Enno Poppe

Ensemble Resonanz shares a long collaboration with Enno Poppe as composer and conductor. Various pieces and projects have grown out it. Here is an overview.

Wald (2010)

Filz (2015)

Stoff (2019)

Im Wald (2021)

»everything is discourse instead of declamation.«

Enno Poppe on his composition »Wald« for four string quartets, written for Ensemble Resonanz in 2010 and signature work in the Ensemble's repertoire.

»The string quartet is the home of occidental string music. Everything is discourse instead of declamation. Schönberg and his successors could thus undertake the most incredible expeditions without leaving the living room. Today, the compositional technique itself is the provocation. My musical work always has to do the exploration of measurements, magnifications and reductions. In my composition on the subject of string quartets I take the microscope and see each musician and his four strings as a quartet. Thus the quadrupled ensemble becomes a kind of meta-quartet.«

«the piece needed a kind of underfloor heating, that is, warmth that comes from the depths. It fits the viola ideally.«

Enno Poppe on adding four bass clarinets to the string body of his composition »Filz« for Tabea Zimmermann. During her time as Ensemble Resonanz' Artist in Residence, the ensemble introduced her to the composer - a happy encounter with consequences. Poppe's »Filz« for viola and chamber orchestra is inspired by Tabea's openness to special challenges and her variety of vibrato colors - and by the warmth of her tone.

»I always like the dialogic, when things relate to each other, especially communication among musicians. On the other hand, I think it's great to really put something in the center. In this piece, I was able to combine both.«

»strict and free at the same time«

»'Stoff' for nine strings starts from a strict matrix based on the number nine. At the beginning, there are only single notes, two-tone figures, intervals. Then lines, chords. Then chaos, virtuosity, frenzy. I observe how the most diverse things emerge from a scheme and the music begins to blossom and burn. The piece is strict and free at the same time.«

»For years I have been asked frequently what idea I want to express in a piece of music. But the question is wrong. Because if there should have been an initial idea at all (and not perhaps many different initial ideas), one must never confuse this with the finished piece of music. The process of starting from something and ending up somewhere else entirely can be observed in all my work. I don't think this has to do with a lack of precise thinking. It is especially my interest in precise thinking that leads me to observe the ideas in the course of a musical process like something organic: Ideas are not outside the music, but in it, and are therefore subject to the same processes of growth, stuckness and disappearance as all other components of music. The formulation of musical ideas is therefore not the basic condition valid for an entire piece, but rather a state from which everything starts.«

Enno Poppe

audiovisual installation »im wald«

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The audiovisual installation »Im Wald« offers a unique experience of Enno Poppe's composition »Wald«. 17 life-size video screens and loudspeakers represent the orchestra with Poppe himself as conductor, reflecting the branching, organic texture, that characterizes his work. The audience is invited to take a walk in the score, to approach the orchestra without limits and to experience the musicians at eye level - a virtual and at the same time physical encounter.

Audiovisual installation

Enno Poppe, Komponist & Dirigent Ensemble Resonanz

Andreas Huck & Roland Nebe (warped type), Video
Sebastian Schottke, Klangregie