Moritz Eggert | The Collectors | 2017 | 28'
Duo percussion & piano set-up
Link for the score | Composer's website
Links for the audio Spotify, Deezer, Google Play Music, iTunes, YouTube
Buy CD The Collectors TRPTK label, Bandcamp, Discogs
The Collectors
“Forgive me, I have sinned.
I have been a collector all my life.
I collected unspeakable things.
And there came a day when it was enough.
But in the night I hear whispers, sometimes.
The things I collected speak to me, but only when it is dark. They lure me with their secret promises.
But I have made a vow to resist them.
Because listening to them may make me do bad things.
But what do I know, really?
I know very little, this is why I remain curious.
You look very nice by the way.
May I collect you?”
I have been collecting things all my life. Books, Comics, Board Games, Whisky, it is terrible. Both my father and my grandfather were obsessive collectors. My father sometimes outsourced the books to take over the rooms of his children. My grandfather stored books in two, sometimes three rows, until the shelves nearly collapsed. My grandmother left him because she basically had no room anymore for her and her children.
Although I am not quite that bad (I hope) the idea of collecting has always fascinated me. As composers we are collectors of music. The idea that music is magically created out of nothing in our heads is nonsense, in fact we are constantly assembling and reassembling the gigantic library of music in our heads. Therefore the term "composer" instead of "music inventor" is quite correct in my opinion.
In my piece "The Collectors" I want to find a way to tell the story of how music is collected, how it consists of sounds and ideas and events that slowly begin to make sense because they are arranged in a certain order.
Both piano and tuned percussion are instruments that can collect a vast range of notes. It is in the nature of these instruments to "collect". My piece "The Collectors" will be a journey into this vast array, perhaps it is a "Dutch Collection", or a "German Collection" or both, who knows?
To collect is to try find meaning in a seemingly disordered world. I always have the feeling that it secretly makes a lot of sense. Both the world and collecting.
Moritz Eggert, 31.5.2017