MEDIA
Three Minds - Twisted (2023)
for string quartet
Commissioned by Tonedmelisma - International Festival for Contemporary Music
Ulrich Isfort - violin
Annette Reisinger - violin
Aida-Carmen Soanea - viola
Matthias Diener - Cello
The piece three minds - twisted was commissioned by the international festival for contemporary music Tonedmelisma for the Minguet Quartet. The work consists of three movements, also referred to as "minds", each expressing a new musical association with the word twisted. In all movements, there is a dynamic transformation of the musical events. Certain characteristics are gradually intensified. It can be compared to a face whose proportions gradually undergo such significant changes and "twists" that it gradually becomes alienated to us. Through this process of transformation, the musical material morphs into an organic entity with a clear beginning and end. The deformation reveals the original, breaks the static form, and allows hidden and emotional elements to shine through.
In the first movement, 1st mind, a microtonal melody gradually comes into focus and continuously adds shades to the harmonies. As a result, the sound becomes increasingly complex, distorted, and expressive. In the second movement, 2nd mind, it is the spiral-like melodies that twist and turn between the voices, constantly in motion. They shift in different colors and articulations, relentlessly striving forward.
The final movement, 3rd mind, represents a synthesis of the previous movements. It is divided into three parts. In the first part, the active character of the spiral figurations from the second movement is recontextualized in the form of trills. High pendulum-like figures of trills intertwine with a continuous chorale. They fluctuate in parallel across different voices at continuously accelerating or decelerating speeds. At certain points, the trills unpredictably cease, as if the dynamic events are forever lost in motionless and cold silence. In the middle of the movement, the slow harmonic motion is suddenly interrupted, and the music returns to the register of the first movement. All the musical elements of the three minds collide tumultuously. The agitated motives merge in a lively act, an attempt to preserve life just before the end, before the freezing of the block-like nothingness in the final part.
[...]Il nuovo era „Three Minds - Twisted“, qui in prima italiana, del tedesco Eres Holz (presente in sala) in cui, dietro i soliti microtoni che fanno sempre tanto deformazione sonora e agevolano il cangiantismo, s'intravede un ritorno alla scansione psicologica in movimenti, ma funziona meglio di quello che sembra.
[...]The new string quartet „Three Minds - Twisted“, had its Italian premiere, composed by the German composer Eres Holz, who was present in the room. Behind the usual microtones, which often result in significant sound distortion, one can discern a return to psychological exploration within its movements. It is more effective than it may initially appear."
September 2023
