Wege   2017

Ways

The Andante con moto of Mozart's Quartet in E-flat major KV 428 — what a landscape! Such varied ways are walked, we are drawn along, we follow gladly, on these paths that are as plausible as unpredictable, as surprising as natural paths. The music flows, it halts, it hints, it continues, it passes by, it returns. It starts so casually that you wonder if it is not a concious insolence to begin a piece all but athematically, following a model that was new and modern around 1430 (!): the Fauxbourdon, a chain of falling sixth chords, in three descants, with the conventional suspensions, and the cello hums along, and already the chromaticism is creaking. Where does this lead, where can this go, plainly starting anew, after five (!) bars, but soon, typically, differently, unmatched: against the falling, suddenly something rises, light, there at the back, pulls upwards, what timbre, how simple, how tender, how far reaching, and already those second five bars are completely different from the first, and the same way is no more the same.

As such, this piece could be traced: how it is constantly turning, how it freezes, how it desists, how it misses its mark, how it amplifies, how it comes up against limits, how it does not just imply the desperation, but shapes is, not although, but because it finally also turns from that ...

So, ways. Ways of Mozart, and ways in my piece. And at the same time, even in this image the difference, the division: my music neither can nor wants to imitate Mozart's ways. It must go its own ways, and it must perform its own movement, its own movement's shapes. And so, the "nach Mozart" [after Mozart] is not just a reference and a closeness ("nach" = referring to), but a division, a temporal "nach" (after), that has so many aspects, in music, in history, in realities, tangible realities of the musical matter, like chords, rhythm, sounds, noises, and not least mediated presence: five loud speakers on the stage, four doubling, for most of the piece, the physically present string quartet, sometimes like an echo, sometimes complementing, sometimes splitting off, sometimes following, sometimes leading.

Four ways are walked in this piece, as phases, quasi chapters that lead into one another and arise from each other. The titles are: I - ways of flowing II - ways of accord and of breath III - ways of rigor IV - ways of vanishing

Score and Resources

Score
Score for electronics
Perfomance code electronic
Performance materials

Recordings

Performance with GROW Quartet (Mishi Stern, William Overcash, Nefeli Galani, Nathan Watts) as part of festival ausbrechende Subjektivität (recorded 10 April 2021 at Galerie Rabus Bremen):´

(Mozart 0:00-5:44, Heintz 5:44-32:44)

First performance by Nomos-Quartett:

Mozart Andante con moto (Nomos Quartett)

Heintz Wege (Nomos Quartett)

Video by Tobias Klich on the premiere in Hanover, 19. Mai 2017

Video recording of the performance at the Theatre of the former IWF in Göttingen, 27. Mai 2018