1959 by Ludwig Berger

1959 sounds out the relationship between recording and remembering, between the fixed time of the medium and the fluent time of memory. Different scenes and reflections gel in an in a “theatre of the past that is constituted by memory” (Gaston Bachelard).

The composition includes sounds of a harp, a piano, flute, electronics, cassettes, telephones, wind, water, my family, my family home, my hometown and Henry Purcell. The recordings were taken the past six years and the first eight years of my life.

The piece came into being in the second half of 2012 and was composed inbetween moving from my old apartment in Erfurt and my new apartment in Weimar, at my family home in Alsace und the SeaM studio in Weimar.

The work is dedicated to the memory of my mother (born 1959).