Escape (motet)
Flucht is a motet for double choir and percussion by Frank Schwemmer . It was created in 2015 as a commission from the Hoffbauer Foundation Potsdam for the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Junge Kantorei Hermannswerder.
content
At all times and in all regions of the world, people had to flee from violence and hardship. And although the suffering, your home and often all the people you love to have to leave was and is always similar in human history, a lot has changed in the organization, the escape destination and the escape implementation through global networking in recent decades . The mobile phone has thus become a complex rescue and survival system with which one can not only keep in touch with home and widely dispersed relatives, but can also find one's way via GPS and maps , and receive and send money via online banking .
layout
music
Flucht is a double-choir motet for two mixed choirs and percussion ( marimbaphone , four woodblocks , two tom toms , bass drum ).
The specialty of the composition is, among other things, that the part of the second choir can be performed by an amateur choir , while the first choir should consist of professional singers.
Programmatic situation and musical implementation
First part
A short intro of the marimbaphone builds up tension through irregular pauses and quick crescendos and decrescendos. Someone is waiting. In the tension, the notification tone of a cell phone sounds from the audience. The intended irritation dissolves as a musical element, with numerous short tones in the choirs indicating that the notification tones are setting the piece in motion. Something has happened (Has the smuggler sent a message? A relative from Europe? Does the message inform you of an imminent attack?) The increasing unrest before setting off into the unknown creates space for itself in involuntary humming, which increases to the point where it is difficult to bear. What should I take with me? Money? ID cards? No. Above all, the mobile phone and the charger. Then begins a long hike to the text of the numbers of the GPS positions. After a while, the monotonous march is broken by loudly shouted, incomprehensible prohibitions. We encounter the musical equivalent of a foreign language prohibition sign. Most people will have already encountered this situation abroad. You come across a screaming sign and you only know: That certainly doesn't mean anything inviting to me. But we cannot understand what the label consists of, that is, "Caution, danger to life", "Beware of the vicious dog", "No entry" or just "No parking". We feel the loss of home in the loss of language. The verbal fugue of the prohibition signs stops the journey more and more until it comes to a complete standstill.
Second part
You find yourself in an amorphous group of people from different countries. The interlude of the drums may reflect the moods. The world is shifting. Are we still today? Are We in Biblical Times? This is where the texts of the Psalms come into play, which make it clear to us that flight has been causing horror and fear for millennia. The use of the scriptures in different languages shows the problem of displacement as a global one. The cry for help to God stops exhausted at the climax.
The names of the loved ones left behind are remembered in tender music by solo voices. And yet the memories of loved ones at home are constantly and increasingly disturbed in the background by the whisper of the legally and organizationally incomprehensible reality.
third part
We encounter the ideal of the ability to suffer and patience, which is represented in many religions. The call to thank God for all torments, or even for them, becomes more and more authoritarian and in its severity almost audible as desperate. Is there still hope and conviction in the last words of thanks from the first choir? The merciless, desouled crescending texts from the asylum laws and ordinances cut this question off.
text
Texts of prohibition signs (original languages and approximate translations)
- Geçmek Yasaktir = " No passage" (Turkish)
- Girmek Yasak = no entry
- Yasak = "forbidden" (Turkish)
- Fin = "end" (French)
- Final = "end" (Spanish)
- No, Njet = "No" (Italian, Spanish, Russian)
- Zabranjen Pristup = " Do not enter" (Serbo-Croatian)
- Yasakli Bölge = "restricted area" (Turkish)
- Pazi = "attention" (Serbo-Croatian / Bosnian)
- Chien méchant = "Snappy / bad dog" (French)
- Prohibido el paso = "passage forbidden" (Spanish)
- Prohibido entrar = "Forbidden to enter" (Spanish)
- Son = "end" (Turkish)
- Kraj = "end" (Serbo-Croatian)
- Zabranjen Prolaz = " No passage" (Serbo-Croatian)
- podrucje = "locked" (Serbo-Croatian)
- Belepni tilos = "Access not allowed" (Hungarian)
- Siniri ihlal = "border violation" (Turkish)
- Zone interdite = "restricted area" (French)
- Harapos = "snappy dog / biter" (Hungarian)
- é vietato l'accesso = "The passage is forbidden" (Italian)
- Attraversamento illegale delle frontiere = "Illegal border crossings" (Italian)
- Il trafico die esseri umani = "human trafficking" (Italian)
- Di frontiere esterne = "The / the external borders" (Italian)
- E di rimpatrio delle persone = "And the repatriation of people" (Italian)
- Vietato = "Forbidden" (Italian)
- l'accesso = "The passage" (Italian)
Names used
- Alima = "who loves dance and music"
- Shadia = "singer"
- Nadim = "friend"
- Ruhi = "from the soul"
- Said = "the lucky one"
- Wakur = "serious; worthy"
- Kalila = "beloved"
- Rana = "lovely; beautiful"
- Ulima = "the way"
- Fida = “devotion; Sacrifice "
- Ayasha = "life"
- Anandi = "luck"
- Yerodin = The name Yerodin is given to children who go to university
Psalm 107:
- Give thanks to the Lord; for he is kind, and his kindness endures forever.
- So shall say those who are redeemed by the Lord, whom he redeemed from trouble,
- which he has brought together from the countries of east and west, north and south.
- They wandered astray in the desert, on a rough road, and found no city in which to live,
- who were hungry and thirsty and whose souls faded,
- who then called to the Lord in their distress, and he delivered them from their distress
- and led them the right way so that they came to the city where they could live.
Texts from asylum and residence laws, as well as official regulations
"Re Paragraph sixty-paragraph two to seven-Aufentha-Ge-E, an application for asylum exists if it can be inferred from the will of the foreigner expressed in writing, orally or in any other way that he is seeking protection from political persecution in the federal territory.
Anyone who receives a residence permit is not allowed to work for the first three months. A foreigner who does not have the required entry documents must apply for asylum at the border (Section 18 AsylG). In the event of unauthorized entry, he must immediately report to a reception center (Section 22 AsylG) or the immigration authorities or the police to apply for asylum (Section 19 AsylG). If another state is responsible for the implementation based on the legal provisions of the European Union. Because of the close unity of the types of procedure inherent in the asylum procedure ... Deportation of the foreigner should be refrained from if there is a significant concrete risk for this foreigner there. There is no need for a deportation threat. "
Work history
The double-choir motet Escape was commissioned by the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Hoffbauer Foundation Potsdam at the suggestion of Matthias Salge. Its premiere took place on July 2nd, 2016 in the Inselkirche Hermannswerder, as part of the final concert of the choir sponsorship of the RIAS Chamber Choir with the Junge Kantorei Hermannswerder. Martina Batič and Matthias Salge were in charge. Franz Bauer played the drums . The concert was broadcast by Deutschlandradio Kultur .