Pintscher: Nemeton

‘Going all the way back to the Celts and the Druids, the term nemeton designates a place where forces and energies are crystallised, generally clearings where solemn or ritual actions were performed. The best-known nemeton is certainly Stonehenge. The architectural marvel of Chartres Cathedral is built on a nemeton. In composing this piece for solo percussion, I wanted to depict a “place” of this kind by means of sound. I’m utterly fascinated by the instrumentarium of this work, consisting chiefly of metal, wood and skin instruments that don’t have their own “specific” resonance. The trajectories between the different tones condition and define the energy charge, rather as if two beings, in the mad hope of an encounter, were rushing towards each other’, writes Matthias Pintscher as an introduction to one of the pieces in this monograph of works composed between 2000 and 2018: it also includes his violin concerto Mar’eh, the concerto for piano and ensemble Nur, Beyond for flute, Verzeichnete Spur, Lieder und Schneebilder, Celestial Object I & II and Occultation.