BeethovEnBloc. Tape composition with the 37 movements of Beethoven's 9 symphonies (2000; EXTRACT) by Harald Muenz published on 2012-03-10T14:33:53Z Harald Muenz BeethovEnBloc (2000) Tape composition with the thirty-seven movements of the nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (EXTRACT only) Realisation: studio of the author Duration: 9‘26‘‘ (the SoundCloud track is a 4'41'' extract!) Live premiere: Dec. 1, 2000, Cologne, Elektronisches Studio der Musikhochschule, Aulakonzert Neue Musik LXV Broadcasting premiere: DeutschlandRadio Werkstatt, Dec. 29, 2000 (curator: Götz Naleppa) BeethovEnBloc is my personal response to a monument of German “Leidkultur” [“culture of suffering” – an untranslatable pun on “Leitkultur” (“leading culture”), the political slogan introduced by the conservative party in Germany to encapsulate the idea of German culture as the dominant culture within multicultural Germany]. The composition’s only materials are the sounds of the thirty-seven movements of the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven. After I had tested as many of the different renditions of the symphonies as possible, the recordings were first of all cleaned, balanced and timed. For each symphony I calculated an average movement length from the durations of its individual movements. Subsequently I used time-stretching to bring all the movements of the symphony to this duration, but without altering the pitch. This time-consuming transformation method sometimes caused rather extreme stresses or strains to the originals. Thus for each symphony I achieved a compact overlaid form of all its movements. These nine blocks can also be performed separately The next stage was once again to establish an average duration of these nine assemblages (and consequently of all 37 movements), so that – again without altering pitch – each individual complex could be brought to this average length of 9 minutes 26 seconds. Finally I superimposed these nine structures and thus achieved a compact block of all the Beethoven symphonies. The sound composition makes possible perceptual insights which “Ludwig van” would have been unlikely to grant At first the continuous fortissimo can be quite hard for the listener, but then one is astonished by the transparency of the sound. Which of the 37 movements is at any moment the strongest? Once one has come to terms with the volume, the superimposed dynamic fluctuations of this hallucinatory stream of sounds flood into the ear. Finally one is able, by further focussing one’s perception, to pursue innumerable individual threads in this shining tapestry. (HM, translated by Susanna Eastburn) Genre Acousmatic Comment by Paulo Dandrea perfect chaos! love it 2016-03-22T14:02:01Z Comment by collocationist sieben monate später: gilt mein erstaunen, meine hohe achtung für diesen track (nur: track?) immer noch. beeindruckend, herr muenz. 2013-09-24T11:12:36Z Comment by .fseventsd i tried this with the Diabelli Variations one time (although without the stretching). unfortunately the quieter ones mostly got lost in the mix. 2013-09-24T10:48:40Z Comment by collocationist mächtig. meine hochachtung. 2013-02-27T10:14:57Z Comment by Phil Maguire I love this! It's really satisfying to listen to somehow. 2012-11-17T19:44:03Z Comment by No Mates Ensemble what a wonderful monster of a piece to hear when first opening someones page, i promise to listen to it again at full volume 2012-09-02T23:18:16Z Comment by Harald Muenz @lachgas25: Danke, daß Sie mit ihm darüber gesprochen haben. 2012-09-01T14:11:55Z Comment by oddrun eikli most exiting !! 2012-08-14T17:39:25Z Comment by Matteo Marchisano-Adamo This is exciting - as an exercise is listening and simply as a piece of music. It is delightful ride. My body is a little worn from the ride and I like it. :) 2012-06-03T20:41:42Z Comment by michael parkin Wall of Beethoven. I recognised all 2,793 extracts of course. Thirty seconds into the piece I started smiling, and the smile stayed to the end. Why is this? 2012-05-23T23:00:05Z Comment by Harald Muenz @bluemurderjazz: Thanks for this! Personally, I do not think the two things mutually exclude each other. 2012-05-22T05:52:34Z Comment by Harald Muenz @bertieseestheworld: Thx! 2012-04-22T06:44:22Z Comment by spacechild1 Stark! 2012-04-21T15:21:50Z Comment by hdathome This track has something of a "avantgarde smash hit", if you'd do more promoting, it could become rather viral… 2012-04-15T07:57:29Z