Surrogate Cities
Heiner Goebbels/Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, 2000voices: Jocelyn B. Smith, David Moss
conductor: Peter Rundel
with words by Heiner Mueller, Hugo Hamilton and Paul Auster
"Surrogate Cities" is an attempt to approach the phenomenon of the city from various sides, to tell stories of cities, expose oneself to them, observe them, it is material about metropolises that has accumulated over the course of time. The work was inspired partly by texts, but also by drawings, structures and sounds, the juxtaposition of orchestra and sampler playing a considerable role because of the latter's ability to store sounds and noises ordinarily alien to orchestral sonorities. The associations I have are with a realistic, certainly contradictory, but ultimately positive image of the modern city. My intention was not to produce a close-up but to try and read the city as a text and then to translate something of its mechanics and architecture into music...
When it comes to the power dynamics of the city, the individual is always the more vulnerable party. Art rebels against this overpowering structure by strengthening the subjective element. Music, too, is composed from a highly subjective perspective, for composers usually justify what they write by saying that they "need to get it out of their system". That is only partly true for me. I try to gain a bit more distance. I construct something that confronts the audience and the audience reacts to it, discovering in the music a space they can enter complete with their associations and ideas.
(From a conversation with Heiner Goebbels)
total playing time: 70:10
Texts
Untitled (Review, en)
1/2001, Brian Marley, AVANT
Untitled (Review, en)
6/2000, Jocelyn Clarke, Music Ireland
Untitled (Review, en)
6/2000, Andy Hamilton, CLASSIC CD
Untitled (Review, en)
[Over the past few years]
6/2000, Richard Whitehouse, GRAMOPHONE
Goebbels: Surrogate Cities (Review, en)
6/2000, Andrew Clements, BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Schwindelerregende Techniken (Review, de)
Die Stadt als musikalische Landschaft
31 May 2000, Patrik Landolt, Die Wochenzeitung
Untitled (Review, en)
19 May 2000, Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Les formes d'une ville (Review, fr)
5/2000, David Sanson, Classica
Untitled (Review, de)
5/2000, Guido Fischer, Jazzthetik
Related Works
The Horatian - Three Songs
with words by Heiner Müller, 1994
Composition for Orchestra
Argia
Die Städte und die Toten 4, 1994
Composition for Orchestra
Suite for Sampler and Orchestra
from Surrogate Cities, 1994
Composition for Orchestra
Surrogate
with words by Hugo Hamilton, 1994
Composition for Orchestra
Die Faust im Wappen
1994
Composition for Orchestra
In the Country of Last Things
with words by Paul Auster, 1994
Composition for Orchestra
D & C
1994
Composition for Orchestra
Surrogate Cities
1994
Composition for Orchestra
Samplersuite
Ensemble version, 1994
Composition for Ensemble
Surrogate
Ensemble version, 1994
Composition for Ensemble
In the Country of last things
Ensemble version, 1994
Composition for Ensemble
The Horatian - Three Songs
Ensemble version, 1999
Composition for Ensemble
Surrogate Cities Venezia
2005
Music Theatre
The Italian Concerto
Heiner Goebbels, 2009
CD