“Variations of nothingness” from the poems of the Argentinian poet Roberto Juarroz form the starting point for the new orchestral work estudio horizontal Philipp Maintz has composed for Cottbus.

Philipp Maintz has composed estudio horizontal (horizontal study) for the Philharmonic Orchestra Cottbus. This is directly related to its larger companion work, the orchestral songs quinto tríptico vertical after the cycle of poems of the same name by Roberto Juarroz (1925–1995), commissioned by the Munich Philharmonic for Marisol Montalvo and Christoph Eschenbach.
In his “vertical poetry” the Argentinian poet Juarroz interleaves a glance at the nature of things with powerful images of the expanse of waters and continents, of infinity, of the abyss. Existence is located in unreality in these “Variations of nothingness”.

Philipp Maintz: “The text of the songs takes as its theme the coming into existence of our horizon, the emerging of ‘senses’. Translated into musical concepts, this can be expressed with a structure of compelling contexts. In my orchestral piece estudio horizontal this horizon appears bare, so to speak. Musical material, gestures, states of sound are placed in connection to one another without separate fixed points (as the soprano and the text sung by her is for me). What was exciting and inspiring about this work for me was looking into a hollow form, as it were, and through the repeated taking up of the musical particles, finding a surface of friction which allowed me to formulate other connections. Interestingly, this process of structuring the senses takes, or took place a further time when I attempted to extract its substance from it: beyond the horizon one further thing waited, beyond which in turn another was certainly to be discovered – there should simply be no limit here to the fantasy and imagination of the listening ear.”

Marie Luise Maintz
(from [t]akte 2/2013)