(sprich nicht immer…) (2016)
for voice and piano (text by Stefan George)
Duration 1’00
Premiere: Kayleigh Butcher, mezzo-soprano and Christopher Narloch, piano
The Schoenberg Project, Chicago, November 2017
This work was commissioned as part of the Kayleigh Butcher and Christopher Narloch's "Hanging Gardens Project" in which a different composer was asked to write a new setting for each of Stefan George's poems.
The rhythmic coordination is specified so that each layer exhibits its own independent speed of restless churning. Each part has its own internal sense of pulse and flow – although sounds interact and overlap, there are no true unison attacks between the parts. The desired sound is that of two free and independent streams of activity, rather than an overly pronounced, hocket-like texture.