Und Pommernland ist abgebrannt/deutsches Schreiben (And Pomerania is burnt down/German writing) (2003)
for English horn, bass flute, bass clarinet CD-accompaniment and live electronics
Duration: 12 min.
Composition commissioned by Klangwerkstatt Berlin
WP: 09.11.2003, Berlin-Ballhaus Naunynstraße, KlangwerkstattTrio-e-event: Kirsten Reese, Birgit Schmieder, Erich Wagner
Performance material available from Boosey & Hawkes
...and Pomerania (Audio excerpt)
About the technology:
For a performance with effects equipment, the instruments must be amplified, so a good PA is required.
As all the musicians in the piece have to sing repeatedly while playing, care must be taken to ensure adequate microphone coverage.
At the end of the piece (last page) a CD player is prescribed, which is either placed by the bass clarinettist (so that he can start it) or by the sound engineer who operates the mixing console. The CD player goes stereo L+R into the mixing console, so that the CD feed can also be heard over the large PA. The playback CD is part of the performance material.
For the pitch effects, a simple effects unit is required that allows pitch-shifting to be programmed. The effects unit is best operated from the mixer and routed in such a way that the effects can be operated by the sound engineer on extra faders according to the score.
These effects should now be added minimally (on + off = always a little added and then removed again) so that only a slight irritation of the original sound is created. The effects unit must never sound superficial.
There are 2 different settings:
1st = pitch shift approx. a small second lower (the small second is 'impure', i.e. to be detuned approx. 20 cent higher)
2 = pitch shift 1 octave lower
Program-Note
The word Pommernland, which translates as ‘Pomeranian lands’, is a romanticising term that has always, particularly in the Romantic era, evoked a specifically German type of nostalgic longing. A local country song written by Gustav Adolf Pompe in 1850, for example, includes the following line: “Pomeranian Lands, I pine for you.”
The title is a line of a popular children’s song from the time after the Thirty Years’ War. In that war, Pomerania, one of the areas that had been converted to Lutheranism after the Reformation, was almost entirely laid to waste. After the Second World War, when Pomerania had been destroyed once again and its German population had escaped or been driven away, the song became popular again.
Both these associations highlight the fact that German Romantic nostalgia has become virtually impossible in the wake of the political events of the 20th century. As a result of the abuse of the German Romantic tradition by the Nazi regime, Pomerania, as an object of constant longing, has literally abgebrannt (ie. burnt down), as in the song.
Lydia Jeschke