READER: SELIG SIND
25.07.2025
Mark Andre: …selig sind… (2018) for Clarinet and Electronics
Heather Roche (Clarinet)
Michael Acker, Joachim Haas & Maurice Oeser (SWR Experimentalstudio)
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
–– Matthew 5, 3–9
…SELIG SIND…
…selig sind… [“Blessed are …”] (2016–18) meditates on Jesus‘ Sermon on the Mount (the Beatitudes) from Matthew’s Gospel. The solo clarinet moves through 14 ‘stations’ via 13 transitions accompanied by a processed sound recording derived from wind and human voices. Andre has spoken of ‘processes of vanishing’, and a metaphysical search for what remains after disappearance.
Peters Edition
The process of disappearance has long preoccupied Mark Andre and can already be seen in the formal structure of …selig sind…, which consists of 13 “transitions”. But even after the composition of this piece for clarinet and electronics in 2016–18, this compositional theme continues, for example in 2024 in …selig ist… for piano and electronics. For both works, Andre worked closely with the SWR Experimentalstudio, which not only enabled him to develop the tape and the electronics. The precise instruments of sound analysis in the studio also serve Andre to derive formal structures for his compositions from acoustic phenomena of certain spaces and sounds. In 2021, he spoke about his methods in a lecture at the Darmstadt Summer Course.
