Sehr langsam “Very slow” — a tempo indication, as well as
the title of this piece. It characterizes the music itself, asking the listener for
patience, for calm concentration, and for abandoning himself to the sound. This sound
extends into the room, finding the listener-and it might also trigger a resonance in
that inner room everybody finds within himself (Kafka), a
place where the listener communicates with the inside of the sound, its quality, its
spectrum of partial tones, and its microtones as they give their emphasis and
differentiation to the sound colour. These sounds are soft-an emotional forte would
sever the act of listening in this microtonal sound space, as if by a glaring
spotlight. The experience of this particular space is energized, stimulated and
invigorated by the sound. A friend once said that this piece has many endings, in the
sense that it is continuously fading away-which is true. In these moments, the
individual energy of the composed music diminishes, as it were. There, we experience
the silence into which this music moves in ever renewed attempts. In order to enhance
the musical experience of this piece, it is suggested to listen to it at a reduced
volume level.
— Ernstalbrecht Stiebler
Sense Absence was premiered by the Bozzini Quartet at Berlin’s Ballhaus Naunynstraße on the same program as
the quartet by Ernstalbrecht Stiebler that shares this disk.
Composing for strings has always been, for me, a process of discovery, with their
infinite tuning possibilities that produce subtle harmonies and timbres of great
nuance and beauty. I imagined, while composing it, space being both temporal and
architectural where voices are heard from other dimensions. These considerations
influenced the unusual tuning system I devised, which produces a great variety of
close and wide intervals with natural harmonics. The music’s structure is therefore
like inhabiting a building whose rooms always seem different as light changes
throughout the day and through the seasons. It is with this in mind that the music
was the source for a sound and light installation that occupied the Hans Otte Raum at the Neues Museum Weserberg Bremen: as Bremen’s autumn
and winter daylight diminished outside, the Hans Otte Raum
inside was suffused in a constant rotation of light created by Paul
Tzanetopoulos. Over the course of three months the music gradually reduced to
one percent of that which is heard here.
— Daniel Rothman
“… tant les nuances et déviations inspirent de subtilité à ces deux pièces.”
Le son du grisli (France), February 2012
“Not an easy work this suite. Life isn’t an easy matter either.”
Vital #801 (Netherlands), October 2011
“… il y d’abord des pièces qui interroge l’homme, à la fois dans son
positionnement dans la société, que part rapport à lui-même.”
Revue & Corrigée (France), August 2011
“Their dedication to new music is unwavering […] this is the hardcore end of
uncompromising”
MusicWeb International (UK), June 2011