Architectura Caelestis, for orchestra and choir (1974-1975)

Chor & Sinfonieorchester Des Norddeutschen Rundfunks
Peter Keuschnig

The impulse to write "Architectura caelestis" came from the painter Ernst Fuchs, namely from his "sacred, ornamental picture of Christ called 'Architectura caelestis' and from his book of the same title. Today," the composer continues, "I find it difficult to interpret the connections between his book and painting and my music. More importantly, I see in my work a point of discontinuity within my own development, a discontinuity which made possible my next work, the string quartet, and in which my serious confrontation with the music of the past took shape. The beginnings of this confrontation were at least announced in 'Architectura caelestis' -- particularly at the end, where a texture of dense micropolyphonal clusters relaxes into broad chordal sonorities, but also in the middle section with its repressed cantabile. In this work I wrote a farewell to micropolyphony, to the cluster, to Klangfarben speculation, and most of all a farewell to what today we still call avant-garde."

Whether or not a new "avant-garde" will arise from the old, Manfred Trojahn has taken an individual path which will figure in the music of tomorrow. --Wolf-Eberhard von Lewlinski

Art by Ernst Fuchs

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