Words by David C. Obenour
In music – as with so many other things in life – we often take our uniqueness in perspective for granted. Assuming that the ways in which we hear are universal. That how music sounds is a set and defined experience. But each of us, and at every moment, is an unique microclimate. Affected by everything that has brought us to this moment and everything that exists within this moment. How we listen is every bit the individual fingerprint as how we taste, smell, see, and touch.
For Listening Time, composer-performer Ferdinand Schwarz explores these shared and separate experiences as a co-creation with AREPO ensemble. The resulting work is beautiful and delicate, breathing with intentionality throughout – kept afloat through communal focus on the individual experience and musicianship of its players.
Off Shelf: You mention being drawn to music that “allowed [me] to dissolve in it”, can you describe that further – with examples of who and how – and how it appeals to you?
Ferdinand Schwarz: There’s something to the way I perceive my environment and my own mind when fully focusing on the listening sense.
There are far too many examples to list, but most recently, I revisited William Basinski’s Viviane & Ondine, which absolutely puts me in that state. It is some kind of aimless concentration that results in this feeling of dissolving; of not actually existing at all.
I also notice this in many other styles of music, as well as in listening to environmental sounds, field recordings, or just sitting somewhere and closing my eyes. I feel we often dismiss the wonders of just being within the world in real-time. It somehow changes how I perceive the passing of time, recalibrating, and emptying but filling at once.
OS: You also describe this music as being appealing as a player. Is that appeal the same or at all different, when you’re playing as opposed to listening?
FS: I often hope to create a music which provides for both audiences and performers in similar ways. I hope to create the same aimless concentration in players and performers, all of them being primarily listeners; everyone participating together in experiencing. But apart from that idealism, I know that for AREPO at least, this piece was both challenging in terms of intonation as well as endurance.
OS: Performed and co-composed by the ensemble AREPO, how do you see your approach as most closely aligned for Listening Time? Whether in the initial creation or in the final recorded performances?
FS: We developed this piece together, so it’s music that’s really tailored to my friends who play it. When they perform it, it feels like they’re bringing it to life. I think it’s their deep commitment to each other and their sound that makes the whole thing work in the first place. The process of creating something together is central to me. For me, the piece becomes real anytime it’s being listened to—in the ears and minds of each listener.
OS: You describe this music as “needing a lot of care and quick decision-making to be held afloat” – can you describe that care and those decisions? What are the balances and factors to consider?
FS: All the intervals and chords in Listening Time are derived from the harmonic series—the physical components of a single pitch. That might sound theoretical, but it’s really just an audible phenomenon that causes sounds to “lock in” and fuse in quite fascinating ways, where harmonies start to shimmer and interact. To bring out these nuances, the musicians have to constantly adjust their intonation—these micro-decisions require deep listening and a kind of melting into one another, locking in, building together.
Timing is also crucial. When I say “keeping it afloat,” I mean the conscious and concentrated way a sound or a pause is started, is sustained, and is ended. AREPO did such a beautiful job becoming a single entity—starting, sustaining, and stopping both sound and silence together.
OS: Can you discuss other projects you’re working on and what you hope to explore through them?
FS: I’m fascinated by the different ways people listen. There’s this beautiful, individual creative potential in how each of us listens. I’m searching for ways to access that potential—that sensibility—in everyone, in their own unique way. Right now, working with sustained harmony and how it behaves in physical spaces feels most vital to me.
For instance, I’m releasing a solo album this fall on the Italian label Superpang, where I present three 15 minute recordings of spatial positions within a single chord. Each pitch of this chord is distributed in a different location in the room. Each chord, and each position within it, has its unique characteristics and becomes a complete piece of music. These tactile sculptures of harmonicity interest me the most – they leave so much space for your imagination, your explorative listening, your own dissolving.