ALEBEEK, RINUS VAN
--- played back Luc Ferrari “Cycle des Souvenirs” on the 29th of October 2010 in composer's flat in Montreuil. Waking around, he recorded it again – with his Sony Walkman. Brunhild Ferrari read liner notes of the CD release of “Cycle des Souvenirs”.
BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN
--- German composer. Disease: hyperacusis.
BLONDY, FRÉDÉRIC & LENAR, DJ
--- played Mauricio Kagel “Ludwig van” live in Zachęta National Gallery of Art on the 19th of March 2011 as part of “Hyperacusis” music programme accompanying an exhibition “Stories of Ear”. The concert was recorded by Zosia Moruś and then assembled, edited, mixed and mastered by DJ Lenar and Michał Libera.
DICHTERLIEBE
--- Song cycle by Robert Schumann (music) and Heinrich Heine (lyrics). Reinhold Friedl says: “The songs of Schumann and Schubert can be looked at as the first pop music ever made”. People loved it.
HYPERACUSIS
--- Loss of hearing causing oversensitivity to high and low registers. Simply put: immersing in what we call noise. Beethoven says: “My ears sing and buzz constantly, day and night". And also: “Often I can scarcely hear someone speaking softly, the tones yes, but not the words. However, as soon as anyone shouts it becomes intolerable”.
HERZOG, WERNER
--- His movie “Land of Silence and Darkness” is a portrait of Fini Straubinger who says: “People think deafness means silence. It is not so. We constantly hear sounds. Quiet ringing, buzzing, roaring and eventually clicking. The worst comes when the humming starts in your head”.
INTERPRETATION
--- John Tilbury says: “The onus is on the performer to show the composer some of the implications and consequences of what he has written, even if from time to time it may make him (the composer of course) look ridiculous. What he writes and what you read ad two different things”
FERRARI, LUC
--- According to a rumor, while opening Ferrari's funeral, Jacquelin Caux said: “His music was like sitting with your ass naked in the morning grass”.
FIELD RECORDING OF A FIELD RECORDING
--- Rinus van Alebeek says: “It is a very respectful and innovating way of using old recordings. The Bachs and Beethovens can be reproduced through their scores. A conductor's work is always an interpretation. So why not use the recorded work as a kind of score and make an interpretation of it using the recorder”.
LUDWIG VAN (a score)
--- A phantasy on Beethoven's listening? The beautiful score of Mauricio Kagel is a montage of close ups of german composer's scores pasted on objects in his reconstructed office. This is his music graphically collaged into noise. But was not the graph, the score and the seeing his ways of listening to his own music as he could not hear it with his ears? If it was so, Kagel's composition must be what Beethoven actually heard through his hyperacusis. Noise of notes of noise of notes of noise of notes of …
NOISE
--- The handwriting. Michel Serres says: “To write badly is to plunge the graphic message this noise which interferes with reading which transforms the reader into an epigraphist”. Heinrich Deisl adds: “The maximum compression of information within a certain framework of time and space”.
POP
--- Apparently, the only thing you never forget when you go out for a pack of cigarettes. They turn you into hyperacusis sufferer who cannot runaway from the noises of the songs. But musicologically speaking: what else is pop but a “maximum compression of information in a certain framework of time and space”? A good pop song is a space and time filled out completely - nothing more nor less required; any element taken away or added kills everything. Pop is the economy of music. Like Anti-Structures of Boulez.
SCHUMANN, ROBERT
--- German composer. Disease: neurastenia, hearing A5 pitch in his left ear constantly.
SCHÜTZ, BERNHARD & FRIEDL, REINHOLD
--- played Robert Schumann “Dichterliebe” in zeitkratzer studio on the 13th of June 2010. The material was recorded, mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz.
THEFT
--- In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. They say. An act of stealing. Example: “somebody stole A5 pitch from my left ear”.
