Häuten – paramyth 1 for stringquartett by Clemens Gadenstätter

Clemens Gadenstätter
häuten / paramyth 1 (String quartet 1)

Tractat: the tactility of sounds.
The way of treating („tractare“) the instrument is connected to a „body-grounded“ perception of sound. The movement of the players body, the materials and the energies that bring materials together in a certain way make sensations of perceptions emerge: sensations of sounds thus creates those of „embodied tactile sensations“.
The piece works out a construction of tactilities of sounds. It is thus based on „sensual sensation“ that derive from perception of sounds.

The construction itself refers and transforms two immensively strong pictures regarding to tactility:
Tizians „Flaying of Marsyas“ and Mathias Grünewalds „Crucification“ (from the Isenheim altar). Both pictures thematizies the (cruel) „investigations“ of the subcutaneaous layers of a surface (the skin) in order to create tactile sensations by means of visual perception, the way of painting, „acting“ with form and color, the way of treating the brushes …

These paintings are transformed to Paramyths (as Max Ernst called a cycle of collages and poems): The illustration is wiped out through a construction of tactile qualities of sounds, the „myths“ prescribe the ways of observing the instrumentation of a string quartett. The qualities of the sound are spring-fed as well from an idiomatic use of the instrument and from the tactile qualities suggested by the paintings. This „double-bound“ work on the sounds fades the pictures into the background and features the connection between sounds, bodies, memories, emotions …

Thus „Tractat“ is a work of music that undergoes the liaison between idiomatic sound production and the evoked embodied sensations that occure while listening, the feelings, rememberances, effects of slight – or as they are called – „weak“ synaesthesias that connect the sound heard to our body and brain. In this resept the „human aspect“ is the center of the piece: The „miracle“ of perception which itself creates sensations of perceptions (as the arising tactile qualities generated by the sounds…).

The beauty of the cruelty of revealing, the pure beauty of the exposed, the power that is transmitted by uncovering, the brutality of massive attacks of breaking open – all this applied on the idiomatic sound of the string quartett – leads to a music that floats between explosions and introspection, between strict construction and an expressiveness that i search for: expression in music as the renewal of the conjunction between perception of sounds and the „inside-feelings“, the tactile sensations, the deeply human reaction on outside sensations that occure to us.