Jörg Widmann, Implosion für Orchester (Part 2)

[strav12]

Not sure where this part is going - using pizzicato and other techinques to emphasise silence is ok, but what has this to do with implosion? Is this a post-implosion kindda thaing, or the implosion that exists within silence (in which case it doesn't quite get there for me)? Or what?

[GreggaryPeccary]

Here's the explanation the composer himself offered: "(...) A piece about pulse repetitions, shock waves, the procreation of a virus. Almost all the microstructures are moving toward the inside. The inside of my orchestral structure is a medial axis, consisting of banjo, harp, concert piano and percussion", "(...) Almost as much as I am interested in the process of implosion, I am in the final point of the process: Destruction, devastation, nothing, ashes."

Cryptic, innit?

[strav12]

Destruction, devastation, nothing, ashes do not IMPLODE. There is inward movement in the first part because the orchestration went for density of sound. Here, it is so hard to imagine anything going INWARDS? There is the spatial sense of suspended or slow motion animation in the sounds, but moving inwards in music is hard to achieve. As a phenomenon, music EXTERNALISES the interiority of sound and inwardness. Compositional technique in this section doesn't get to inwardness. Cf Zappa, N-Lite.

[GreggaryPeccary]

"Almost as much as I am interested in the process of implosion, I am in the final point of the process: Destruction, devastation, nothing, ashes."

I guess this part is the RESULT of an implosion. The first video was the implosion, I guess

[strav12]

My physics is not very good, but the result of implosion is not silence, nothing or ashes. Black holes, hyper density, anti-matter, yes. And IF that was what he was going for then I think the compositional technique was wrong for the subject matter. Zappa in N-Lite (Civilisation Phase 3) or KTU or King Crimson in the darkest moments are more compositionally and musically close to implosion than this. IMAO!

[GreggaryPeccary]

Yeah, but how are you going to musically describe black holes or anti-matter? You might put a huge bell jar on the orchestra and suck the air out LOL. Or you might get a particle accelerator and create a blck hole that will suck up the whole world as the finale of the concerto.

I don't know, I look at it as a loose metaphor

[strav12]

But Zappa actually got there using atonal synclavier & of course his compositional mind! If you listen to KTU (Absinthe) or Meshuggah (New Millenium Cyanide Christ) you certainly get the feel of being in a particle accelerator sucked into a black hole - but the end result of implosion is actually explosion - hence the Big Bang. Ironic, huh? But should composers be allowed to inflict their 'looseness' on us? Sorry, but I'm just reading Hindemith on composition so not feeling very charitable...!

[GreggaryPeccary]

I have no clue about physics, so I'm susceptible to any false claim. He might have called the piece "the bottyshagger", it would make no difference to me. You said before, black holes and anti-matter are the result of implosion. Now you said it's an explosion. Which one is it? I understand why you might be a little uncharitable, Hindemith is supposed to have been very dogmatic

[strav12]

Black holes and anti-matter are formed through processes of implosion. However, when left for like a few billion years or so, they finally explode and become stars which in turn create planets that spin off. I do think it matters what Widmann calls his work if it is being presented as conceptual art. If he wants to be loose, he should say so openly in his explanation - but to me, looseness is not musical thinking, and there is very little looseness in Zappa et al.