky-Preis, Edit. of the Stadt Oldenburg, Kulturdezernat: Bemmann, Helga: Kurt Tucholsky - Ein Lebensbild. Sassin, Horst: Die Robinsohn-Strassmann-Gruppe 1934-42. Charakterinseln im Schlammsee des Dritten Reiches. Holzberg, Oldenburg 1993.

The pieces of music are to be performend allone. If the cycle is performed comletely the poems should be spoken between the pieces.

Introduction


The music reflects the lyrics without interpreting them, takes up text motifs to concentrate its own associations, but leaves the strangeness of the lyrics and their message open. First of all, they want to be taken as condensed human statements, whose necessity is hardly comprehensible, even suppressed in this country - the pogroms of Hoyerswerda, Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Mölln and Solingen speak a clear language. They want to be heard, perceived. That's why the music wants to open.
The fact that we have our wealth, which we have given as an inseparable gift to our conception of humanity, which is oversized majority of the people we condemn to poverty, and the fact that when these people show up in our great chariot, we meet them with pogroms, unable to listen to them, these facts prove how much we are in the attitude of repression, the preservation of vested rights and the eternally old „We have known nothing of“ are under arrest.
No one living in Europe can be absolved from such arrest. The composition of the cycle „From this World’s Black Earth“ is perhaps the attempt to distance oneself from the background of general mendacity and in the assessment of one's own powerlessness and entanglement to at least begin the search.


The individual pieces and poems


→ 1. Bottomless in Expectation
for 2 recorders (sopr in C, alto in F), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

auch am Zaun
ragen die Äste
von Garten zu Garten
geben sich die Blätter
zu einem Wald

→ 2. FleetingReflexiveRelation - for recorder (tenor in C)

Kann der Kulturschock
bei Begegnung
mit fremden
Kulturen
den Schock verringern
den mir
meine eigene
bringt?

→ 3. FerventRetort - for chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

Europe
You laughed at the blind men
But you yourself were blind.
Struggling in this great night.
Children have inherited the fire.
They blow ist flames to the skies
Burning others in their sleep.

→ 4. Bitter Sediments - for 2 recorders (voice flutes)

And how ca I sing
When they stuff cobwebs in my mouth
spit the rheum of their blank sense
of direction in my eyes
- who will open the portals of
my hope in this desultory walk?

→ 5. Distraught Toward One Another
for 2 recorders (alto in G, voice flute), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

Only one solace:
there have been
others too,
lingering in that twilight,
who shed
home and country
and at times
colour

→ 6. Open Eyelid from the Depths - for viola da gamba

squashed
like an insect
sent
into exile
they make him into
a refugee
they are looking for him

→ 7. Roots of Stone - for 2 recorders (tenor in C) and chitarrone

Ich trage das Schandmal der Armut
Durch meine Träume treiben
die Verfolgten und Elenden.
Mich berührt der Aussatz der Erde -
Meine Stimme füllt sich mit Haß.

→ 8. Spring Crush - for viola da gamba and harpsichord

auch die Früchte
die wir nicht essen werden
machen den Abend
(Euren
Abend, an dessen Rand ich stehe)

→ 9. The Salt Of The Rose - for chitarrone

Euch ist die Macht geraubt, euch zu erschrecken
Euch ist der Ton versagt, um aufzustöhnen
Euch ist das Glück versagt, vor Scham zu weinen.

→ 10. Where to Pause? - for 2 recorders (alto in G), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

We are so sore that we believe we are dying
when the gutter curses us.
The gutter doesn’t know it,
but it cannot bear
such a burden,
is not used to seeing
a volcano of pain
erupting in it.

→ 11. Tricking from Dreams
for 2 recorders (alto in F), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

The thunderstorm of poverty broke
Took the lives of bradless people with it
Split their destiny off from Anatolian soil
And washed them up on foreign banks

→ 12. Lack of You - for 2 recorders (voice flute, tenor in C) and viola da gamba

For I’m nothing but a shell of flesh
Where Africa’s revolt congealed
Ist cry pregnant with hope.

→ 13. On an Inner Road - for harpsichord

Ohne uns zu kennen, werden wir uns am Hunger erkennen,
an der Tuberkulose und an der Syphilis,
an dem an schwarzer Börse gehandelten Schweiß,
an den Kettenresten,
noch immer der Haut verhaftet

→ 14. Carved into the Heart
for 2 recorders (alto in F, voice flute), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord

Die Wasser der Inexistenz dürfen nicht weiter ansteigen
Die schweren Alkohole des Vergessens dürfen nicht länger fließen
die langsamen Schamröten des Verbrechens dürfen nicht länger schweigen

→ 15. Possible Succession - for recorder (sopr. in C)

Zurück
Auch die Gedanken müssen mitgenommen werden
die Gedanken an Sehnsucht und Wärme
man braucht sie nicht mehr
Doch es bleiben andere Gedanken
die an Hohn Schweiß und Verachtung
Diese lassen sie zurück
denn sie gehören hierher

→ 16. bedeutlichkeitshalber - for chitarrone and harpsichord

Incantation to Cause the Rebirth of a Dead Child

Death catches the hunter with pain.
Eshu catches the herbalist in a sack. (...)
The black soil of the earth is on the farm.
The red soil of heaven is in the grave.
You my child,
Oludande, you born-to-die,
Return from the red soil of heaven.
Come and eat the black soil of this world
Yoruba-Tradition

→ 17. Until One Voice Reaches Another
for 2 recorders (sopr. in C, alto in G), chitarrone, viola da gamba and harpsichord


Performances


First performance: of the pieces No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11 titled „Sechs Stücke mit Lesetexten”
1992 May 4th: Stadtmuseum Oldenburg, award ceremony of the Carl von Ossietzky-Preises 1992 of the town of Oldenburg; → camerata moderna: → Ulrike Volkhardt - rec., → Ulrike Nitz - rec., → Ulrich Wedemeier - chit, → Simone Eckert - viola da gamba and → Karl-Ernst Went - harps.

Further performances of this pieces with the camerata moderna:
1992 October 2nd: St. Michaelskirche Waldkirch/Brsg,
1992 October 3rd: Kaufhaussaal Freiburg;
1992 October 4th: St. Marthakirche Nürnberg,
1992 October 10th: Eisfabrik Foro Artistico Hannover

First performance of the whole cycle:
1992 November 20th: Kulturzentrum Peter-Friedrich-Ludwig Oldenburg; camerata moderna and → Christina Böckler Speaker

Further performances of the whole cycle:
1992 November 29th: Kunsthalle Bremerhaven
1996 June 8th: Gießhaus Kassel, concert of the ERTA-congress; with → Eckhart Kuper - harps.

Further performances of single pieces:
1994 May 31st: Sprengel-Museum Hannover, Nr. 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14
1994 June: Repeat of 1994 May 31st in Nürnberg
1995 January 20th: (Premiere) Dance Theatre in the courtyard, Hannover; 16 Repeats between 1995 Jan. 21st and Febr. 26th, Nr. 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14
1998 July 4th: Amsterdam, unknown selection

Recordings and broadcast:
1992 May 9th: CD production of the camerata moderna: „Palimpsest“ R & M Digital Music Nürnberg, 2-1023
1992 November 29th: Recording of the concert in Bremerhaven
1993 October 27th: Broadcasted by Radio Bremen 2