Can you make music with ship horns? For over 10 years I build an installation consisting of
more than 100 real ship horns and working on the musical development of this ‘orchestra’.
The concert
is a game with the vastness of the landscape. Echoes and long maturities
of the notes will be at the concert became an important musical
instrument. The tools must of course be strong signal. Ship horns
and air raid sirens are such long-range signal. After extensive
re-building it will be the instruments. The concert will take place
simultaneously at several places. The compositions are adapted to
the large distances. It always results in a large room the sound
of the audience by changing their resort, can even hike itself.
"The music truly changes when one moves from one place to another. The emphasis of the
sound moves to the sound-producing instrument which one is currently approaching. Also very
succinct echoes are made from the penetrating sound of the ship's horn. They form an
independent layer of composition which furthermore causes the sound to be carried far and wide.
The sound space which Christof Schläger opens up with his concert covers several square
kilometres."
Some realized projects show the opportunities of the Urban Horn Concert:
„This music has a three-dimensional nature, through the fact that the sounds reach the listener from several
directions. The delicately woven timbres that develop in the exterior spaces spread as an acoustic ambiance
over the landscape and form an interactive relationship with other sounds and noises that are integral to
the landscape"
Christof Schläger works with simple structures, traditional composition techniques. For example, staggered
repetitions as in the fugue or meshed rhythms as in the 'minimal music'. With refined variations and with
the interconnection of both instruments Christof Schläger creates a musical structure with many voices.
Through the echo effects of the landscape the piece becomes a complex 3-dimensional structure.
The musical events interlock according to a compositional plan. How exactly this happens depends not
only on the score, but also on the physics.
Audio
2011, Deutschlandfunk, Atelier Neuer Musik | German Klänge, die über Wasser Schweben
2007, Deutschlandfunk | German Hornkonzert am Kanal
Seine Eindrücke über die Wirkung der
Instrumente beschrieb Dr. Hanno Ehrler in einem DLF-Beitrag:
"...tatsächlich verändert sich die Musik wenn man sich zwischen den Klangorten
bewegt. Die Gewichtung des Klangeindrucks verschiebt sich hin zu dem Klangerzeuger dem man sich
nähert. Außerdem entstehen sehr prägnante Echos der durchdringenden
Schiffshornklänge, sie bilden eine eigenständige Schicht der Komposition die zudem
davon zeugt das der Schall weit getragen wird, den Klangraum den Christof Schläger mit seinem
Hornkonzert aufspannt, umfasst einige Quadratkilometer.
Christof Schläger arbeitet in seinem Hornkonzert zunächst mit einfachen Strukturen,
es sind traditionelle Kompositionstechniken, zum Beispiel zeitversetzte Wiederholungen wie man
sie aus der Fuge kennt oder ineinandergreifende Rhythmen wie in der minimal music. Mit
raffinierten Variationen und mit der Verflechtung der Instrumente erzeugt Christof Schläger
eine mehrstimmige musikalische Struktur. Durch die Echo-Effekte der Landschaft schließlich,
gerät das Stück zu einem komplexen dreidimensionalen Gebilde..."
