Ordnung und Struktur (Order and structure) (2022)
Miniatures for male voice (bass), bass clarinet and additional parts
after texts by May Kooreman (text composition: Iris ter Schiphorst)
Duration: 11 min.
Composition commission from Music of the Centuries
WP: 14.10.2022, Donaueschingen, Donaueschingen Music Days, Topic: Parkinson's diseaseAndreas Fischer, Gareth Davis
Performance material available from Boosey & Hawkes
Ordnung und Struktur (2022)
für Bassstimme, Baßklarinette+Zuspiele, Donaueschingen 2022
Commentary on the work
One tiny deviation changes everything - your whole life.
Note:
Instead of the bass clarinet, the contrabass clarinet can optionally be used at certain points in the piece (see score).
The singer also needs two Thai gongs in the tuning f sharp' and a sharp', which must be amplified depending on the room.
Accompaniments:
Original English texts by May Kooreman, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, are used, which she speaks herself after deep-brain stimulation (assigned to the left speaker in the stereo image), as well as a male voice that speaks fragments of these texts in German (assigned to the right speaker, as well as a stomping sound from both directions). The female and male voices thus face each other spatially, as if in a kind of dialogue. The two musicians are in the centre.
The sounds are available in wav format 44.1/16bit (stereo + mono) (see list below), so that they can be loaded into any playback device (sampler). You will need any playback device (e.g. sampler) with 6 outputs if possible, a suitable mixing console, microphones for the soloists and an appropriate, preferably local amplification system. The two Thai gongs at the end of the piece should also be amplified.
The sounds are part of the performance material and must be set up by the supervising sound engineer in a playback device of their own choice. During the performance, the volume may need to be adjusted to suit the room.
Reviews
ZEIT No. 43/2022, 19 October 2022
https://www.zeit.de/2022/43/donaueschinger-musiktage-musikfestival
Criticising the scores
The Donaueschingen Music Days are about to make a new start and are already venturing into the open this year.
A review by Mirko Weber... From the very beginning, this year's Donaueschingen Music Festival has often spoken of injuries, of cuts in life and departures from familiar ways of being. Three times, the central theme is even Parkinson's disease. Evis Sammoutis borrowed from John Dowland, Bernhard Lang created it as a "cheap opera" and Iris ter Schiphorst formulated it as a piece of resistance. Basically, these are all miniatures, always fed by the bass clarinet (Gareth Davies) and the brilliant Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. Ter Schiphorst goes furthest with her rebellion against the madness of illness. Bassist Andreas Fischer, who is entrusted with the lyrics of an anonymous woman, simply won't back down.
Eleonore Büning, Van-magazin 2022
https://van-magazin.de/mag/donaueschingen-2022/
... Two concerts at the beginning of this year's Donaueschingen Music Days carried such an extra-musical motto. They were dedicated to the theme of Parkinson's disease as part of the "Music of the Centuries" programme. The instrumentation was also given: a bass clarinet (played by Gareth Davis), plus the precious voices of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. The idea itself is nothing new, even if it is not uncontroversial. The musicalisation of the physical borderline experiences of human existence and their suffering has been in vogue for years, involving autistic, deaf or coma patients. Years ago, Georg Friedrich Haas' opera Koma was not spared the accusation of voyeurism when live videos of a patient in an intensive care unit were played during a performance in Vienna. Iris ter Schiphorst avoided this with an economical and coolly applied electronic force. She added a tape with the statements of a patient suffering from Parkinson's disease to the cast, partly alienated, painted over and translated. In the flat passages sung live, the virtuoso voice of bassist Andreas Fischer was repeatedly shattered by the bass clarinet lament that burrowed deep into the abyss of despair. There was a lot of pathos involved. The last words struck sharply: "Is this a human being? A human being?"