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Born in 1959 in Krefeld, she worked in the city’s
Theater am Marienplatz between 1976 and 1984. She studied composition with
Mauricio Kagel at the Higher Music School in Cologne (1978–84). She is
a prizewinner of the Young Composers’ Competition of North
Rhine-Westphalia, the ‘b. a. Zimmermann Today’ Competition, the
iscm World Music Days (1987), the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Com-petition
(1989), the c. m. Weber Competition in Dresden (1992–93), the Gedok
International Competition (1994), the Composers’ Competition in
Stuttgart (Second Prize), and the International Composers’ Competition
in Boswil (Second Prize). Her honours also include the Women’s
Artistic Award of North Rhine-Westphalia (1998).
She has held grants from b. a. Zimmermann (Cologne), the Schloss Solitude
Akademie (Stuttgart, 1990/91), Schreyahn Artists’ Colony in Lower
Saxony (1992), the Foundation of Arts and Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia
(1995), and the Villa Massimo in Rome (1997).
Her works were performed at the iscm World Music Days in Copenhagen (1996),
Seoul (1997) and Lucerne (2004), as well as at the ‘Blaue Brücke’
Festival in Dresden.
Carola Bauckholt is a co-founder of the Thürmchen Publishing House and
(1985) and of an ensemble of the same name (1995).
Carola Bauckholt is one of those composers who wander through the ordinary
world with open ears in search of acoustical phenomena to serve as stimuli
or starting points for their compositions. Noises, no matter how difficult
to describe and categorize, have acoustical properties that conjoin some of
them and set many others apart. Because of these ‘family resemblances’,
it is possible to represent them with musical instruments. Bauckholt has
developed a characteristic manner of imitating noises, of extracting their
acoustical components and reconstructing them with other means – or,
as she puts it, ‘to meet them face to face and stretch them in order
to get closer to them, and then to translate them into other combinations
and forms of existence.’ It is the beauty and variety of noise, with
its many subtle nuances, that forms the bedrock of her music.
Selected works: Geräusche for two players (1992), Zopf (Draid)
for flute, oboe and clarinet (1992–94), Trio for Clarinet, Cello and
Piano (1993), Luftwurzeln (Air-roots) for flute, clarinet, viola and cello
(1994), String Trio (1994), In gewonhnter Umgebung III (In familiar
surroundings) for cello, piano and video (1994), Treibstoff (Driving
substance) for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano and
percussion (1995), Doina for voice and string orchestra (1996), Stachel der
Empfindlichkeit (Prickle of sensibility) for mezzo-soprano, countertenor,
three cellos and four percussions (1997–98), nein allein for five
voices (1999–2000), Ich muss mit Der reden for flute, clarinet, violin,
viola, cello, double bass, percussion and piano (2000), Atempause for
orchestra (2000–01), Hubschrauber for voice and orchestra (2003),
Kugel for three cellos and tape (2002), Geräuschtöne for violin, cello and
percussion (2003), Gegenwind for organ (2004).
As the ear soon recognizes, Treibstoff (literally
‘driving substance’) is a self-explanatory title. The listener
enters the piece as though a door is suddenly flung open and he finds
himself surrounded by a swarm of sentient acoustical beings, each moving
forward at greater or lesser speed depending on the length of its legs.
Pandemonium reigns supreme. Each instrument has its own gait, and the
sum-total of these ‘sounds in forward motion’ is an impenetrably
dense rhythmic mass of reiterative figures.
Yet, thanks to an underlying breathing tempo of constantly fluctuating
accelerando and ritardando, and also to predefined imperfections in the
ensemble playing, there is an organic feeling about this music. The allusion
to sentient beings in different kinds of motion is not simply a product of
free association: besides breathless sounds we also hear vocal imitations of
‘whinnying horses’ and – as the score tells us –
‘galloping dog’s paws’ to describe more accurately the
ricochets of the violoncellos.
Although the gestures of panting, gasping and dribbling may have been taken
from real life, the piece is more than simply a copy of nature with other
means: ‘It poses the question about our motives for moving forward at
all: what drives us on?’ – as Carola Bauckholt puts it. And what
causes us to stop?
After a convulsive outburst from piano and percussion that stands out from
the rest of the texture, the piece comes to an abrupt halt. Then the
instruments gingerly grope forward as though enshrouded in fog and unable to
see beyond their next step. This section is dominated by a very deep drone
in the double bass tinted by ultra-high-register murmurings in the violin
and viola, a combination of timbres the composer refers to as ‘snow’.
True, the fog never lifts, but the ear becomes accustomed to it and
discovers that the beings are busily communicating with each other, forming
duets or putting together complementary rhythms. A quarter-tone melody in
the strings leads into the closing section, which returns to the patterns of
motion heard at the opening of the piece.
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