A 45-minute piece from 2024 composed by Ferdinand Schwarz in collaboration with AREPO.

"I had been working a lot with forms that touch upon senses of stasis. I was intrigued by non-developmental music, where to me sound is not used to narrate the story itself, but is the structure of the plot on which listeners build their own narratives. I loved the listening/playing experiences these forms offered. Fragile by nature, these structures need a lot of care and quick decision-making to be held afloat, with soft hands. And improvising this is quite challenging.

Thus, I decided to write the form (structure of the plot) for AREPO first and then fill it with material together afterwards. To me it is still connected to improvisation, but improvisation which has been petrified in time. I had clear ideas of the material, which I think we all had: unforced, direct, plain.

So we filled up the form with content together, bit by bit, testing harmonies and registers. I guided the just intonation framework that the piece uses, but many ideas came from the ensemble and our shared process. After a few of those sessions the material we had became so clear (and time so scarce), that I just finished the other half of the piece, filling in material, composing alone what we had figured out together."

from the interview with Ferdinand Schwarz on the Another Timbre website: www.anothertimbre.com/ferdinandschwarz.html

credits

Released March 18, 2025 on Another Timbre

AREPO:
Madara Eleonora Mežale, clarinet
Marco Slaviero, electric guitar
Noël Rubli, accordion
Elizabeth Kate, cello

Cover photograph by Ferdinand Schwarz

Mixed by Mike Tierney
Recorded by Ferdinand Schwarz, 25th of April 2024