Lang: The Cold Trip

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The Cold Trip belongs to a cycle of some 30 pieces called the “Monadologies,” which represent meta-compositions, using original scores from music history between the year 900 and today. Whereas the pieces up to number XXVIII use computer programs to process the original cells (“monads”). In these later pieces Bernhard Lang says that he “just remembered the results of these processings, using manual looping and cutting for generating the actual texts.” While Monadologies XX and XXI already reference Schubert’s trios, The Cold Trip is a meta-composition based on Winterreise: part 1, for voice and 4 guitars, features songs I-XII of Schubert’s cycle; part 2 for voice, piano and laptop, features songs XIII-XXIV, and uses a specially created set of samples of prepared pianos for the playback files thus creating palimpsests of Schubert’s original textures. The voice in both parts traces the lost lines of the songs, sometimes touching them if remembering.