R E F L E C T I O N S

In this paper, I discuss five of my works: FALTER, CADENZA, OFELIA, VANILJ and ALFABET. I make general comments about my ‘thoughts behind the pieces’, but my main focus will be to explore how each work may in some way be thought of as precarious. I write ‘may’, as I have learned that the line of precarity can be found at so many different places/instances. I have also learned that one can create vulnerability voluntarily or involuntarily and it doesn't necessarily has to include some sort of danger for the performer. I also learned that I feel rather uncomfortable putting the performer ”in danger” and for ethical reasons I prefer to put myself in danger in order to achieve a certain vulnerability, brokenness, fading. To create a, for me fulfilling mirror to our very own time.

For me honesty has been a major premise while writing music in the past. Which is why the precarity of a performance has been utterly important for a long time. 2021 I listened to Georges Aperghis who said the following, which disturbed me deeply, but changed my view significantly:

”The audience has to be moved if i decide that, but not me. I have to be like an actor. If he's a good actor, he controls things. For me, we have to be very great liars. I think great artists are liars. To really find something - that outlives you. Something that can work even if you're not there.”

Geroges Aperghis, Ernst von Siemens Portrait Video, 2021.

Aperghis's argument has made me reflect on my assumptions and to some extent shifted my view, but I don't entirely agree. Performing Precarity is for me the believe that something intense istransmitted immidiately and that it is a true chemical reaction happening on stage inside/between performers. It's an act of courage and some hope is inherent to it. Where I believe the beauty of performing precarity lies and it's a very honest way of making art.

The medusa is a sea creature that I was afraid of in my childhood. I got to know them off Sweden's westcoast where they can be either transparent and harmless, or red and burn your skin. Today I live on the island Gotland situated in the Baltic Sea and here we can only find the transparent medusas. My children have loved the medusas from an early age on, held them, caressed them, touched them and looked at them for long times. I was impressed by their courage but also understood that they didn't need courage because there was no fear. The same is true for performers, meaning it all depends on their experience in the past if something from the composer, intended to be precarious, is actually precarious for the performer and so transmits some sort of precarity to the observer, listener. For me medusas were always indefinable and connected to danger of the unknown – in the sense of Sartres ”Nausea”.

“It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.”

Jean Paul Sartre, ”Nausea” 1938

I can relate to this notion that to really put yourself in a vulnerable position you have toovercome your fear, ”jump across an abyss”, and rid yourself of some kind of cognitive weight that makes things impossible/precarious for you. This summer was the first time I voluntary touched a medusa. It was wonderfully soft, hugging, tender, confident; I was sad I hadn't touched them before. The sensation is not comparable to anything else.

Why are they called medusas? How can it be dangerous to be wonderfully sweet, fragile, and beautiful? Medusas can't swim. Instead they are guided by the ocean. They can shape how they move within the current, but their agency is limited by the currents. It is like an ownership of sorts. This makes me think of Britney Spears, whose control over her body parts, property and artistic output was taken from her by three men (Britney Spears conservatorship dispute). Is it wishful thinking that medusas should be knocked about, forced, silenced and be without will-power? Who gave medusas the name Medusa?

F A L T E R  ( 2 0 2 0 )

for violin solo, 8'

was written during the beginning of the Corona pandemic and premiered 2021 at the ARD Musikwettbewerb by 5 Semifinalists –Seiji Okamoto, Dayoon You, Fumika Mohri, Alexander Won-Ho Kim, Dmitry Smirnov, and Alexandra Tirsu – in the Prinzregententheater München, Germany.

My son of 5 years lies on the couch with a butterfly on his forehead. The butterfly moves its wings very slowly as in slow motion. I had never seen this before. I did not know that butterflies at times move their wings very slowly while being in one spot. It stays with me as a picture.During the pandemic I saw many butterflies doing this. Since the pandemic is over, never again. I am sure that this fact was not caused by the pandemic, but rather that I was in a state of mind to be attentive to the smallest things around me.

A beautiful, tender, geometrical choreography in silence and so incredible slow.

A beautiful, tender, geometrical and satisfied choreography on the lavender.

A beautiful, tender, stretched, geometrical choreography on the hand of her.

In silence and agreement between the two living creatures – the human and the butterfly. He looking for the butterfly with a net, searching for the confidence between creatures. Me looking on, nipples hurting from feeding my littlest one. Writing FALTER in the sense of a loving everyday life.

The term ”butterfly” has different meanings. I read from the Salpêtrière in Paris, France in the late 19^th hundreds where Jean Martin Charcot asks the patients under his control to open wide like a butterfly. I hear the artist Lea Josephine Tetrick, being alarmed by the fact that my colleague Simon Löffler calls his piece ”Butterfly” and has two women kneel on the floor to do butterfly poses (they aren't necessarily female). Butterfly, in the perspective of Lea, as a symbol for the sexualized and owned woman, but in the perspective of Simon Löffler an insect. I think of Marlene Dietrich's text: ”Männer umschwirrn mich wie Motten das Licht, wenn sie verbrennen ja dafür kann ich nichts.” Is the word ”Falter”, which is another word for ”Motten” less vulnerable than butterfly? Is it more masculine or rather more neutral? It seems more neutral. I keep ”Falter” for the title. It also reminds me of Origami, where you fold paper, like in the German word ”falten”. Furthermore, you give away Origami cranes to give luck and a long living.

I think of a fictional futuristic film documentary by Dalia Al-Kury of a wishful thinking where Palestine and Israel live together in peace – the wall has fallen. I hear my father say: ”dont criticize, sympathize”. I want to write a wishful thinking that eliminates the crucial problems of today and dreams of a maybe unachievable goal to embed positive ideas in the brains of others. On earth we're briefly georgeous (I know it's spelled wrong).

In the meantime.

”but let a player mansplain to a composer (me) her own quotes is beneath this ensemble's (Berlin Philharmonics) dignity."

Shirley Apthorp, Berliner Philharmoniker review,

C A D E N Z A  ( 2 0 2 0 )

for motorised piano, pianist and assistant, 7'

O F E L I A  ( 2 0 2 2 ) 

for large ensemble, motorised piano and four loudspeakers, 22'

A possible Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

OFELIA is in my thoughts the most brutal piece of mine – but I think it's only me who experiences it like that. Shakespeare’s Ofelia always looked at through the eyes of her father Polonius and the lover Hamlet. Similar to instruments in the musicians hands on stage, they're forced to play what ”the owner” wants. All the expressions are penetrated into the instrument. What if instruments had a soul? I want to hear the inner voice/the inside life of the instrument, give it room, a moment to let the soul be heard. Give the Ofelia a voice, a personal voice.

The piano is equipped by small motors with paper-stripes. The paper-stripes are formed like legs, they turn around the pole of the installation like a pole dancer. An object of desire but for me personally the never-ending working legs of women or suppressed people. Unseen. I see my grandmothers walking up and down, in and out, never resting. I saw them. 

A camera is placed inside the piano, the piano is closed. Like a private brothel. Underground. We hear the motors in the middle of the piece playing while the piano is shut. Almost not seeing that there are legs dancing. Ten microphones are placed inside the piano so we can hear what the piano hears from within. It plays on the overtones of ”sometimes I feel like a motherless child” by Odetta. For personal reasons I chose that song but also because Ofelia ”doesn't” have a mother. 

In her essay Cixous writes mainly about what she hopes will happen: a new female way of writing, which would enable women to rid themselves of a male interpretation of female sexuality and so to find their own power and energy. She associates this with freeing herself from a position of for ever being the guilty one no matter how contradictory the accusation: 

"(guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being ”too hot”; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and not having any; for nursing and not nursing...)" 

The Laugh of the Medusa, Hélène Cixous, translated: Keith Cohen, Paula Cohen

SIGNS, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 875-893, The University of Chicago Press, p. 880 

Cixous sees woman as life-giving and therefore says:

”She writes with white ink.”

The Laugh of the Medusa... p.881

And she writes to break the silence that has been imposed on her through male culture, male organization of life, a culture and economy that excludes and controls, that damages and kills.This of course implies that a female symbolic system should not in any way try to copy male systems of dominance. She should laugh at them from the moment she sees through them and then be a strong laughing ”Medusa”.

”You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.”

The Laugh of the Medusa... p.885

While writing this passage I wanted to give a voice to Ofelia/the instrument but during the work I felt like a violator. I felt I was even ”worse” than a musician by my turning the instrument inside out and showing it with the camera and microphones. It feels unbearably brutal to me. Like a violation. This feels utterly unethical to me. Where is the signature for consencus from the piano? 

I know the piece from Pasolini's ”Il vangelo secondo Matteo” (1964). But why does Pasolini play this piece of music in the background? Jesus has a mother but not a father? Or does the mother sell her son? Maybe it's meant vice versa in reverse. Sometimes I feel like a childless mother. Knowing he is going to leave earth. I also try to think about this reversion in the film and to get some clarity through the music, some solutions, but I doubt anybody even thinks about this film scene. A precarious wish, because without the content it's maybe nothing more than a simple arrangement. 

Written at a time full of fear for my children all the thoughts around the piece are truly illogical but make sense to me on a level of expression of the vulnerable state. 

Here too a pianist is playing the piano and silently pressing the keys to let the motors, controlled by the percussionist, be heard. 

The dependency didn't seem to bother the musicians of the Ensemble Intercontemporain at all. The precarity of the situation is not evident. 

I ask Louis Stiens, what he sees in the performance of the piece:

”During the performance of the ensemble piece "OFELIA", two pianos were facing each other. In one of them, a revolving organ made of paper legs was spinning. They scratched the strings tirelessly, reminding me of a motorized revue of cut off dancing legs. Melodies dripped dreamlike and off-key from the piano across the stage. It was as if two separate lovers were sitting directly opposite each other, trying to communicate. Like an orchestrated lullaby, this disparate conversation told of a forgotten fairy tale. Of melancholy and loss. Only now and then did siren-like brass entries break this intimate mood like a desperate gasp for breath. 

I think Lisa is interested in the theatrical experience of her works. She filters harmonics from the remnants of sound perception and builds a fragile Gesamtkunstwerk out of performance (musician) and sculpture (machine, video). What remains are acoustic traces of a mesh like composition.”

V A N I L J  ( 2 0 2 3 ) 

for two electric guitars (one of them singing), 12'

VANILJ was written for duo santorsa-pereyra (Ruben Mattia Santorsa and Adrian Pereyra) and premiered 1^st of May 2023 at the Festival Acht Brücken in Cologne, Germany. It's my first attempt to write ”microtonal” (pop)songs. The songs are in fact purely tonal in the well tempered system and are all sung by Ruben with a classical tonal accompaniment. The e-guitar and voice by Ruben are hardly amplified and remain of acoustical caracter. On the other hand we have Adrian's spectral, microtonal chords which are created through live-transposition of single plucked strings. The chords fit more or less the tonal content of the songs and are slightly situated above the register of the songs. One could imagine it like clouds that lie on top of a mountain. Sometimes one can see the tip/hear the song, sometimes it's covered in fog/sound from Adrian's chords. This description is not the content of the piece though. 

To write for e-guitar in a classical context seemed to me utterly bizarre. Which is why I wanted to stay in a popular musical context through writing songs pairing them with microtonality and a different sense of room. I wanted to create precarious relationships through instrumentation in non-collegial registers. With that I mean registers that are similar and can shadow the other registers that are being played. Through the rather loud chords from Adrian I want to create a room of shelter for Ruben where he at times is protected by Adrian, by almost not being audible. As Adrian is fading in and out of his chords Ruben at times stays naked and suddenly audible. One can see the dependency as a protecting one ”mon Amour” but also as a smashing disturbing one, ”Hiroshima”. One player destroys the playing of the other through higher dynamics. Moreover it's the person who plays conventionally who has the high dynamics. In a way he's hierarchically higher in power. Whereas Ruben is playing and singing acoustically (he's a guitarist not a singer and accordingly not used to sing) executing the precarious part of the piece. For me as a composer the situation might seem precarious, Ruben might feel very differently about it and the listener might just think the piece is very deletantly written. 

”When I received the score, my original idea was to make the “singing part” dominant and leading. During the rehearsals with Lisa, we discussed to sing and play it in a more intimate way: I had then to find my quiet space in the singing, trying not to prevail over Adrian’s part. Because I am not a trained singer, the challenge was to have a balance between the intensity of the text and singing, and its fragility, giving Adrian the space to develop his chords.

At the beginning I was a bit uncomfortable in the part, doubting my real skills in performing and singing such a simple but intense melody, but it became easier and more comfortable to perform after a few hours of rehearsals with Adrian. During the performance I could enjoy this new dimension that pushed me over the simple instrument.” 

Ruben Mattia Santorsa, email, 5^th of September 2023.

”My guitar part in Lisa's duo VANILJ is a very challenging part. it feels like you have to turn the guitar into a children's choir. Each voice of the up to 11 voiced chords has its own dynamic is tuned microtonally and goes far beyond the register of the guitar. precisely in this almost impossible undertaking lies the incredible beauty. the almost spherical sounds are so foreign to the guitar that they make this piece a unique experience. Next to this choral sound that surrounds Ruben's intimate singing like a stage set, the listener experiences the songs and the text as if through a keyhole or from a distance. The expected situation is reversed.”

Adrian Pereyra, email, 4^th of September 2023.

It's the first time I wrote song texts myself, they are in a way about everything and nothing with some socially critical context hidden in the contrasting words and worlds without being very clear. As: ”don't criticize, sympathize”.

Text of the first song -

PETROLIO I / VOGUE VOGUE MY SWEET LOOSER

vogue vogue my sweet looser

vogue vogue mysweet looser

i do fasting friday

while you go to war

a can of sugar in one hand

and in the other one for tears

i'm my death you're your death

he she it is their death I'm my death

you're your death

he she it is their death

i try to be the organ

for those who don't like music

they say that they don't like it

dead, they don't like music

i would have liked to write a song

but I was at the cemetery

i'm my death you're your death

he she it is their death i'm my death

you're your death

he she it is their death

death seems like a sad horse or a beautiful donkey

death seems like a sad horse or a sweet donkey

a can of sugar in one hand

and in the other one for tears

I asked my youngest daughter (3 years old) what the piece should be

called after I finished it. She said VANILJ.

I feel that smells and tastes are strongly connected to experiences and times in life. The songs I wrote here are strongly connected to life but not to a specific event. Vanilla is a very kind smell that might go unconscious but is in fact a constant companion in our life. From the first vanilla ice cream as a child, over the first deodorant ”vanilla kisses” in the youth to the Bourbon in later years. Therefore I thought the title fits surprisingly well.

B I B L I O G R A P H Y / F I L M O G R A P H Y