Poppe // nyMusikk

PROGRAM:

Enno Poppe: Laub (2022–24) 40‘ - for seven musicians (Norwegian premiere)

Commissioned by Ensemble Recherche, Cikada, Ensemble Contrechamps and ACHTBRÜCKEN GmbH

With kind support of Norsk Kulturfond. Produced by nyMusikk and Cikada.

Find your tickets here.

ABOUT THE WORK:

“I am generally obsessed with variations,” says Enno Poppe. The award-winning artist is considered one of the most important composers and conductors of contemporary music in Germany today. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1990, where he has been a member and conductor of the ensemble mosaik, among other things.

As a conductor, Enno Poppe performs regularly with Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Musikfabrik, and Ensemble Resonanz, as well as with international orchestras. Enno Poppe has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, and at the Impuls Akademie (Graz).

Enno Poppe's music has been performed by quartets such as the Arditti Quartet and Kairos Quartet, conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Susanna Mälkki, Emilio Pomárico, and Peter Rundel, and orchestras such as the SWR Sinfonieorchester, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, and Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. Ensembles that regularly perform his music include Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Resonanz, Klangforum Wien, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemble 2e2m, SWR Vokalensemble, and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.

Laub is a joint commission by Ensemble Recherche, Cikada, Ensemble Contrechamps, and the ACHTBRÜCKEN festival in Cologne.

For Poppe, this work differs from his previous compositions, which are usually characterized by a clearly predetermined structure. In contrast, Laub has developed largely on the basis of details, according to Poppe. Every single detail in the work is significant; with over 800 bars and an average of six to ten details per bar, this amounts to nearly 8,000 individual elements. Poppe feels that each detail has a distinct character and uniqueness, something alive in the composition as a whole.

At the same time, the work is based on the composer's interest in variations. “In Laub, each bar is a variation of the previous bar. This creates a kind of ‘silent post,’ where the music changes completely, without it being possible to say exactly where this change has taken place,” says the composer.

"Every single cell can be illuminated and examined. Are we under a microscope or in a dream? How is it that one can be wide awake and concentrated, and at the same time lose all sense of time, tonal system, and all other organizing forces? If I already knew what was going to happen in a new piece, I wouldn't need to write it. It is clear that I start with very little, fragments of a melody, tiny elements that resemble each other. From these germ cells arises a dense network of relationships, a jungle, a dream. The piece is always on the border between order and disorder. It sings, it waits.

My need is to try something new in each piece. After some large-scale works, some of which are very loud and massive (Prozession, Körper), I first wrote a series of miniatures to escape the idea of large form and focus on the moment (Augen, Blumen). Earlier chamber music works (Trauben, Fleisch) are particularly wild and intense, to give small ensembles a special energy. The new chamber music piece, on the other hand, is delicate and expansive. The ensemble is classical, without electronics or special instruments. It lasts 40 minutes, and at some point it just ends. (Enno Poppe, ricordi.com)

picture: © Ricordi/Harald Hoffmann