Ensemble Concert ensemble mosaik, Enno Poppe, Ermis Theodorakis

Whipsaw is a similar-looking chart formation (see stock market, securities trading). It is formed by the price line and an indicator (usually the moving average). The upward or downward crossing of the indicator by the price line is generally regarded as a signal for a trend reversal and for the corresponding action (buy or sell); in the case of a whipsaw, however, this single or repeated crossing proves to be a false signal: the trend reversal does not take place and the impatient trader has to accept losses.

Four distinct ideas come together in the piece, which can be described as Lines, Points, Chords, Trees. The compositional processes are stochastically controlled to a large extent, i.e. with the help of random numbers and probability distributions; this applies to almost all parameters of the composition: pitches, rhythm, meter, large form. The aim of these methods is to make the individual development of the ideas and the larger form more complex, so that the progressions are only recognizable on the whole, while the small or larger deviations (pull-backs) occasionally produce false signals for the listener about the development of the piece.

With the words “Then to the Elements, Be free, and fare thou well.”, Prospero releases the air spirit Ariel from his service at the end of Shakespaere's Tempest. He, his daughter Miranda and the stranded men now leave the lonely island far from civilization to return to their principalities in Italy. Ariel's power over the elements was at Prospero's disposal; he has caused the storm in order to subject the princes he knows to his game, his scenario on the island. The end of the play is also the end of this game, the spell under which the stranded people were under has been lifted and with Ariel's release Prospero renounces the almost unlimited power that was at his disposal through Ariel's service.

But - and this is perhaps the big turning point - Prospero's words also contain a request to Ariel that he should faithfully use his powers for the crossing - and perhaps beyond - in Prospero's favor, but no longer as a duty, but as a gift.

In addition to this poetic meaning of the sentence, it can also be read in a very prosaic way: “Off to the elements, the smallest units.” In this sense, Adrian Leverkühn quotes the sentence in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. Leverkühn then wrote his last work, “Doctor Faustus”.

To penetrate compositionally to the smallest units is not fruitful as a radical project. Time, pitches, timbres are continuous dimensions that can be technically controlled today on finer scales - in finer measures - than the ear can grasp. So the question of what the elements of music are per se is always a question of technical possibilities. In the concrete context of a composition, however, this question always arises. Tones, tone durations, overtone ratios, scales, rows, row fields - all these can be elements of a composition if they are treated as such. In my composition, different musical units are treated as elements of a compositional organization in each part: from pitches and tone durations to the parts as elements of a compositional organization and the attempt to at least reflect the next level of organization at which the work would have to become an element.

- It should be clear from the above that I do not consider it a viable compositional approach to 'solve' this problem, or perhaps better: to resolve it by dispensing with compositional organization.

We do not need more and more asceticism, but abundance, rich and lavish abundance!

Los Angeles is glowing, they say. From April to June 2018, I lived in this city, in the Villa Aurora, in the glamorous Pacific Palisades district. The villa is a historic place, and working there is a special experience: in Lion Feuchtwanger's house; at Franz Werfel's desk; at Ernst Toch's grand piano.

Toch's grand piano is a Blüthner. It is reported that Lion Feuchtwanger, long since in exile and now better off financially, arranged for the instrument to be shipped from Europe to the USA. Today it stands in the Villa Aurora, in “Martha's (Feuchtwanger's) music room”, where parts of this composition were also written: “Glow”, a work for six players, lasting almost half an hour.

Los Angeles is glowing: US author Lawrence Weschler coined this phrase, in 1998 in an article with the same title in The New Yorker magazine (“L.A. Glows”). In it, he discusses the city's special light.

Weschler, grandson of the composer Ernst Toch, who was born in Vienna in 1884 and died in Santa Monica in 1964, also refers to his grandfather. In his study in exile in California, he would have had a view of the Pacific - Santa Monica Bay - filled with light in the afternoon. (Incidentally, Lion Feuchtwanger also looked out at this part of the ocean from his study). His guests would have said to him: “No wonder you can compose with a view like that!”, and Toch would have replied, according to Weschler: “When I compose, the curtains must be drawn.”