Difference and Meeting

music for tenor saxophone and percussion

ca. 11 Min. 30 Sec.
composed and first performance 1994
→ Download pdf 2122 kB
→ Video with score, recording 1994 Oldenburg
→ Christoph Hansen - ten sax and → Axel Fries - perc.

percussion instruments: crotales (2 okt.), 6 tuned small drums, large tom-tom, bass drum)

Introduction

The piece poses the question of the possibility or impossibility of human encounters and, in connection with this, reflects on the importance of communication by means of musical language and its loss. The complicated rhythmic architecture places the two musicians in a situation that demands unconditional engagement with one another, merging into one another and at the same time asserting their own differences.

Performances

First performance:
1994 November 20th: Altes Gymnasium Oldenburg, → Christoph Hansen, ten sax and → Axel Fries, perc.

Further performances:
1994 November 21st: Städtisches Museum Braunschweig, worshop and concert,
1994 November 23rd: Eisfabrik Hannover, worshop and concert,
1995 January 13th: concert exam of the saxophonist Christoph Hansen, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover
1995 February 10th: Kreishaus Hildesheim
1995 February 12th: Schloß Osnabrück
1995 February 13th: Rathausfestsaal Emden
1995 February 18th: Glockenhaus Lüneburg

Review

Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung from 14 Febr. 1995, to the concert from 12 Febr. 1995

With war drums and peace talks
Newly founded oh-ton-ensemble
presents contemporary music in Osnabrück
by → Christine Adam

(...) Another work on approximations: "Difference and Meeting" from 1994 by the young Oldenburg composer Friedemann Schmidt-Mechau.
A rhythmically tense dialogue between tenor saxophone and drums, revolving around the theme of agreement and difference. Highly sensitive, this dialogue, astonishing on how many sound and noise levels both instruments speak an almost indistinguishably identical language. (...)