asche ist weiß.

General:

Sound is caused by the vibration of air molecules. The air molecule is moved in one direction, then in the opposite direction until it returns to its original position after a certain time. Our eardrum perceives these periodic, temporal vibrations. So you could say that music is nothing other than the perception of time.

We all know the experience: we hear music that moves us deeply and time seems to stand still. Paradoxically, time dissolves into timelessness as soon as we perceive time, the sound.

If eternity is not understood as an infinite duration of time, but as non-timeliness or timelessness, then the person who perceives time lives in eternity.

The statement “ash is white” points to this logic of time, timelessness and eternity. However, timelessness or the transcendental is nothing special in itself. Pure experience is in the here and now. The here and now is the only reality we have. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to be in the here and now.

The piece tries to achieve this feeling of timelessness through the perception of sound. If you try to capture the feeling of timelessness, you fail, because you can't capture time. You cannot grasp it, you can only perceive it. This perception and simultaneous letting go of time can be described as an infinite cycle (just like time itself, as in Planck's quantum of action, which describes time as a circular frequency in which energy and time oscillate back and forth in minimal circles / elementary quanta of action).

Ash is a symbol for the transience of time. Like ashes, the destruction and transience of things always contains a new beginning that leads to new bloom.

This Berlin version of asche ist weiß. was created for a concert in the Berlin Philharmonie with the Deutsche-Symphonie Orchester Berlin, which was planned by Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The orchestration was adapted slightly for this concert due to the spatial conditions. Whereas in the first version the orchestra is distributed around the audience, here the audience is distributed around the orchestra. The archaic sound effect of the piece thus unfolds like the silent and timeless contemplation of a blazing fire, around which the audience sits in a circle like a campfire. Nowadays there is a lot of talk without real communication. This piece tries to create real communication without talk. Like the silent village meeting around an old oak tree on the market square.

Specific:

Immediately before this piece, 4'33'' by John Cage was on the program of the world premiere concert on 1.1.2023, which led directly into

asche ist weiß.

The fascinating thing about 4'33'' is that it actually consists of 3 movements. The piece is nothing other than an empty form defined by temporal boundaries in which fulfilled silence can arise.

asche ist weiß. attempts to reinterpret this idea of timeless silence by using nothing other than an empty form.

The basis of the piece is therefore the numbers 9-0-6, which corresponds to twice the time of 4'33'' (i.e. 9 minutes 06 seconds). The numbers 9-0-6 are themselves circular numbers, as the shape of 9 and 6 are point-mirrored identical (9 is the same as the number 6, only upside down and vice versa).

Following the circular idea, the intervallic structure of the entire piece also consists of nothing other than a sequence of a ninth (9) and a sixth (6): starting with the note “b”, it goes up a minor ninth (9) to “c”. Then downwards (0) a minor sixth (6) to “e”. Then the cycle starts all over again: from “e” a ninth (9) to “f” and down (0) a sixth (6) to “a”, etc.

If you continue this pattern, you will end up going through the entire circle of fifths, like a giant wheel of time that slowly turns from one fifth to the next. Or as in the slow passage of white light, which also contains all the chromatic colors of light. At the intersection of 9 and 6 parts of the piece, the entire cycle begins to run backwards: now it goes down a ninth (9) and up a sixth (6).

In addition to the intervallic structure, the 9 and 6 also refer to the large-form structure: the ratio of “9 to 6” is the same as the ratio of “6 to 4” or “3 to 2” and all multiples thereof. Thus the first 60 bars are divided into 3 sections (9 + 6 , 15 + 10 , 12 + 8 = 60 bars) and the last 40 bars into 2 sections (10 + 15 , 6 + 9 = 40 bars), whereby the ratio of 9 to 6 is maintained both within the sections and between the sections themselves. All five sections of the piece together form a mirror sequence (9 + 6 , 15 + 10 , 12 + 8 , 10 + 15 , 6 + 9) which, following the idea of the circle, results in the same sequence when read both forwards and backwards.

In addition to the intervallic and large-scale formal structure, the ratio of “9 to 6” is also found in the rhythmic structure. This mirror sequence is therefore also the rhythmic foundation of the entire piece: 9 quavers, followed by 6 quavers, followed by 15 quavers, etc., again following the circular idea on all levels. This relationship is also maintained if you take the multiple of this mirror sequence (the bass drum, for example, initially plays this sequence of 9 6 15 10 etc. as 16th notes, while other instruments play this sequence as half notes or quarter notes, for example).

When you look at the score, you see nothing but empty numbers and relationships within proportions on all organizational levels of the composition (large form, intervals, rhythm, etc.). Listening to the music, however, one hears not a single number, but an undefined cloud of sound moving endlessly through time and space. The aim of all this seemingly overloaded intellectual number stuff is exactly that: that you don't hear the numbers in the end. So it is also my aim to compose myself away from my own composition. In the end, there are no arbitrary decisions, everything is deducible. I make myself more and more superfluous while composing and the only thing that remains eternal is the endlessly turning wheel of time. Everything is self-contained and arises not from something material but from a relationship, just as we alone do not know who we are and only find ourselves through our relationship to everything around us. In a world of blueness, the color blue has no meaning. Only in the encounter with another color does blue take on meaning. Paradoxically, we only exist when we cease to exist and truly encounter the other and the alien.

By the way, an octopus has three hearts.

Bretstein, 8.8.2024