Output details

Ungrund (after Boehme) Cycle

The Ungrund cycle (2010-) for various forces and artists, is original in its overlapping and multiplicitous rethinking of Jakob Böhme’s notion of the ‘Ungrund’, described by Waterfield (1989) as a "dark abyss, [...] not sterile and passive, but [...] active and fertile, possessed by a motivating energy and desire", and as a "dynamic ever-increasing perfection, always becoming, not being". Böhme's void is in itself "the emergence of multiplicity out of unity" and in this research, rigour is addressed by the void shifting structurally with each composition, developing and recursing (Böhme's self-referentiality of God's self-revelation), to culminate in Ungrund V which sees the void realised alongside Heidegger’s interpretation of Heraclitus' alethic concept of ‘becoming’ wherein the fertile void becomes listening/revealing. The void is composed here both at the level of the compositional act, and in the structuring and material of the pieces. For example: compositional strategies are deliberately altered during the piece, Ungrund II contrasts automated writing (driven by pre-compositional processes) with quasi-intuitive writing; Ungrunds IV and V share the same sectional template, thus mapping and distorting of one work through the instrumentation of the other.

Böhme's "fertile" void influences the series through musical language, the use of common material, gestures, and tropes, cross-referencing between and within pieces in a constant "becoming" without singular identity, the materials referring forwards and backwards to each other without unifying (Böhme's "self-differentiating unity" of God). Some examples: the focus on the clarinet across the series in various roles but always as a reference point for other instruments; the common structural principle of the ensemble dissolving into unexpected solo passages (such as the piano and guitar in Ungrund I, or the clarinet and guitar in Ungrund IV) that also allude to Böhme's oracular and abstruse writing style.

The Ungrund series represents an extensive research effort, equivalent to five single outputs; almost an hour of music. Their inclusion as a single submission reflects a continuous practice addressing the same research questions from different perspectives. Different ensembles and performance contexts afford significant new insights into applying Böhme's concepts to music; the earlier works look forward and successive works retroactively illuminate previous compositions in the series.