Intsumantsumane

(The secret)

For Recorder Ensemble or Recorder Orchestra AATTBBGGKK

Score and ten parts

In the summer of 2022 Felicitas von Schierstädt asked me to write a piece for her project BLOCKFLÖTE TOTAL with 10 professional female recorder players from Southern Germany, for a concert in Konstanz in March 2023. Here is the result!

INTSUMANTSUMANE is Xhosa and means "The Secret." I was fascinated by both: The secret as the theme of a piece, and the word Intsumantsumane in its almost magical quality of rhythm and sound. The melodic motif that runs through the ten minutes follows the rhythm of the word, sets it to music, so to speak. Deep, slow, evocative, it begins, only to pick up speed more and more, driven by chains of eighth notes in a 5/4 groove, only to lighten slowly; after an initial major section, the music lapses back into brooding pensiveness; there is a kind of mournful „false ending“, but the piece cannot end with it; instead, the theme returns in major, soars - with a piccolo solo! - and leads to a radiant conclusion that once again radiates pure "African" joie de vivre. Out of the darkness into the light!

I would like to thank the ten players of Blockflöte total for the very successful and acclaimed premiere in Konstanz on 18.3.2023: Lucia Dimmeler, Eva Grießhaber, Bettina Haugg-Scheu, Sabine Hirschmüller-Wieler, Manuela Mohr, Daniela Schüler, Katja Verdi, Veronika Vogel-Müller, Ulrike von Hagen, and of course Felicitas von Schierstaedt. You can watch a video recording on Youtube!

The work can be played by a solo recorder ensemble as well as by a recorder orchestra; important to me is the constant flow of the continuous, seemingly never-ending, ritual-like 5/4 groove.

Here is the YouTube video of the premiere:
https://youtu.be/lFDFjqvG47M