Exotica

"In "Exotica", more than in any other of my pieces, the radical expansion of the instrumentation is elevated to an aesthetic principle. Sound-sources from four continents form the basis for a realization using six performers who play plucked, wind, string and percussion instruments that are seldom - if ever - found in European art-music or folk-music. And so, listeners to this piece may find themselves confronted by a world of sound that they can no longer hear in a simple, unequivocal way. Are these parodies of Asian, African or Oriental music? Or are the various sections obviously stylistic pastiches in which, despite a few opaque spots, the aura and characteristics of the origi-. nals are accurately conveyed? Is the resulting music "exotic" because it has been reshaped by the pen of a Western composer, or is it more that, with instruments of this kind, it's not possible to produce music with typical Western features? On the one hand, the notation of the piece largely assumed that most players will only be able to master the techniques of the instruments Up to a certain point So each part is written exclusively in terms of durations and dynamic markings, as a continuous monody; the performer is to furnish the prescribed rhythms with pitches in any register. On the other hand, a pre-eminent position is accorded to singing in this composition: each musician is to decide in favour of the vocal part, should the latter happen to be in collision with the exercise of his instrumental part The opportunity to sing struck me as essential since - in contrast to musical practice in other parts of the world - it has been systematically expunged from serious European music. The score is divided into five sections (A-E) which can be performed in any order; although many parts are divided by pauses, one is scarcely aware of movements in the conventional sense. In some cases one should even aim to let them intersect; thus D, which consists of seven independent solos, is sometimes heard alongside other sections. In B and E provisions is made for tapes with fragments of authentic non-European music; to match this idea, the choice of original music here should take account of the instrumentation. Deliberate matchings could be chosen so as to either stress or underplay the ethno-musicologi-cal similarities and differences (for example, music from the Near East could be imitated on mid-Asian instruments, or a typical instrumental combination from the Near East could be given a far-Eastern tinge etc). Authentic apocrypha come to light, and the paradigms of distant cultures inevitably acquire a foreign predicate. Then the boundaries between metaphor and quotation, or between model and paraphrase obviously disappear. Such are the results of a musical outlook that takes a sceptical view of those divisions into geographic regions whose border lines are dubious. In reality, things look different these days. "Exotica" is dedicated to the sixth sense." Composed 1970/71 for non-European instruments Recorded June 17th and 19th 1992 on the occasion of the opening of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn © Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH und die Autoren Herausgeber: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH Herstellung: AULOS-Schallplattenproduktion, Viersen 11 Verlag: Universal Edition, Wien/London Printed in Germany in July 1992 Catalog number on CD "AUL 60 008 SF", on booklet and backcover "AUL 60008 SF" This box was given away to the officials, guests by invitation and leaders of the opening of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. The CD was obtained without the box to the cast and members and other people involved in concert project.