short introduction
"versungen" is about mistaken melodies.
It is a piece which makes the orchestra "speak" and "sing", it explores the narrative qualities of musical line and gesture. But as the title suggests [German: mis-sung], the melodies articulated in the piece are far from perfection. Elegantly crafted lines and sublime vocal expression are missing. Instead the fragile beauty of the distorted "Ohrwurm" is being explored - it's a song you picked up somewhere but which got modified in your head and made you forget the real melody that inspired it. It is characterized by odd rhythms and strange deviating intonation - a song that is not quite right.
How are the "Ohrwümer" integrated in the piece? The basic material is the "vocalise" - a collection of spontaneous vocal improvisations by the composer which were recorded and then transcribed manually. It is a compilation of distorted phrases, somewhere between singing and "Sprechgesang". They are all charged with references - unconsciously derived from the musical memory of the improviser - which can still be recognized more or less clearly through the filter of oblivion. The transcription can be found on the first page and served as some kind of a "map" to create the piece.
While orchestrating the collection of sung fragments the focus lay on using the original sound qualities of the orchestral instruments as much as possible. Microtonal mixtures and glissandi create a parlando expression which ranges from whispering chatting to wild howling.