moeglichst fuer orchester

Blinking with flute-quartet

Thomas Witzmann's "Möglichst für Orchester" is a composition commissioned by the Düsseldorf Festival "Altstadt-Herbst". From the beginning Witzmann included St. Andreas church, locality of the première, into his composition Möglichst für Orchester, where effects in space together with delightful, somewhat droll details of the staging are of great importance.

Thus the conductor arrived only when the orchestra had already begun. The four soloists were standing around the orchestra and the audience. The flute-quartet "V.I.F." acted as acoustic poles, as referents in a spatial system for the whole ensemble. With regard to the music, separate pointillistic events again and again formed wider arches, even beautiful cantilenas.

Similar to Lutoslawski's micropolyphony, Witzmann condenses motion into sound. On the whole the brilliantly instrumented composition meets even an audience less experimental if only they are willing to depart from their usual habits of hearing. In Martin Fratz and the versatile Festival Orchestra, who reacted very spontaneously, Witzmann had found competent interpreters.