Introduction

The ideology of the bourgeoisie has given rise to two opposing principles. One can be found in the maxim of progress, which soon became associated with the concept of growth and subsequently narrowed down to the increase in wealth of the few. The other is the idea of eternal recurrence, which arose “when the bourgeoisie no longer dared to face the impending development of the production order it had set in motion” – according to Walter Benjamin in his Passagenwerk [D 9,3]. When these two opposing approaches interact, they perpetuate the narrow conception of progress and thus prevent any qualitative change. According to Fredric Jameson, the end of the world is more conceivable than the end of capitalism. This results in a widespread feeling of powerlessness and helplessness. In order to resist resignation, the incompatibility of these two principles must be made visible and a broader field of utopias and possibilities for thought must be opened up.
In ‘Sand,’ I ask myself how these last two points can be realised musically.
This involves both movement and stillness. Where a situation saturated with tension is brought to a standstill, dialectics come to the fore.
For the compositional work, this means dealing with disparate material and creating separate forms of music for each of these materials.
In three sections, the instruments play at their own tempo without coordination, while in one section the instrumental playing follows the rhythm of a jointly recited text. Other sections with a common tempo are interspersed with unpredictable long pauses, while individual sections form a continuous sequence. Only the “thresholds” connect the contrasting parts. Cyrus Atabay's recited poem transforms the basic idea into a poetic level, thus creating an additional contrast in the rather brittle piece.

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Performances