Ying Wang: 528 Hz 8va

A fast but pleasantly active heartbeat, an unconscious smile that does not fade away, a constantly changing sound that nevertheless always leads exactly to where even more energy is released–as if one had directed it oneself; the tempo always brisk, but enough pauses to take a breath, never a screaming contrast that abruptly interrupts the pulse.

528 HZ 8va places itself deliberately and energetically in the service of an optimistic view of facts and the world. The piece does not aim at a drama of high flights and low falls, and it avoids abrupt contrasts. Instead, it is a music of joy in several stations that slide into one another. That a music that draws from the abundant fund of positive sound connotations and emotions need not drift into New Age major chords or empty brass jubilation becomes clear after only a few bars of the piece. Euphoric, chaotic moments can be found in the piece as well as warmly embracing lullaby melodies. Again and again, soloistic moments emerge from the orchestra, forming small moving groups within the flow of sound and, taking us by the hand, leading us through the piece. The piece then moves into an upward spiraling virtuosic cadenza in which material from all the preceding orchestral moments of bliss, polyphonically linked, culminates in an orgasmic climax. Music is a fountain of youth and is to be explicitly dug anew as such here. A bit like Mdma without side effects.

Now this piece is also rejuvenated–in a new version with electronics from the SWR Experimental Studio. Ying Wang sets out in search of other, digital moments of happiness that lie behind those analog ones that have already sounded. There is nothing merely zeitgeisty in this, but the digital everyday life, not only that in Zoomlandia. Individual moments of happiness in the piece are electronically paused so that they can be enjoyed longer, like a digital freezeglitch at the favorite spot–coitus extensus. Some moments are now also inverted to see if the joy inscribed in them can’t sound different. The dynamics are also expanded, everything becomes more extreme and more, that also needs a new acoustic space, 8 channels so–the electronics can do that.
Ying Wang