iris ter schiphorst

I take gestures that don't belong to me,
and yet! ...
I pick them up to live in them myself.
Rukke di gu - blood is in the shoe ...
In the shelter of spent time.

Beethoven's String Quartet No. 1 was initially my 'inner reference piece' during the composition process. However, in the course of the work, the proximity to it changed again and again and questions about the piece, but also about the process of referring to a work from the past, came to the fore.
In the end, the distance to this 'reference piece' was greater than initially planned, "and yet ..." there are various references, even if they are not so clear.
The decisive factor for my work remained: how does this 1st string quartet resonate, how does Beethoven's music resonate in me (which I used to love playing on the piano, my exam piece was opus 111)? And what exactly? Are they musical gestures or quasi 'rhetorical figures', are they themes or moods?
At some point I thought I could recognise certain 'pathos formulas', and I tried to trace these 'pathos formulas' in Beethoven's music and formulate them in a new and different way.
The term 'pathos formula' was coined by the art historian Aby Warburg (1866 - 1929), who believed that he could recognise certain recurring motifs or 'expressive gestures' in art over the course of time, which in his view referred to a "pathic reason", to a "supra-historical treasure trove of human suffering", an "imprint of the affects". According to Aby Warburg, 'pathos formulas' are part of a universal cultural history, "engrams of passionate experience as a heritage preserved in memory".
In this respect, "And yet ..." is an attempt to draw a very personal trace of memory with my possibilities and with 'my language'.
copyright Iris ter Schiphorst 2019