Widmann Labyrinth IV
Boulez Ensemble, Daniel Barenboim & Sarah Aristidou
Musical Performance Ensemble & Orchestra / Voice 1For years, Jörg Widmann has been inventing musical labyrinths that have become one of his “great themes in life” as a composer: “I never make plans for groups of works beforehand,” he explains. “They just arise. You write a piece and feel instinctively that you aren’t finished with a certain subject.” Labyrinth IV for soprano and ensemble was commissioned by the Daniel Barenboim Foundation and had its world premiere in June 2019 at the Pierre Boulez Saal. Widmann conceived the work specifically “for this space with its labyrinthine possibilities. The fact that the singer can wander through the entire space is what makes the piece viable.” It retells the story of the Minotaur, the mythical creature with a human body and a bull’s head that lived in a labyrinth on the island of Crete, from the perspective of its half-sister, Ariadne. Here, she does not provide the thread but wields the dagger herself, ending the story with the words: “I am your labyrinth…”
Jörg Widmann (*1973)
Labyrinth IV for Soprano and Ensemble (2019)
Based on texts by Euripides, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Heinrich Heine
Daniel Barenboim, Conductor
Sarah Aristidou, Soprano
Boulez Ensemble
Wolfram Brandl, Lifan Zhu, Violin
Yulia Deyneka, Viola
Alexander Kovalev, Cello
Christoph Anacker, Double Bass
Anne Romeis, Flute
Hartmut Schuldt, Clarinet
Robert Drager, Bassoon / Double Bassoon
Bassam Mussad, Christian Batzdorf, Trumpet
Jurgen Oswald, Trombone
Thomas Guggeis, Piano
Teodoro Anzellotti, Accordion
Martin Barth, Dominic Oelze, Percussion
- 00:00 - Labyrinth IV
- 01:18 - Collaboration with Sarah Aristidou
- 03:15 - Daniel Barenboim’s Trust
- 04:06 - An extreme work for the Boulez Ensemble
- 05:11 - Unexpected composition’s process: Ariadne in focus
- 09:00 - Euripides, Brentano, Heine, and Nietzsche
- 11:44 - Ariadne and the Minotaur, her half-brother
- 13:12 - The symbolism of the Minotaur. Does it exist?
The theme of the labyrinth has long preoccupied Jörg Widmann. Labyrinth IV is the latest addition to his ongoing cycle of works inspired by the musical and metaphorical potential of mazes. It began with two purely instrumental compositions: Labyrinth for 48 string instruments (2005) and Second Labyrinth for orchestral groups (2006). In 2013–14, Widmann introduced a soprano to the cycle in Third Labyrinth and expanded the temporal scope to nearly 50 minutes. The scenario draws on Friedrich Nietzsche’s late-period Dionysian Dithyrambs and a story from the collection Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.
For Labyrinth IV, Widmann found a kindred artistic spirit in the soprano Sarah Aristidou and her attitude of eagerly pushing the envelope. The result is a work that intrepidly ventures to extremes —of musical technique, of emotion, indeed of dramatic intensity. The vocal writing is characterized by wild leaps from stratospheric heights to deep chest voice; elsewhere, the soloist intones in a kind of ritualistic spell. While Widmann continues to develop some of the threads found in Third Labyrinth, this latest work is by contrast highly compressed and written for a smaller instrumental ensemble. The score illuminates a harrowing and original dramaturgy that Widmann has designed by compiling his own libretto from originally unconnected poetic sources. The perceived “throughline” is the composer’s invention.
Widmann imagines an alternative to the famous ancient myth of the monstrous Minotaur, offspring of King Minos of Crete’s wife Pasiphaë and a white bull she was cursed by Poseidon to love. After being contained in a labyrinth designed by Daedalus, the Minotaur became the cause of much suffering as King Minos ritually sacrificed Athenian youths, sending them into the maze to be devoured— until the Athenian Theseus managed to kill the Minotaur with the help of Minos’s daughter Ariadne, whose love for Theseus inspired a clever plan. But Theseus is entirely absent from Labyrinth IV. Indeed, the scenario focuses solely on the perspective of Ariadne and her relationship with the Minotaur.
The score juxtaposes a wide range of poetic texts over five of its six sections, which Widmann titles as follows (the source authors are indicated in parentheses): (1) Conception of the Minotaur (a brief fragment from a rediscovered fragment of a play involving Theseus by Euripides—in ancient Greek); (2) Nursery Rhyme for a Monster (Clemens Brentano); (3) Going into the Labyrinth (this is the only wordless section, a purely instrumental canon); (4) In the Labyrinth (Friedrich Nietzsche); (5) Sadly I Gaze Up into the Sky (Heinrich Heine); and (6) Killing the Minotaur (also Nietzsche).
The piece opens by imagining a primal scene in which “Ariadne is watching as the Minotaur is conceived—so it’s not completely clear whether the sounds of the soprano represent lust or shock,” as Widmann explains, adding that it is important to recall that the beast is Ariadne’s half-brother. For the Euripides text (in Greek, “O miserable mother, tell me why did you bear me?”), the soprano “hums a psychedelic melody.” This first section sets the tone of uncompromising darkness and disorientation that Widmann boldly explores throughout—its counterpart most evident in the final section. In powerful contrast is the childlike innocence, touching on folk-like music, of sections 2 and 5. The Brentano verses accompany Ariadne as she leads the Minotaur into the labyrinth. Heine’s poem mirrors this lyrical oasis with dramatic shift of perspective to the open night sky as the Minotaur—in a “flashback” imagined by Ariadne—looks above and sees no way out in any direction, even under the open sky.
Alluding to the rich history of musical labyrinths as found in early music or the complex structures of Bach, the purely instrumental third section is a canon built from many voices. Their layering becomes a musical symbol of the labyrinth itself—an architecture that continually opens up into new pathways and can have no closure, no evident “way out.”
Following this interlude, the soprano—who throughout the work moves to different stations in the hall, enacting a journey through the labyrinth—comes back in section 4. Here, Widmann recontextualizes Nietzsche’s text, imagining that these are words Ariadne might address to the Minotaur. The musical temperature becomes feverish, the aggression and violence of the soundscape suggesting how she is hunted and haunted by this monstrous phenomenon. Heine’s poem, symmetrically positioned to echo the lyrical setting of Brentano in section 2, gives way to a shocking denouement in the final section.
In Widmann’s vision, Ariadne is “both fascinated and repulsed by the Minotaur,” whose demise—heralded by a pair of fanfaring trumpets—here remains ambiguous. Labyrinth IV synthesizes the ancient Greek understanding of “this tragic legacy”—with its unsparing sense of the sublime, of recognizing the tragic truth of human existence—with a modern psychological interpretation that such writers as Friedrich Dürrenmatt have posited: that the Minotaur symbolizes the terror and dread of existence itself and is wholly internal, a projection of the fears and panic of its victims who imagine that the unseen beast must be lurking around the next corner of the labyrinth…. As Ariadne realizes in the final moments before blackout, “I am your labyrinth.”
—Harry Haskell
Notes originally published in the Pierre Boulez Saal program book for the second performance of Labyrinth IV in a concert of the Boulez Ensemble on September 1, 2020.
I. Zeugung des Minotaurus
Τί με δῆτ᾽, ὦ μελέα μῆτερ, ἒτιχτες.
Oh unglückliche Mutter, warum nur
hast Du mich geboren?
Euripides
I. Conception of the Minotaur
Τί με δῆτ᾽, ὦ μελέα μῆτερ, ἒτιχτες.
O miserable mother, tell me why
did you bear me?
II. Kinderlied für ein Ungeheuer
Durch die Wüste zieht das Kind.
Nur der Faden meiner Hände
Führt es durch das Labyrinth.
Es wird wandeln, wie ich’s sende. –
Durch die Wüste zieht das Kind.
Clemens Brentano, Gedichte
II. Nursery Rhyme for a Monster
Through the desert the child travels.
Only the thread of my hands
Guides it through the labyrinth.
It will wander where I send it.—
Through the desert the child travels.
III. Gang ins Labyrinth
[Kanon]
III. Going into the Labyrinth
[Canon]
IV. Im Labyrinth
Unnennbarer! Verhüllter! Entsetzlicher!
Du höhnisch Auge, das mich aus
Dunklem anblickt!
So liege ich,
Biege mich, winde mich, gequält.
Du drängst mich, drückst mich,
Ha! schon viel zu nahe!
Du hörst mich atmen,
Du behorchst mein Herz,
Was willst du dir erhorchen?
Was willst du dir erfoltern,
Du Folterer!
Friedrich Nietzsche, Dionysos-Dithyramben
IV. In the Labyrinth
Ineffable! Recondite! Sore-frightening!
You mocking eye that me in darkness
watches:
Thus do I lie,
Bend myself, twist myself, convulsed.
You crowd me, pressest—
Ha! now far too closely!
You hearst me breathing,
You overhearst my heart,
What seekst you by your hearkening?
What seekst you by your torturing?
You torturer!
Translation by Thomas Common (1909)
V. Traurig schau ich in die Höh
Traurig schau ich in die Höh,
Wo viel tausend Sterne nicken –
Aber meinen eignen Stern
Kann ich nirgends dort erblicken.
Hat im güldnen Labyrinth
Sich vielleicht verirrt am Himmel,
Wie ich selber mich verirrt
In dem irdischen Getümmel.
Heinrich Heine, Romanzero
V. Sadly Gaze I Up on High
Sadly gaze I up on high,
Where the countless stars are gleaming,
But I nowhere can discern
Where my own bright star is beaming.
Perhaps in heaven’s gold labyrinth
It has got benighted lately,
As I on this bustling earth
Have myself been wandering greatly.
Translation by Edgar Alfred Bowring
VI. Tötung des Minotaurus
Nein!
Komm zurück!
Mit allen deinen Martern!
All meine Tränen laufen
Zu dir den Lauf
Und meine letzte Herzensflamme
Dir glüht sie auf.
Ich bin dein Labyrinth …
Friedrich Nietzsche, Dionysos-Dithyramben
VI. Killing of the Minotaur
No!
Come you back!
With all of your great tortures!
All my hot tears in streamlets trickle
Their course to you!
And all my final hearty fervor
Up-glowth to you!
I am your labyrinth…
Translation by Thomas Common
Daniel Barenboim, Conductor
Sarah Aristidou, Soprano
Boulez Ensemble
Wolfram Brandl, Violin
Yulia Deyneka, Viola
Anne Romeis, Flute
Hartmut Schuldt, Clarinet
Robert Drager, Bassoon / Double Bassoon
Bassam Mussad, Christian Batzdorf, Trumpet
Jurgen Oswald, Trombone
Thomas Guggeis, Piano
Teodoro Anzellotti, Accordion
Martin Barth, Dominic Oelze, Percussion
Lifan Zhu, Violin
Alexander Kovalev, Cello
Christoph Anacker, Double Bass
Video Director
Frederic Delesques
Recording
Camera
Anna Motzeln, Joanna Piechenka, Mathias Sifihn, Nicolai Wolff
Colour Grading
Stephane Andrivot
Teldex Studio Berlin
Audio Producer
Friedemann Engelbrecht
Sound Engineers & Audio Post-Production
Julian Schwenkner, Sebastian Nattkemper
Heliox Films
Production Manager
Emmanuelle Faucilhon
Executive Producer
Pierre-Francois Decoufle
A Production of the Pierre Boulez Saal © 2020 Pierre Boulez Saal. All Rights Reserved
Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz with kind permission of SCHOTT Music, Mainz