Friedrich Cerha — Kurzzeit

In recent years, I have created a number of works in which certain structural constellations are emphasized in particular, whereas others are missing completely. In a sense these pieces are like studies; however they are no compositional finger exercises. Owing to the formal architecture and the narrative mode of what occurs, the work character remains immanent. Kurzzeit, a piece for ensemble, is one of them.

This work is without melodics or themes. As if out of nowhere, a multi-coloured, polyrhythmic web is created by the superposition of rapid sound-repetitions in the individual parts. Occasionally, in the first and third part of the piece, where this web is less densely woven, it becomes recognisable as such; in places of greater density, this results in some rather summary impressions – for instance in the second part, which starts with a marked pulsation in ff, and where, from a polymetric concentration, again a pulsation gradually emerges. Elements from the first part are outlined in the last in retrograde.
—Friedrich Cerha, 2018