Matthias Pintscher’s ensemble work Bereshit receives its premiere in May with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Bereshit is about the creation of things, the creative act and its incomprehensibility. “In a beginning …” refers to the biblical creation myth: “Bereshit” is the first word of the Torah, of the Old Testament. This concept contains the idea of an approximation, of “a”  beginning, not “the” beginning, of a turning point. This is the starting point of Matthias Pintscher’s composition for large ensemble. Bereshit emerges from an initial sound as if from an absolute nothing, from a sound which subsides into purely percussive noises, from which elements then disentangle themselves and condense. It is a very organic piece, the material is treated quasi chronologically, it develops slowly. The composition emerges from the idea of freeing an entire compendium of sounds, gestures, rhythms, orchestrations from an original state of sound.” A genuine conception of processes becomes the programme here: “What interests me is the flowing sounds and colours, the conception of a sonority in perspective. The piece is about this great river, about a continuum of sounds and events which is continually transformed as the piece grows. Only gradually do things solidify, are there solo episodes. Bereshit continues what I have developed in sonorities in recent years. In its conception of sound and in its spatial effect, this piece goes far beyond the chamber music-like dimension of the ensemble forces.”

Continuity and further development characterize Matthias Pintscher’s composing. In this way, he continues concepts which he developed in his flute concerto transir in his new composition for solo flute, written for the Salzburg Festival: “With the flute, every note is ‘bound to the breath’ – no instrument articulates as close to the stream of air itself. The instrument, vibrating in direct contact with human breath, as an extension of the stream of air, carries in it the archaic qualities of many centuries, and creates a communicative bridge to the present time.” Emanuel Pahud premieres the work, which relates to Anselm Kiefer’s installation A.E.I.O.U.    

Marie Luise Maintz
(from [t]akte 1/2013)