No 105 Passion: Removal of Bounds

The term »passion« has several meanings: on the one hand, it describes boundless fervour and enthusiasm for something – or someone. On the other, it means a life of sorrow, or suffering in general. Sometimes, the two seem to go hand in hand. The two concerts in the Grassi Museum treat of extremes: Entgrenzung and Begrenzung – removal of all bounds, and imposition of them. A passion, too, can be boundless, either in a positive or negative sense. Love is perhaps the best example of both ... Boundless in a completely different sense are the experiences of exile of Hanns Eisler, Else Lasker-Schüler, Erich Arendt and Bertolt Brecht. And the multiple female poisoner in Adelbert von Chamisso’s sinister ballad must have been pathologically devoid of any concept of limits. Other composers seek rather to set limits: Igor Stravinsky even praised them as actually inspiring: »My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit«. These self-imposed shackles vary: a small selection of keys, extreme brevity, restricted musical material, a uniform pattern… And yet in such microcosms is found a vast, passionate world of sound. Listen!