Artist Statement
Music for live speaker/actor and tape. Combination 11 is a poem by Helmut Heissenbuttel (1956). All of the sound material for the piece (with the exception of the pedal tone heard throughout), is derived from the recorded voices of two people, speaking the text of the poem with very different German accents. These sounds are processed and mixed in the style of ‘musique concrete’ collages. The musical form is that of a rondo. An analog recording was sampled onto a NeXT workstation, using an Ariel analog-to-digital convertor. The voice sounds were processed and mixed using a software phase vocoder and the cmusic sound compiler program.
Text of Kombination XI / Combination 11
Helmut Heissenbuttel, Hamburg/Stuttgart, 1956
translation by Stephen Travis Pope, Vienna, 1978
(1)
Die Nacht ist ein Muster aus Bogenlampen und Autoracklichtern.
The night is a pattern of arc lamps and auto taillights.
Auf der reglosen Fläche der Alster stehen die weissen Fahnen der Nacht.
On the calm surface of the Alster (river) stand the white flags of night.
Unter den Baumen gehen die Schatten.
Under the trees walk the shadows.
Ich bin’s.
It’s me.
(2)
Dunkelkammergesprache
Dark-room-discussions
Dunkelkammergedachtnis
Dark-room-memory
Schattengitter fiber dem schmelzenden Eis
Shadow-grids over the melting ice
Auf Spiegelstelzen stehen die Lichter am Ufer.
On mirror-stands stand the lights along the bank.
Die unbelichteten Stellen verblühen.
The unlight places wither.
(3)
All diese Satze
All these sentences
Das Inventar der Gelegenheiten
The inventory of the possibilities
Vergiss nicht
Don’t forget
Gerede von Schallplatten
Talking on records
Das Gedachtnis von Tonfilmstreifen die abgespielt sind
The memory of sound-film-strips that are played out
(4)
Und die Fragen sind die Satze die ich nicht aussprechen kann.
And the questions are the sentences that I cannot pronounce.
Und die Gedanken sind die Vogel die wegfliegen und nicht wiederkommen.
And the thoughts are the birds that fly away and do not return.
Poem text copyright 1956, Bechtle-Verlag. Used by permission.
- Stephen Pope (USA)