Description

The overall motto for the annual Brahms-Festival at the Musikhochschule Lübeck in 2014 was “Sehnsucht”. The literal translation is “longing”, “desire”, “yearning” and even “nostalgia”. In German and in German culture all of the terms are relevant for “Sehnsucht”. It is so typical for the German romantic atitude and aesthetics that it perhaps should not be translated at all.
For me, it always implies the notion of a certain inability to deal with the “present”, a kind of transfiguration of the past (nostalgia) as well as the ideal vision of the future (longing). I must admit that I always had my problems with such an atitude, although desires, visions etc. do also exist in my life. But it never appealed to me to not be able to handle the “present”. On the contrary, I always attempt to improve and celebrate the “present” as much as possible.
“What About…?” then was the only possible title for a piece that I was asked to write under the motto of “Sehnsucht”. I asked myself what I could contribute to this topic. The piece ended up dealing less with the aesthetic notion of “Sehnsucht” (which should not hamper such notions for others!), but rather with some typical musical symbols that are related to that term. I did my best however “to disguise” these aspects in favour of an intense and challenging dramaturgy for this chamber music setting. The piece uses phonetic syllables rather than a text.