Creation: 15 february 2014 at Köln, DE
“Commissioned by the German radio SWR 3 for Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the work was presented in Cologne for its world premiere on 15 February 2014.
A journey to the heart of spectral music, of the structure of sound, through various references to current popular music, which proposes a harmonic construction based on the study of the earth’s layers. “The idea for this piece is based on my interest in the methods of stratigraphy applied in the science of geology. It is about “synchronisation” (by dating and correlation) of heterogeneous material making it possible to reconstruct the geological history of the earth. Poetically, it could be formulated as follows: the history thus stratified into different time periods leads to the history of the past (pun Ge-Schichte and Gegenwart(sschicht) both contain the word stratum) Superstructure consists of 66 modules. They are derived from vertical source blocks, which are formed respectively from the middle to the upper regions, from 18 artificial and 18 natural spectra. The fundamentals of the spectra remain absent because they are below the lowest tones of the instruments used. Each performer is assigned 11 modules, which can emerge respectively in 6 different variants within the horizontal (sequential) and vertical (simultaneous) poles. I have taken up the challenge of producing the spectral material mainly through instruments tuned in the tempered range, through the quantification of the tonal pitches as well as through the well-targeted combination of instruments”.
Oliver Schneller