Philipp Maintz has written an orchestral piece for his home city of Aachen. It was premiered by the Aachen Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marcus R. Bosch on 22 October.
The musical radius of his new opera project Maldoror, which Philipp Maintz is composing for the 2010 Munich Biennale, includes archipel. musik für großes orchester. The title is both a concept of form and a pointer to the work’s content: ”An archipelago is a group of islands which are linked to each other under water and whose peaks project.” On the one hand, the this connection is the link to the musical material of the opera; the composer attempts to go through the material, without anticipating it literally – ”pieces have grouped themselves around the opera, which allow for an open conception of the work.” On the other hand, the concept of an archipelago is also a description of the structure of the composition, for Philipp Maintz has conceived the work as a grouping of separate parts, whose continuity and branching out are interrupted by vertical intersections on the surface. ”The piece has several centres which are unrelated at the start, but from which variations and diversions can be formed.”
In the concept of the opera Maldoror, the tension in the subject matter arises from a fundamentally disparate constellation of characters. Under the pseudonym Lautréamont, the French poet Isidore Lucien Ducasse (1846-70) published his ”Chants de Maldoror”, one of the most radical works of French literature. In Maldoror he created a figure as alter ego, who embodied the evil, the cynical and the destructive in a pure form, in order to ultimately lead a lament against the wickedness of the world. In their opera scenario, Philipp Maintz and his librettist Thomas Fiedler allow both figures to intermingle, and develop an attempt at a psychobiography of Lautréamont, crossed through with Maldoror’s abominable deeds. In this, above all, the poet is in the foreground as an enigmatic, inscrutable, schizophrenic character, for he creates that figure of evil which finally kills him. The counter concept to this is the reflective song of a female figure, a kind of Mother Earth: ”Like a representation of immortality she is possibly the only security in a cruel and godless world, in which a triumphant Maldoror rules with disastrous consequence.” (Thomas Fiedler). In his composition océan for soprano, large ensemble and live electronics, premiered in January 2008 in Paris by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Philipp Maintz has already made reference to this woman, whom he visualised as ”a mixture between Cassandra and the Queen of the Night”.
The characteristic musical style of flowing and dramatically decisive song has also become a stylistic means in Philipp Maintz’s orchestral writing. ”Composing for voice has partly broken my approach to date of giving priority to working with arithmetical operations and algorithms in my composing. I compose more freely and more intuitively, in order to immerse myself in the atmosphere, linguistic style and colour of the opera in this way. At the same time, the title archipel was a spontaneous idea which pleased me as a way of describing the construction of the orchestral work. This instance perhaps reciprocates my earlier orchestral work heftige landschaft mit 16 bäumen; I knew very early on how a music with that title should sound.” Philipp Maintz sees the characteristics of archipel above all in a chamber music-like differentiation of the musical writing in parts, which ”again and again allow the entire orchestra to collapse until individual sounds remain” between greater high points.
Marie Luise Maintz
Works like islands. The orchestral piece "archipel" by Philipp Maintz
Philipp Maintz – News
Philipp Maintz has been awarded the scholarship of the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo for 2010 by Bernd Neumann, Minister of Culture and Media. He was also awarded a scholarship at the Akademie Solitude in Stuttgart for 2009. +++ Philipp Maintz’s latest orchestral work archipel will be performed at ars musica in Brussels by the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg under Arturo Tamayo (28.3.2010) +++ At the Munich Biennale the opera MALDOROR after Lautréamont will be premiered. The conductor is Marcus R. Bosch and the production is by Georges Delnon. (27.4.2009)
Review
At the Festival TRANSIT in Leuven NAHT (yo no pido a la noche explicaciones) was performed by Julie-Anne Derome (violin) and Gabriel Prynn (cello) (25.10.2009) +++Jan Gerdes played gelände/zeichnung. music for piano and live electronics [piano piece no. 2] (2006) at the Festival Tasten 09 in Düsseldorf (6.9.2009) +++ Francesco Filidei performed the new version of ferner, und immer ferner. music for solo organ (2007/08) in Paris (16.6.2009) +++ At the Manhattan School of Music in New York, Philipp Maintz’s fluchtlinie. music for baritone and ensemble (2006/07) was performed. The performers in this American premiere have been the Tactus Ensemble with Jeffrey Gavett as soloist, conducted by Dan Grabois (10.2.2009)