Sounds, tones, noises, voices and texts converge in one of Heiner Goebbels’ most extraordinary acoustic creations. Is it a composition, environment, installation or sound sculpture on the grand scale? Its creator once described it as a composition for five pianos with no pianists, a play with no actors, a performance without performers, “one might say a no-man show.”
Yet it is teeming with sound sources – ranging from Bach to chants of natives of New Guinea to Greek folk song, and overlapping voices of, amongst many others, Claude Lévi-
Strauss, William Burroughs and Malcolm X. The work was inspired by the work of 19th century Austrian Romantic writer Adalbert Stifter, who meticulously documented the signs and sounds of nature.
Wolfgang Sandner states in his liner notes: “Stifters Dinge is the work of an extraordinary human imagination. It is a piece that will have made a deep impression on anyone who saw it in the theatre, and that may have still more effect on anyone who now just hears what was originally a multimedia construction, since the wondrous stage action, apparently unfolding without human intervention, does not fundamentally need visualizing. One can almost take hold of the sound events themselves as physical presences. Simply by listening one can move around the work and experience it from all sides, as if it were a sculpture by Michelangelo or Rodin. Is there such a thing as three-dimensional music? Could there be? If so, Stifters Dinge would belong in this utopian category.”
Heiner Goebbels, who celebrates his 60th birthday in August, has recently been named winner of the 2012 International Ibsen Award (worth 2.5 million Norwegian crowns). His work has regularly been seen in Britain, including Stifters Dinge which Artangel mounted in London in 2008.
Heiner Goebbels: The Fog
The Fog
Heiner Goebbels: The Salt
The Salt
Heiner Goebbels: The Water
The Water
Heiner Goebbels: The Wind
The Wind
Heiner Goebbels: The Trees
The Trees
Heiner Goebbels: The Thing
The Thing
Heiner Goebbels: The Rain
The Rain
Heiner Goebbels: The Thunder
The Thunder
Heiner Goebbels: El Sonido
El Sonido
Heiner Goebbels: The Storm
The Storm
Heiner Goebbels: The Coast
The Coast
Heiner Goebbels: Exhibition of Objects
Exhibition of Objects
24th May 2012
****
“The "performance" comes from five grand pianos, all played in different mechanical ways and forming part of a set that, in the course of an hour, inches menacingly towards the audience across tanks of inky black liquid only to retreat again...It's a typical Goebbels collage and typically, too, all the elements somehow cohere. Even on disc it's mysterious and compelling.”
2nd June 2012
*****
“This soundtrack to Heiner Goebbels' installation piece Stifters Dinge is one of the most gripping musical experiences I've had in ages...it's a sonic drama that pivots on the cusp of the industrial and the organic, capturing the Romantic enchantment of the central text by Adalbert Stifter.”
The Independent on Sunday
5th August 2012
*****
“Described by the composer as a "performative installation", the mesmerising Stifters Dinge is subtly transformed by the removal of the visual elements in its purposeful ebb and flow of found and created sound.”
The Arts Desk
6th August 2012
“If you’re into peculiar, mixed-media staged wackiness, he’s your man...The results are never less than gripping, especially when listened to with headphones. Exactly the sort of unhinged, adventurous madness which would never come into being without public subsidy. ECM’s production and presentation are excellent.”
August 2012
“This is a remarkable and surprisingly rich and stimulating work, and very much worth hearing in its own right, even divorced from its theatrical origin. Yes, it’s contemporary music and no, it’s not filled with tunes to which you can hum along, but it is romantic in feel, with the same kind of invisible virtuosity which you find in a Brahms Ballade.”
December 2012
*****
“Without [the accompanying visuals] the music does sometimes seem thin. But the longeurs are outweighed by moments of sudden grandeur and drama, and a fascinating atmosphere of dark menace.”
The Fog
