Johannes Maria Staud: Whereas the reality trembles

Art is powerful. Music, because it is so abstract, is especially so. Unlike the toxic political discourse of our time, it can operate in nuances, addressing the ambiguous, the fragile, the fleeting. It can be poetic, dramatic, playful, wild, ghostly, and tender all at once. It has no lobby interests, and therefore cannot be instrumentalised, corrupted, and can show reality–indeed, as a model for politics and society–as it truly is: vibrating, oscillating, flickering, trembling, quivering. Iriscent and multifaceted in the fullness of possible meaning spaces… the list of synonyms is almost unlimited.

 

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963), the great guiding star of American modernism, the magician of the »Jittering Directions«, is the ultimate model for this. From his wonderfully timeless poem April (from the collection Della Primavera Trasportata al Morale), written in 1930, I derived the title for my music for percussion and orchestra.

 

The soloist in my work interacts with the orchestra on equal terms. They are equal partners, inspiring and complementing each other, engaging in discourse. At times they pull together in the same direction, only to later explore different musical realms individually. The balance between expectation and surprise, between playfulness and musical substance, is precisely calibrated.

 

My five-part work begins with the tempered world of the marimba (wood) combined with the slightly untempered sound of the alpine bells (metal), with the orchestra’s pulsing accompaniment providing a spring-like momentum. It constantly expands. It connects familiar instruments (such as bongos, drums, woodblocks, and crotales) with the unknown (such as flowerpots, metal cans, thunder plates, or wooden boxes). The solo percussion sometimes forms unusual sound relationships with individual orchestral groups, exotic instrumental combinations, or single solo instruments.

 

Rhythmically accentuated, wild sections are contrasted with calm, atmospheric passages–there are even groovy, pulsating moments. Two virtuosic cadenzas for solo percussion are featured, along with a longer passage where the orchestra plays alone, eventually leading to a delicate passage where the solo percussion gently taps crotales and mokusho variations, all bound together by the work’s inherent dramaturgy and reduced musical material, which appears in manifold forms.

 

This work is dedicated with deep affection to the wonderful performers Christoph Sietzen and Franz Welser-Möst (the musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra).
Johannes Maria Staud