
These days, as part of the Eleusinian European Capital of Culture 2023 events, the installation “7 Columns” by 71-year-old German Heiner Goebbels, a musical theater innovator and pioneering composer, is presented at the Old Olive Oil Factory. from Eleusis. It is not the first time he participates in our country through an artistic project, since in 1997 he created the musical-theatrical production “Schliemann’s Forests” based on the diary of Eric Schliemann, which was presented in Athens and Volos with the theater group “Double Eros” by Mihail Marmarino .
In their latest double album “A House of Call – My Imaginary Notebook” (ECM, 2022) in the fourth section, which refers to the spells “When the words are gone” (the title is borrowed from the text of Samuel Beckett), we find a masterpiece ten-minute piece “Calymerisma ”, in which Goebbels creates an inspired sound-musical structure in which the recorded, rare in truth and color, moving, authentic vocal performance of Ekaterinis Mangulis from Kalymnos in 1930 unfolds. An exemplary musical performance reveals an exciting elegiac development and the inner content of a ritual object with a mournful character and a mysterious atmosphere. This is a morning greeting, “good morning” with a load of mourning for those drowned in the sea.
Goebbels is not limited to ethnographic interest and source records. Creates a link for music and voice chat. He designs the scene and implements it by stimulating our imagination. The voice, without abandoning its natural and historical origin, without standardization, is presented in a magnifying glass and joins the musical universe, remaining in the center, but integrated into this inventive collage that Goebbels is trying to make and to which we have become accustomed in the past. The sound thickens and thins, and the deeply charged atmosphere persists to the very end.
In the masterful ten-minute piece “Calymerisma” one can hear the original vocal performance of Aikatherinis Mangulis from Kalymnos in 1930.
The 100-minute “House on Call” (the title is borrowed from a line from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake that Goebbels found in John Cage’s Roaratory (1979)) is divided into fifteen compositions divided into four parts (the second “Grain de la voix” – “Grain of the Voice”, inspired by an essay by Roland Barthes on the harshness of the voice and its power over death). Fifteen voices collected by the composer from the archives, theatrical monologues, phonographic recordings with imperfections – engravings of the ravages of time, news reports, as well as recordings of his travels around the world. Dialogues, street scenes, prayers, incantations, imperatives, incantations, songs, incantations, lamentations are used to evoke the demonic musical approach. Among the vocal samples of the voice of Heiner Miller, Samuel Beckett, German prisoners of war of the First World War, a children’s choir from Namibia in an old German anthem, soprano Zabel Panosyan in the melody of the Armenian composer and collector of folk songs Komitas. , the frenzied larynxes of Hamindreza Nurbaks to poems by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, field recordings of the rituals of the Amazons, the sounds of a Berlin construction site, etc. And here is the music of Goebbels, completely modern and innovative, to comment on, emphasize, select, undermine, argue, expand, turn over, dynamize, give a “different” dimension, in the end, actively monitor the “song script of the language”. A true staging of music’s approach to the human voice.
The opening track is a nod to Pierre Boulez’s “Repons” (1981) with orchestral melodic cues covering boisterous electric jazz-rock guitar from the era of Cassiber, an art rock group of which Goebbels was a member (1982-1992). A deafening sonic boom ends the play, causing a historic interruption of the play’s world premiere due to a power outage. The final track with excerpts from Beckett’s work is brilliantly rendered by the voices of Ensemble Modern Orchestra members alone, reinforcing the philosophy of the project. Between the orchestra (based in Frankfurt, the city of the composer, often collaborating with him), sometimes a common dense body (wind instruments, strings, percussion), sometimes in parts (inventive instrumental combinations: guitar, accordion, tambourine) or with individual solos ( frenzied saxophone, muted piano melody, lone percussion, whistling string) support Goebbels’ vision and narrative. An image with an open spirit and horizons, directed by Vibaya Kaziboni from Zimbabwe, he shoots compositions sometimes through repeated inversions, atonal deviations, dizzying surprises, and sometimes through lyrical parts of incredible beauty, elegiac melodic paths.
Listening to an album is a rare experience. A musical universe, nightmarish and enchanting, always captivating with its light and darkness that surrounds the human voice, inspiration and essence of this unique project.
Source: Kathimerini

Ashley Bailey is a talented author and journalist known for her writing on trending topics. Currently working at 247 news reel, she brings readers fresh perspectives on current issues. With her well-researched and thought-provoking articles, she captures the zeitgeist and stays ahead of the latest trends. Ashley’s writing is a must-read for anyone interested in staying up-to-date with the latest developments.