Composition written and dedicated to the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
(6 singers and electronics)
Erinnerungen, in Farben (Memories, in Colours)
The unmistakable timbre of the voice is a fascinating phenomenon. In Farben, the natural timbre of the voice takes centre stage.
The voice is as personal as one's own memories. This, and the question of the immediacy of composed language, were decisive factors in the choice of sound material: experiences from the singers' past, recounted by the singers themselves. One after the other, each begins to tell a story in their native language. However, due to the overlapping of the six voices, only individual fragments are recognisable to the listener. Thus, the personal ultimately does not really become public, even though it is presented publicly. After a while, the mass of speech is thinned out, filtered further and further, until in the end only a shimmer of sounds remains. It is the frequencies that make up the respective timbre. The singers hear individual pitches from the mixture of sounds and sing these notes. The electronics filter the sung pitches out of the mixture of sounds. In this way, more and more notes are removed from the sound until a single last note disappears into silence, where the memories remain entirely personal.