Zahra Fugues (2008), by Frank Rothkamm

Zahra Fugues (2008)

by Frank Rothkamm

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1.	Zahra Fugue 7 opus 455.03 1:13 (2008) 01:13	buy track
2.	Zahra Fugue 1 opus 441.00 2:18 (2008) 02:22	buy track
3.	Zahra Fugue 25 opus 473.03 2:01 (2008) 02:01	buy track
4.	Zahra Fugue 23 opus 471.03 2:24 (2008) 02:24	buy track
5.	Zahra Fugue 18 opus 463.03 0:39 (2008) 00:39	buy track
6.	Zahra Fugue 9 opus 464.04 1:45 (2008) 01:45	buy track
7.	Zahra Fugue 11 opus 466.03 1:33 (2008) 01:33	buy track
8.	Zahra Fugue 16 opus 461.03 1:30 (2008) 01:30	buy track
9.	Zahra Fugue 8 (Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser) opus 456.03 2:52 (2008) 02:52	buy track
10.	Zahra Fugue 22 opus 470.03 1:07 (2008) 01:07	buy track
11.	Zahra Fugue 2 opus 442.03 1:20 (2008) 01:20	buy track
12.	Zahra Fugue 3 opus 444.03 2:37 (2008) 02:37	buy track
13.	Zahra Fugue 10 opus 465.03 2:14 (2008) 02:14	buy track
14.	Zahra Fugue 24 opus 472.03 1:44 (2008) 01:44	buy track
15.	Zahra Fugue 19 opus 467.03 1:20 (2008) 01:20	buy track
16.	Zahra Fugue 14 opus 459.03 1:10 (2008) 01:10	buy track
17.	Zahra Fugue 15 (Pater Noster) opus 460.03 2:20 (2008) 02:20	buy track
18.	Zahra Fugue 12 opus 457.03 1:34 (2008) 01:34	buy track
19.	Zahra Fugue 17 (Smoke on the Water) opus 462.03 1:29 (2008) 01:29	buy track
20.	Zahra Fugue 6 opus 448.03 0:50 (2008) 00:50	buy track
21.	Zahra Fugue 5 opus 447.03 1:20 (2008) 01:20	buy track
22.	Zahra Fugue 4 opus 445.01 0:51 (2008) 00:55	buy track
23.	Zahra Fugue 21 opus 469.03 1:27 (2008) 01:27	buy track
24.	Zahra Fugue 13 opus 458.03 2:15 (2008) 02:15	buy track
25.	Zahra Fugue 20 opus 468.03 0:56 (2008) 00:56	buy track
26.	Zahra Fugue 26 opus 474.03 0:39 (2008) 00:38	buy track

about

Catalog No: FLX12 (LN40)
Title: Zahra Fugues
Sound Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Visual Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Label: Flux Records
Length: 41:28 (2488s)
Composed: 2008
Location: New York
Instruments: Steinway M Baby Grand Piano
Release Date: 11/11/2009
Edition Size: 300
Format: Compact Disc
Parts: 2 panel folder(4/4)
2 panel tray card(4/4)
compact disc
clear case
postcard(4/4)
Tags: classical
solo piano
post-baroque

What philosopher has not
At one time or another
Cut the queerest figure imaginable,
Between the affirmations of a reasonable
And firmly convinced eye-witness,
And the inner resistance
Of insurmountable doubt?*

In Manhattan, on the Upper East Side, in the city of New York, a Steinway & Sons Model M grand piano sits on the fifth floor of Zahra’s apartment. The piano has been completely rebuilt since its 1934 birthday.

The realm of the shadows is the paradise for dreamers.
Here they find a country without limits,
Where they can continue to build as they please.*

I first contacted Zahra when I was in New York living alone, without a keyboard or any type of musical instrument. I wanted to play the piano, but not at the Steinway showroom. She generously opened her home and fallboard. I brought my microphones, but no score. Putting Plato's theory on memory to test in the manner of a utopian-scientific experiment, I simply remembered, from eternal ideas, fugues that are intimate, pretty, and free like birds.

The fugues, for 4 independent monophonic voices realized by an 8-armed pianist, fly around the very definition of a fugue through the baroque concept of pure ornamentation vs. cantus firmus (fixed song). Independent from each other, like Leibniz' monads, the 4 voices' tempi micro-fluctuate around linear time and macro-oscillate stylistically through the centuries around historical time.

To enhance the sound effect for the listener, a matched pair of microphones was set up so that they form a perfect triangle above the strings. I call this Platonischer Kunstkopf (Platonic art head) and it is thusly defined: A ORTF configuration developed by the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française in which a pair of cardioid microphones are angled apart at 110 degrees with 6.69 inches between the capsules - the average distance between human ears - now altered to the Blumlein pair angled at 90 degrees with the distance between capsules altered to the Rothkamm distance between the ears.

This release is my first non-electronic, all acoustic work in twenty-five years.

To me, Zahra will always mean "White, Radiant".

Thence originated the present piano music,
Which, we flatter ourselves,
Will fully satisfy the listener;
For the main part he will not understand,
Another part he will not believe,
And the rest he will laugh at.*

Derived from Immanual Kant "Dreams of a Spirit-Seer"

credits

released November 11, 2009

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about

Frank Rothkamm Los Angeles, California

Prolific, L.A. based German composer & artist.

rothkamm.com

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