New Music By Karlheinz Essl

Free improvisation about Nietzsche and Wagner by OUT OF THE BLUE with Agnes Heginger (vocals) and Karlheinz Essl (live-electronics). Recorded live at the Essl Museum (Klosterneuburg/Vienna) on April 27th, 2016. Das Offene und Unerwartete ist Ausgangspunkt dieser Performance, die von Friedrich Nietzsche und seinem ambivalenten Verhältnis zu Richard Wagner inspiriert ist. Eine Auswahl seiner Texte, Gedanken und Gedichte dient als Material und Katalysator eines Prozesses, der sich momentan auf der Bühne ereignet und keinem vorgegebenen Plan folgt.

Parsifal-Kristall transforms the salvation choir from Wagner’s sacred festival drama by utilizing a new technique for his “art of transition”. The music of the finale, which dissolves all the dramatic tensions and conciliates all the contrasts of Wagner’s music drama, now runs backwards, beginning with the last crescendo and leading into clusters of interleaving layers of the musical material, as if Wagner’s promise of blessedness should again be questioned. Essl stretches the reversed sound segments of Wagner's original once, twice, four times and eight times. Like loops, these musical layers are interwoven into a texture. The composer controls the algorithmic mixture of the material creating individual combinations. In spite of his complex deconstruction, Essl saves the aura of Wagner’s homophonic music. In a process of condensation and equalization, the blurred transitions develop a musical dramaturgy of their own. This soundscape recalls Mahler’s polyphony, which let music of different origins sound toge

Sound scape "middle ages" from Karlheinz Essl's sound/video/performance OMNIA IN OMNIBUS (2015)

Sound scape "present time" from Karlheinz Essl's sound/video/performance OMNIA IN OMNIBUS (2015)

Granular synthesis processing of Heinrich Isaac's "Innsbrucklied" (15th century). Excerpt from Karlheinz Essl's sound/video/performance OMNIA IN OMNIBUS (2015).

Granular synthesis processing of Mönch von Salzburg's "Das Kühhorn" (14th century). Excerpt from Karlheinz Essl's sound/video/performance OMNIA IN OMNIBUS (2015).

Amazing Maze is a computer program written by Karlheinz Essl in 1993 ff. It automatically generates music by manipulating sampled instrumental sounds according to certain compositional strategies that are carried out in different structure generators. Each generator synthesizes its own characteristic sonic world. The compositional algorithms have been programmed in MaxMSP by taking advantage of my Real Time Composition Library (RTC-lib). This collection of software modules offers the possibility to experiment with a number of compositional techniques, such as serial procedures, permutations and controlled randomness. Free download of the software (Mac/PC)from http://www.essl.at

Performed and recorded by Karlheinz Essl on 14 Jan 2009 at Studio kHz. Having played the electric guitar as a rock-obsessed teenager, I re-discovered it 25 years later. In the meantime, I have studied composition and musicology and became heavily involved with electronic and computer music. Working as a composer writing complex musical scores I felt more and more the desire to re-connect to those ecstatic times when I was performing on stage with my electric guitar. But first I developed my own idiosyncratic electronic instrument called m@ze°2 (1998 ff.) which I am still using for free improvisation and live performances. In 2007, I was ready for another change when the handling with MIDI controllers, graphic tablets, keyboards, computer mouses and pedals became more and more insufficient. I was seeking for an instantaneous, tactile input device to be included into my live-electronic setup. First I was thinking of a custom-made wooden resonance box equipped with strings, contact microphones and pickups that

Ausschnitt aus dem 2014 entstandenen KUNSTRADIO-Hörstück "Herbeck extended" - eine Hommage an den Lyriker Ernst Herbeck. Als Ausgangsmaterial diente eine Tonbandaufnahme mit der Stimme des schizophrenen Dichters, der aufgrund einer Gaumenspalte sich sprachlich kaum artikulieren konnte. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/herbeck-extended.html

This is a 5 hour recording of Karlheinz Essl's sound installation WebernUhrWerk. Every 15 minutes, a short Carillon phrase based on the twelve-tone row of Anton Webern is played. Be aware that most of the time this piece is silent! The original composition, however, is based on a generative computer program which you can download from here: http://www.essl.at/works/webernuhrwerk/download.html It was created for commemorating the 70th anniversary of Webern's death on 15 September 2015 in a global event called "World-Wide Webern". In order to join in, you can use this recording. Start it exactly at the beginning of a full hour and let it run for 5 hours. When finished, you can repeat the piece as long as you like.

A computer program that automatically composes dodecaphonic Carillon music based on the twelve-tone row of Anton Webern's last composition - commemorating his sudden and unexpected death on 15 Sep 1945 as he was accidentally shot dead by an American GI. The program simulates a Carillon which plays a short musical phrase every 15 minutes which never repeats itself. More information and download link: http://www.essl.at/works/webernuhrwerk/download.html

Final part of Karlheinz Essl’s sound/video performance Omnia in omnibus, created for the 650th anniversary of the University of Vienna. Recorded live at Studio kHz on June 13th, 2015. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/OIO.html

Performed by Goska Isphording (harpsichord) and Anne Veinberg (toy pianos) during the Prix Annelie de Man on May 28th, 2015 at Het Orgelpark in Amsterdam (NL). In this piece, two toy pianos are combined with a two-manual harpsichord - an instrument with a long history and an impressive repertory, as opposed to the toy piano. Although both keyboards are so different in every respect, they are forming a unit where the differences are reconciled and their individual "weakness" is counter-balanced by the other instrument. With "united forces" (so the translation of the latin title), they are creating a new entity which results in a new sound, something that has never been heard before. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/viribus-unitis.html

Erster Teil aus Karlheinz Essl KUNSTRADIO-Stück "Herbeck extended" über den Dichter Ernst Herbeck (1920-1991), der die meiste Zeit seines Lebens im psychiatrischen Krankenhaus Maria Gugging verbrachte. Was zunächst wie ein herkömmliches Literaturfeature beginnt entwickelt sich aber schon bald zu einem bedrohlichen Szenario, in dem die Stimmen, die Ernst Herbeck Zeit seines Lebens verfolgt haben, die Oberhand gewinnen. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/herbeck-extended.html

Letzter Teil aus Karlheinz Essl KUNSTRADIO-Stück "Herbeck extended" über den Dichter Ernst Herbeck (1920-1991), der die meiste Zeit seines Lebens im psychiatrischen Krankenhaus Maria Gugging verbrachte. Im Nachlass Ernst Herbeck wurde von der Literaturwissenschaftlerin Gisela Steinlechner einen Fragebogen gefunden, den der Psychiater Leo Navratil aufgesetzt hatte. Die Fragen waren mit Schreibmaschine getippt; darunter hat Herbeck seine Antworten hingekritzelt. - Dieses Frage-und-Antwort Spiel zwischen der Stimmen von Sandra Kreisler und einer Computerstimme namens Leopold ereignet sich vor dem Hintergrund einer sich äußerst langsam bewegenden hochexpressiven Orchestermusik, in der Mozart anklingt, der erklärte Lieblingskomponist Ernst Herbecks. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/herbeck-extended.html

Dritter Teil aus Karlheinz Essl KUNSTRADIO-Stück "Herbeck extended" über den Dichter Ernst Herbeck (1920-1991), der die meiste Zeit seines Lebens im psychiatrischen Krankenhaus Maria Gugging verbrachte. Ein Kommentar über Karlheinz Essls persönlichen Zugang zu Ernst Herbeck, gelesen von Andreas Wolf. Im Hintergrund wird allmählich Herbecks Gedicht "Das Leben" erahnbar, das im Zentrum des nächsten Abschnitts steht. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/herbeck-extended.html

For WalkürenWalk, an electronic sound performance for computer and controllers, Essl has chosen a fragment of 30 seconds from Wagner’s “Ride of the Walkyries”, segmented into tiny sound grains which are overlapped and re-combined during the course of a live-performance. These “nano”-particles reveal certain substructures of the music like a view through a microscope. In his adaptation, the music dismisses has lost the monumentality and powerful image of Wagner’s Walkyries, the messengers of death, who retrieved the dead heroes from the battlefields and brought them to Walhall, where they were revitalized for the ultimate battle - the Twilight of the Gods. In the crackling impulse sequences, certain aspects of Wagner’s sound spectrum become evident, although in an alienated manner. But the rhythms skeletonize the energetic momentum and the magnificence of the heroines of death as if the music would rather depict Gustav Mahler’s ghost army in Revelge. It draws the listener’s attention away from the triumphant

Tristan’s Lament seems to allude Tristan’s complaint in the third act, when he is sick to death awaiting his beloved and “best doctor”, Isolde. However, Essl has chosen a sequence from the prelude, and by a program written in MaxMSP he moves through the sound in slow motion, back and forth, quicker and slower, until the time flow stops. In every performance, the live improvised reconstruction creates new variations – endless configurations of an endless melody. In Wagner’s prelude, the “awful yearning” implies the longing for love in every person of the play, and it is musicalized in chromatic shifts and the famous Tristan chord, that has broken the traditional tension patterns of tonality. Sighs and suspensions claim for solutions, which Essl denies, again and again turning back, as if the loops of increasing tension could prolong the bittersweet pain of expecting love in missing it. A sudden “forte” dies away, there is no increasing progression towards a climax, no breakthrough into bliss – not even the bl

Composed 2005 for the 60th anniversary of Anton Webern's death, performed by Isabel Ettenauer and Karlheinz Essl. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/webernspielwerk.html

Performed by students of Lars Mlekusch and Karlheinz Essl on March 9th, 2013 at the MUK Vienna. Auf einer USA-Reise im Jahr 2005 war der Colorado River für einige Tage unser Wegbegleiter. Sein unbeirrtes Weiterströmen, seine chamäleonartige Farbigkeit und sein ungeheure Kraft (von dem das Grand Canyon ein berührendes Zeugnis ablegt)erschienen mir als naturgewordene Metapher für eine Komposition, die zu jener Zeit in meinem Kopf herankeimte: ein Werk für Saxophonquartett und Live-Elektronik, dem ich den Namen "colorado" gab. Bei der Aufführung des Werkes sitzen die vier Musiker des Quartetts in der Mitte des Saales; vier Lautsprechern umgeben das Publikum. Die Instrumente (Sopran-, Alt-, Tenor- und Baritonsaxophon) werden von Mikrophonen abgenommen, in Echtzeit von einem interaktiv gesteuerten Computerprogramm verarbeitet und über die Lautsprecher ins Auditorium abgestrahlt, das wiederum als Resonanzkörper und Hallraum fungiert. Die Live-Elektronik basiert auf einer Art „Teilchenbeschleuniger“, der die live