Zerrende Geister
nocturne for clarinet, cello, and piano
(-) Premiere performance: 1994, Thomas Knowles Paine Concert Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge/Massachusetts; The New Millennium Ensemble, New York
(-) European premiere: 1996, Alte Brauerei, Tübingen, Germany; Ensemble Phorminx, Darmstadt, Germany
Program notes
In a segment of his painting "La Gare de Perpignan" Salvador Dali depicts a peasant couple loading sacks of potatoes on to a wheelbarrow. The shapes of the sacks resembles torsos or inner organs. The way in which this scene is portrayed blurs the distinction between the humans and the sacks. This scene kept developing in my mind. The sacks began to move by themselves, quarreling with the peasants and dragging them in a ghostly fashion. These images were present when I composed this nocturnal lament, "Zerrende Geister" (ghosts dragging).
(Stefan Hakenberg, 1994)