Berenice – Lied vom Verschwinden (2003)

Berenice. Lied vom Verschwinden (Song of Vanishing) is the "aria" of a woman of unearthly beauty. She suffers from consumption which causes her to die, slowly but unstoppably.

The piece is a study for the full-length music theatre work after Edgar Allan Poe I am writing for the Munich Biennale (world premiere in May 2004). It is my first composition which integrates electronically generated sound with vocal-instrumental material.

Rather than fully embedding the tape in the texture of the ensemble and the soprano, I have endeavoured to make the two layers mutually enrich each other. I did not set out to demonstrate their incompatibility – on the contrary: they are meant to make a joint attempt at approximating a sound image (including spatialisation) which became more and more concrete during composition. This image could not have been realised exclusively through vocal and instrumental means.