Die drehende Zeitkette

This piece is an experiment in musical form and perception. What we often sense in the omnibus structures of novels or films is that their temporality, unlike music, does not unfold linearly or dialectically. Their time is constructed, dissolved, and recirculated within the listener's or viewer's memory. I sought to evoke this flow of time, more precisely, the process of recollection itself, through music.

To realize this, I first composed seven distinct musical sections, each built from different materials. All of them derive from a very simple shared motive, "tik-tok", which I call the "clock motive." Every element bears a certain kinship to the others, yet none is cleanly or explicitly connected. As the music progresses, these materials collide, intermingle, and fragment. Just as our memories sometimes shift, distort, or transform, entirely unrelated elements occasionally surface within the piece.