The Water-Become Canon Book

Ming Tsao: The Water-Become Canon Book

for six voices (2016/17)

Canons 2, 7, 8, 13, 16

 

Helena Sorokina and Andreas Fischer in conversation with Ming Tsao

 

Ming Tsao: The Water-Become Canon Book

for six voices (2016/17)

Canons 1–20

 

Chaya Czernowin: IMMATERIAL
for six amplified voices

Madrigal 1, Intermezzo, Madrigal 2

 

 

Neue Vocalsolisten

Peyee Chen, Sopran

Susanne Leitz-Lorey, Sopran

Helena Sorokina, Mezzosopran

Martin Nagy, Tenor

Guillermo Anzorena, Bariton

Andreas Fischer, Bass

 

 

»Das wassergewordene Kanonbuch« is a catalogue of 20 canons for six voices, which I composed for the Neuen Vocalsolisten between 2016 and 2017. The work can be understood as an example of a »speculative turn« towards a musical composition that sets possible worlds as a counterpoint to our conventional understanding of a place, a place where musical lyricism responds sensitively to the relationships between human activity and the present in a more than just human world.

Each canon of this possible world is based on a ‘puzzle canon’ that was continued from the early to the late Renaissance, with a reference to a poem by Paul Celan.

 

»Das wassergewordene Kanonbuch« is part of my opera project »Die Geisterinsel« and »Mirandas Atemwende«, composed in 2011 and 2015. Most of the canons are arranged as three-part puzzle canons, in which three separately conducted voices gradually merge into a single melody line.

(Ming Tsao)