Schall und Klang

»Schall und Klang« is the result of Christina Kubisch’s extensive fieldwork on the trail of Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966), conductor and key figure in 20th century new music. After moving to the village of Gravesano (Ticino/Northern Italy) in 1954, Scherchen established an electroacoustic experimental studio on his premises and created a meeting place for scientists, composers, musicians and sound engineers from all over the world. Among his guests were Iannis Xenakis, Luc Ferrari, Edgar Varèse and Luigi Nono, just to name a few. Originally commissioned and broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, »Schall und Klang« is a personal portrait of Scherchen and his time in Gravesano. Kubisch brings together archival footage from the Scherchen estate and the Scherchen archive at Akademie der Künste in Berlin, tape recordings, recited texts from Scherchen’s own quarterly »Gravesaner Blätter« as well as her own compositions and field recordings referring to her research made on site in 2016.

»I have built this studio for myself […] as a direct activity for my existence. I live Gravesano« (Hermann Scherchen)

Production: Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Studio für Elektroakustische Musik der Akademie der Künste / Studio Hoppegarten 2017. Edition of 500 copies in Digipak, incl. 8pp booklet with photos and texts by Christina Kubisch.

The experiments of conductor Hermann Scherchen

“I want to have a space where I can turn off the space.” In the middle of the last century the conductor Hermann Scherchen moved to Gravesano, a remote Ticino village. He built an experimental recording studio on his property, creating a meeting place for scientists, electro-acousticians and musicians from all over the world. He worked intensively on the positioning of microphones over the Christmas holidays of 1956.

In her composition Christina Kubisch transforms the recordings from this study – first imperceptibly, then emphatically – thus once again reflecting the relationship between sound and space.

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