Performed by Wolfgang Kogert on the organ of the Hofburgkapelle in Vienna, Austria. Released on the album ORGANO/LOGICS (col legno 2023) https://essl.at/records/organologics.html
"vingt secondes" is Karlheinz Essl's shortest composition. It lasts only 20 seconds - the guideline for washing one's hands during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was written during the lockdown in the Easter holidays of 2020. Originally written for melodica, this version was performed on the organ of the Hofburgkapelle Vienna by Wolfgang Kogert. Compositionally, the piece expresses a harmonic spread from a single note to three octaves at the end.
More information and free score download: http://www.essl.at/works/vingt-secondes.html

ORGANO/LOGICS

vingt secondes for organ

Info

vingt secondes (2020) for organ

Born 1960 in Vienna. Austrian composer, improviser and performer. He studied composition with Friedrich Cerha and musicology in Vienna. Besides writing experimental instrumental music, he performs on his own electronic instrument m@ze°2, develops software environments for computer-aided composition and creates generative sound and video environments. Since 2007 professor of composition for electro-acoustic and experimental music at the University of Music in Vienna.

Karlheinz Essl performs on a laptop computer that he has transformed into a live electronic musical instrument. The result is exciting and musical. You just won't hear these sounds anywhere else. He performs solo and in duets and trios, responding with sensitivity to fellow musicians, producing fascinating sound transformations, creating spontaneous surprises, and moving quickly from loops to cacophony to tiny clips of vocal sounds to all kinds of textures and ideas. He does all this with his m@ze°2(Modular Algorithmic Zound Environment) performance software. (Joel Chadabe, CDeMusic, Januar 2002)
