architektur des regens.

Habakuk Traber
On architektur des regens.

(…) Aesthetic consensus exists on the fundamental issues. Both artists pursue an aesthetic of concentration. Each detail is essential, with no difference between substance and ornament: everything is substance. Lang’s music steers away from figurations—the things that normally make music sound ‘fast’ and ‘familiar’ (Klaus Lang: “It’s easier to compose fast passage work than to write slow, quiet music”). Likewise, Claudia Doderer’s visual concept does without décor. The sleeve of a dress is as important as the measurements of a stage set. Klaus Lang’s music arises from a specific idea about sound, while Claudia Doderer’s stage concept involves the interaction of rooms built inside rooms. Both implement a limitation of means to achieve an intensification of effect. The actors’ movements on and around the stage frequently seem larger than they really are. The sound attained by five singers and eight instrumentalists often has a wider effect than one would expect from an ensemble of this size. Klaus Lang and Claudia Doderer achieve this not through the principle of accumulation, of the agglomeration and multiplication of stimuli, but through the reduction and concentration they both produce and demand of their listeners and viewers.

Additional effects arise due to inner accordances deriving from the special nature of this project. Proportions essential to the temporal structure of Klaus Lang’s compositions can be found in Claudia Doderer’s spatial concept. In architektur des regens., there is an inner gravitation at work; in the end product, it can be called ‘harmony.’ It arises from the contradictions inherent in things.

Excerpt from the program brochure for architektur des regens., 11th Munich Biennial, International Festival for New Music Theater, 2008