Sunwheel Masada

1994

Composers and performers: Kurt Dahlke, Michael Fahres, Michael Jüllich
Idea: Michael Fahres

After our concert in Lelystad (the Netherlands) on Friday August 7th 1992 we were invited to Israel to give a simular concert on Masada. Masada is a dramatically located site of great natural beauty overlooking the Dead Sea.

During this concert we not only performed music we had also played in the Sunobservatory of Robert Morris, but also numerous variations of these pieces.

For more information: Sunwheel Lelystad

Sunwheel is not a “concert”: it’s more an environmental landscape music project.

The concert in Masada took place on the 25th September 1994. It started at 4.00 h with the lighting of torches (Ignite) and ended at 22.20 h local time.

Music production: Centrum voor Elektronische Muziek (CEM), ATA TAK
Midi assistance: Tibor Fülöp
Overall production: Goethe Institute Tel Aviv, Ping Pong Ltd.
Additional collaborators: Simon Been, Rogier Ormeling, Martine Inklaar and others

With support from: Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv, NOS, Fonds voor de scheppende Toonkunst and the Manfred Pawlak publishing company

Special thanks go to the film directors Marie Jo Lafontaine and Werner Herzog, who allowed us to use their films ‘Jeder Engel ist schrecklich’ and ‘Lessons in Darkness’ for this project.

From left to right: Kurt Dahlke, Michael Fahres and Michael Jüllich

Ignite

The torches are lit

Jeder Engel ist schrecklich

1992

Film by Marie Jo Lafontaine

This film is part of a video installation.
The title refers to the Duino Elegies by the writer Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke explains the angel, which stands as an imaginary symbol for the transformation of the visible into the invisible and conveys to us the idea of a higher quality of reality. This is terrible for us.

Cels

(1994) Open form
Electronic environment

Various solar synthesizers with their always varying soft sounds were placed on the spectator benches. During the breaks, visitors were able to play with the synthesizers.

The Sun Synthesiser needs no electricity. It works only with the energy of the sun. Two cables lead out of the device. The loudspeaker is attached to one of them.
A photosensitive resistor is attached to the other cable. This resistor can be used to modulate the sound, either by simply walking past this resistor or by actively waving your hand past it.

Production: Jürgen Keil, Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv
Commisioned by: Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv

Astral

1987/1992 (09’27”) (Fahres)
Electroinstrumental Music

Astral is the 3rd part of the composition “Sunbeams” for large orchestra.
Adaptation with gong drum and gong.

The image of sunrays breaking through a cloud, clearly visible during a storm, prompted Michael Fahres to write the three-movement composition ‘Sunbeams’ (‘Sunheat’, ‘Clouds’, ‘Astral’). Various musical styles such as minimal music, pop music or soundscape composition are strictly separated or interwoven and processed. The gong, the gong drum and other percussion instruments react and interpret these compositional patterns.

Commisioned by: Fonds voor de scheppende Toonkunst

Trommelsolo

(1994) (20′) (Jüllich)
Drumsolo for Drum Big Mama and two hands

19th and 31st Rhyths like:
3 3 2 2 2 1 2 2 2
sa ke ti sa ke ti to me to me to me Kick to me to me to me, whose focus constantly shifts between the right and left sides of the body, bring us to awareness: ‘We have woken up, we are here. ’Other forms of rhythm are:
2 3 2 3 2 2 1 2 2
3 2 3 2 1 2 2 2 2
2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1
and
3 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 2 2 3 1 2 2 3
Every nineteen years, the sun, moon and earth are in the same constellation

Sunwinds

1994 (20’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
for Midi pads, Lightning, bullroarer and air sounds

Lightning and Thunder are instruments built by the American synthesiser pioneer Donald Buchla. The Lightning allows you to control electronic sounds by moving your hands in the air, or to influence musical parameters such as tempo or volume. This is a good example of how to use it in ‘Sunwinds’, a piece with sounds that were all created by the vibration of columns of air. ‘Sunwinds’ is a breath of air in the morning, the day has begun, we breathe in before the heat of the day begins.

Sunheat

(1987-1992) (10′) (Fahres)
Electronic adaptation with crotales

Sunheat is the first part of the composition “Sunbeams” for large orchestra.

Heating the earth’s surface causes a buzzing of the air, which is musically interpreted by the instrumentation of ‘Sunheat’ in the higher registers of the instruments and the sounds of the crotales. Bronze, the material from which the crotales are made, is created from different metals and heated earth.

Production: NPS, Inter-Acties Holland Festival
Commisioned by: NPS, Holland Festival
Thanks to: Glenn Branca

The Signal – Hain

1991 (21’22”) (Fahres)
For electronic music and recorder.

Die Aufforderung – Héhé” (the challenge)
Die Begegnung – Yoyoyoyo – (the encounter) – Húp ke kep
Die Verwandlung – Ham-nia – (the transformation)

Chants of the Selk’nam Indians from Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), sung by the shaman Lola Kjepa, formed the melodies for this four-movement composition. The final part, ‘Ham-nia’, for example, is a trance piece. Lola Kjepa speaks of her happy death, which will lead her to the light after life.

Commisioned by: Goethe Institut, Buenos Aires
More info: Hain

Variations on Hain

(1992) (22’44”) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electronic music with Midi pads

Mini pads played by Michael Jüllich

The Sign – Chinyangjo / Ost

1988 (12’20”) (Dahlke, Fahres)

This is an electronic arrangement of “Das Zeichen – Chinyangjo” which originally was for six brass instruments and two percussionists. This composition is an electronic adaptation with Lightning.

The composition “Das Zeichen” (the sign) was created on the basis of a dream. Was it a dream, or dreamed reality? I am sitting in a satellite; ” I am flying around the world. I see countries: China, India, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Rome et cetera, the cultural history of the world. “Finally, I saw the mist go west and blow away over Japan.”

Sunmission 1

(1994) (5′) (Jüllich)

Sound association with djembe in a cave
Embryonic state

The Sign – Pop

(1992) (10’40”) (Dahlke, Fahres)
Electronic adaptation with Lightning.

This arrangement uses only two motifs from the original composition “The Sign, Chinyangjo” and adds a new melody line and a drum kit, which are supposed to trigger cinematic associations: The dreamlike journey becomes a pictorial reality.

Sunmission 2

(1994) (5′) (Jüllich)

Sound association with Javagong
Coming on the world, birth

The Sign – West

(1992) (12’20”) (Dahlke, Fahres)
Electronic ethnic music

This is an electronic arrangement of “The sign – Chinyangjo” (1988/1992) for six brass instruments and two percussionists.The original composition “The Sign, Chinyangjo”, which was composed for Western wind instruments, musically picks up a Korean motif. “The sign – West” behaves the other way round: by using ethnic timbres, the original work with a western touch is transformed back into Asian musical worlds. This electronic arrangement with the music instrument “Lightning”, built by Don Buchla, is arranged and played by Kurt Dahlke.

Sunmission 3

(1994) (5′) (Jüllich)

Sound association with Gong
Arrival in this universe, this atmosphere

Mote

(1992) (50’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electro instrumental composition for gong, gong drum, three radios and electronics

So-called sun storms, originating from excessive activity of the sun, might, for example, affect the entire shortwave network of radio transfer. Such transmission-radiation-influences, which, among other things, cause surface noises or other acoustic disturbances, are guided, for example, by the accidentally appearing traffic stream, which determines the total volume of sound of the composition. The second “acoustic” space-axis, compass: south-east/southwest, is drawn. The acoustic transfer of the beat sounds of the marble drum by means of a large loudspeaker, placed in front of the long, changes these into oscillations. These are scanned and made audible by means of contact microphones. The percussionist thus plays, directly and indirectly, two instruments.

Shreds

(1994) (30′) (Dahlke, Jüllich)
For live elektronics and percussion

According to the physical law of entropy, sound strives towards a higher resolution. Musical and tonal parameters become blurred, indistinct and silent.

Re-composition

(1994) (45’10″) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electro instrumental composition for gong, gong drum, three radios and electronics

According to the physical law of entropy, sound strives towards a higher resolution. Musical and tonal parameters become blurred, indistinct and silent.

Fata Morgana

(1994) (45’10”) (Fahres)
Soundscape plus percussion and electronics

The Israeli artist Zohar Schlesinger was commissioned to record typical sounds of her country and make them available to us.
“The air is charged with the heat of the sun. Soundscapes of memory, of experience emerge. Musical mirages appear out of the blazing air, sound impressions that can be heard in Israel. This mirage prepares us for the off side (over noon), where a calm enters.”

Production: Zohar Schlesinger
Commisioned by: Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv
More info: Fata Morgana

The Circle – Variation 1

(1973-1992) (18’20″) (Dahlke, Fahres)
Electronic Music; tape music

The “Graphmus System”, a composition system developed in the early seventies that translates words for the play “Stoffwechsel” into music, served as the starting point for the composition. In this case the word “ideal” was connected to the graphic form, the circle. The circle is the very form which can only be calculated proportionally, but can never be drawn precisely, and is thus an ideal. In 1992 and 1994 “The circle” was revised, there are two different pieces with different durations, both performed during the Sunwheel project.

Commissioned by: Der Eckiger Kreis

Ataba

(1994) (06’44”) (Fahres)
Electronic arrangment of a Bedouin-theme from the Negev desert with wood

The Bedouin theme of the Tarabin tribe comes from the caravan song “Hudjaini”. The chant was recorded on tape by Amnon Shiloah, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. “Hudjaini” belongs to one of the first musical genres known to us from the desert.

Lull

(1994) (30’) (Jüllich)
Gongsolo

Our autonomic nervous system and our spirituality are evoked by the vibrations of the gong. Massage and meditation.

Shimmering

(1994) (20′) (Dahlke)
Version 2 with Lightning

The midday heat makes all kinds of movement almost impossible. Two complex sound structures are interwoven with Lightning through minimal movements and behave sluggishly towards each other. Only a bass impulse frees this sound body from its lethargy.

Kiln

(1992) (22’05″) (Fahres)
Improvisation for solar sail

Rough heat and the absence of rain change fertile land into deserts. Natural materials such as paper or wood are used to create acoustic dry zones. I had a canvas sun sail sewn in the shape of a triangle, which was stretched out. With different materials such as brushes or nails I worked on the sail and played live on it. The resulting sounds were then electronically altered.

The Tubes

(1994 – 2003) (30’46”) (Fahres)
Breath sounds and Monochord

The sounds of breathing, which are intended to evoke the idea of resting in the broiling midday sun, are produced by large volcanic stone pipes found in Echedo on the island of Hierro. The surf pushes or sucks water and thus air into the cave passages.

Production: ABC-Radio Sydney, Cold Blue Music, Michael Hoenig
Thanks to: The Listening Room, Andrew McLennen, David Bates, Daniel Schwartz, Markus Heuger
More info: The Tubes

Sunvoice

(1994) (30’) (Fahres)
Electronic voices with the motif of “Mercury sound”

The Yamana Indians found the flint in the estuary of the island of Mercury in southern Chile.

The Circle – Variation 2

(1973-1992) (12’) (Dahlke, Fahres)
Electronic Music; tape music

Commissioned by: Eckiger Kreis

Radiation Mote

(1994) (65’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Live-Elektroacoustic music with Big Mama and big gong

A virtual room is acoustically designed. The number 19, symbol for sun/moon/earth periods, plays an important role. The 19th tuning, 19 tones within an octave and 19-time units are used.

Blaze

(1992) (60’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electro instrumental music

The heat, increasing towards noon, is signified musically in an associative way through, for instance, “dry” sounds. Sound sequences pulsate in the room, from within to the outside or vice versa. The djembe, an African drum, directs us away from the “blaze”.

Clouds 1

(1987) (7’57″) (Fahres)
Electronic music

2nd. movement from “Sunbeams” for large orchestra Electronic adaptation
Clouds, clouds of sound, constantly changing formations, shifts, superimpositions, shapeless, ungraspable, sound.

Clouds 2

(1987) (10’) (Fahres)
Electronic music

2nd. movement from “Sunbeams” for large orchestra. Electronic adaptation with Gong and drum

Nabla (part 2 and 3)

(1990) (22’) (Fahres, Jüllich)
Radioplay

The radio play “Nabla” deals with environmental problems. The sounds which were recorded in the “Nabla-bearer” of the Haringvliet sluices, symbolize aridity. Mankind’s passivity caused an environmental catastrophy, which has led to an increase in global temperature.

Production: De Bovenbouw/NOS Radio (NL)
Commissioned by: De Bovenbouw/NOS Radio
Thanks to: Douglas R. Hofstadter, Janette Woolverton, Otto Weerth, Aleister Crowley, Umberto Eco, Marcel Homet
and Vincent van Engelen, Martin, Jan, Suze (guide of the Delta museum), Arno and the Haringvlietsluizen, Rijkswaterstaat (Ministry of Waterways)
For more information: Nabla

Astral Games

(1992) (7’57″) (Dahlke)
Electronic music

Variations on the music box motif from “Astral”, the third movement of the orchestral piece “Sunbeams”.

Various musical styles like minimal music, pop music or sound-sheet composition are strictly separated here or used in an interwoven pattern.

Sunstructure

(1992) (25’22″) (Dahlke, Fahres)
Electronic music

“Sunstructure” corresponds to the authentic sun structure, recorded on photographic material by the solar telescope at Dwingeloo. The data of measurement were then transposed by the observatory in Utrecht by means of computers in the audible frequency range (7 octaves), resolution rate half intervals, tempered tuning.
For more information: Sonnenmusik.

The composition, which consists of 40 voices, was originally written for a large orchestra. Kurt Dahlke arranged the electronic version for the “Sunwheel” project. The editing of “Sunstructure” uses two different methods. On the one hand, individual solar frequencies are released from their overall context and assigned an independent musical function such as motif or melody, on the other hand, the frequencies of the solar structure as a whole are transposed to musical scales, restoring direct Earth-relatedness.

For more information: Sunstructure

Variation 1 of Hain

(1992) (5’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electronic music with Midi pads

Sunturn 1

(1994) (10’) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
For bowed Monochord and static sound

The earth turns away from the sun. This process is musically depicted in the three ‘Sunturns’. We dive into the sun-turned darkness and sense the cold of the night.

Karryon Shoort

(1992) (21’38”) (Fahres)
Radiophonic composition

This is again about the lives of the Selk’nam Indians on Fireland. Fireland received its name from the white people, who from their ships, still far-off, saw the fires that were lit in the canoes of the Indians. The colonization caused the Indians to become extinct. The ozone gap, which extends around the South pole in a radius of at least 1000 kilometres, has now reached the southern bank of Fireland.

Production: CEM-Studio
Commissioned by: Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst
Thanks to: Anne Chapman, Hector Zanola, the Museo del Fin del
Mundo in Ushuaia, Sofia Ballve, Abel Ricardo Basti.

Variation 2 of Hain

(1992) (5′) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
Electronic music with recorder and percussion

Sunturn 2

(1994) (10′) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
With handdrum and moving sounds

Karryon Short

(1992/1994) (41’48”) (Fahres)
Radiophonic composition with Big Mama and Midi pads

The composition ‘Short’ is neither a literary nor a documentary radio play. Although interviews and thus true events are processed, ‘Short’ remains self-sufficient in its creative means and thus in its message. Mrs. Enriqueta de Castelumendi de Santin (La India Varela, 78 years old) and Mr. Segundo Arteaga (84 years old), the last two living Creoles (the fathers were Argentinean and Chilean respectively, the mothers Selk’nam Indians), tell about their lives and thus testify the downfall of the Selk’nam Indians (Ona’s) on Tierra del Fuego. The Salesian monk Juan Tico on the other hand describes the positive Christianisation of the Selk’nam. The soundscape consists of bird and water sounds.

Production: Cem-Studio, NOS
Commissioned by: Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst
Thanks to: a.o. Anne Maria Stadnik, Patricia, Martine Inklaar, Bartolomé Ramos Varga, Jan Landuydt, Maarten Coelink, Carlos Baldassarre, Hecor Zanola, the Museo del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia.

la India Varela and Segundo Arteaga

Sunturn 3

(1994) (10′) (Dahlke, Fahres, Jüllich)
For Gong und rotating sounds

Karryon Shore

(1992) (19’09”) (Fahres)
Radiophonic composition for three speakers (A, B, C) a ship’s bell and the sound of birds and the lighthouse

This part musically outlines the significance of the Staten islands in the south of Tierra del Fuego, which were discovered on 14 June 1615 by the Dutch navigator Jacobo Le Maire. On the one hand, the spirits of the Selk’nam Indians lived on this archipelago, and on the other hand, the famous ‘lighthouse at the end of the world’ (Jules Verne) was built there in the 19th century to protect sailors from the storms and shoals of the sea, a beacon of the modern age.

Thanks to: Wolfgang Brehm, Pawlak Verlag, Frau B.Fritsche and Jules Verne

Mercury Sound

(1992) (4’18”) (Fahres)
Electronic composition with voice

The title “Mercury Sound” – the sound and also the strait of Mercury – refers to a bay of the same name on Clarence Island in southern Chile. The Yamana Indians found the valuable flint here, which was not only used to light the fire in their boats but also as a means of payment. The musician Ramon Ernesto Leiva sings a song of the Yamana, the Canoe Indians, who still live in small numbers on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego.

Yellow marked: Clarence island, Chile

Escape Shore

(1992) (31″) (Fahres)
Electronic sounds.

With the piece “Escape Shore”, the Cauquenes of Patagonia escape from the place of action and fly to other regions. These and other birds fly out of the exploding ball of flame to escape the approaching disaster that is hovering over the Selk’nam Indians.

The sun wheel stops turning. The journey on the sun chariot loses itself in the darkness. ‘Sun from dark gorge breaks.’ (Georg Trakl)

Lessons of darkness

Film by Werner Herzog

Kuwait after the 1991 war.

’….it’s almost like a science fiction film. Every day I was there, I had the very strong feeling that this is a landscape and an environment that can no longer be on our planet, which is actually no longer habitable. Nevertheless, of course, we know that this is us, this is our earth. You really feel like you’ve landed somewhere on a strange planet. That’s how it was there. Everything was darkened, almost like a vision of horror in a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, or in Dante’s Inferno. We tried to turn it into a great requiem. You have to realise that there is an incredible aesthetic of horror, a fascination that is brought into this film and that is almost like a great chronicle, like a great requiem for the memory of mankind.

Something like that can easily, very easily, happen again.

Werner Herzog