The interrelation of word and music is a constant in Thomas Hummel’s work, as exemplified by his ‘Aus Trachila‘ piece in this latest Fundación BBVA-NEOS recording.

Long before making his mark in composition, Thomas Hummel (Brühl, 1962) had his musical initiation with the cello; of all the instruments, the one that get closest to the human voice. Hence his love of the synthesis between text and score, in which both ingredients are accorded a similar value, and his declared goal of creating the illusion of a human voice talking or singing, even though no one is talking or singing. And here, in a nutshell, we have the enterprise that is ‘Aus Trachila‘, the four-part work composed between 2003 and 2006. The literary sources on this occasion are an Ovid poem in Spanish translation – Triste – and a postmodern narrative by Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr. Hummel synthesizes both and sets them to work as a connecting thread, using percussion as his point of contrast. The result is a work formally located between serialism and free sound; between the audible word and the words the Holst-Sinfonietta coaxes out using timbric resources. Each instrument was individually recorded then the mix was manually adjusted to attain an enveloping sensation that the composer describes as hyper-realistic.

Performance by:
Holst-Sinfonietta

Composer:
Thomas Hummel

Voice artist:
Christoph Ogiermann

CD Audio
1-4 Aus Trachila

Total time: 59:14