At a presentation by the artist Amir Fattal, the Zafraan Ensemble and the soprano Dénise Beck under the direction of Holly Mathieson perform the work "From the End to the Beginning" on April 16, 2014 in the Berlin Kunstquartier Bethanien.
The starting point for Amir Fattal’s new work “From the End to the Beginning” is the idea of playing the ending of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde backwards. The last note became the first note of a new piece arranged mirror-inverted for nine instruments by Guy Braunstein. The piece called Isolde’s Transfiguration by Wagner , now often referred to as Liebestod , is the final song from Wagner’s musical drama Tristan and Isolde , which Isolde sings after Tristan’s death. The performance in reverse order is therefore also an attempt at reawakening that reflects the transformative power of music even in seemingly unchangeable situations – even death.
The work was inspired, among other things, by Thomas Mann’s novel Dr. Faustus is inspired, here in particular by the concept of a duality of music, which is characterized on the one hand by a strict mathematical order and on the other by a pull of dark, mystical emotions. This duality finds its formal correspondence in the nature of the new piece, which behaves like a mirror compared to the original. The strategy of playing a note passage backwards has fascinated composers since the beginning of written music and is a basic building block of Bach’s counterpoint and Arnold Schönberg’s twelve-tone technique with the resulting ingenious interweaving of rationality and expression.
Given the general ban on the performance of Wagner’s music in Israel, the work in the context of Wagner’s reception also reflects cultural taboos and the historical memory in which Wagner’s work has become a symbol of the devastating consequences of anti-Semitism. Another performance is planned for next September as part of an exhibition at the Herzlyia Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel.
Amir Fattal, born in Israel in 1978, has already been represented in numerous international group exhibitions; his recent solo exhibitions include Parallel Lines, Teapot Gallery, Cologne (2013), Goral Ehad, St-art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2012), Shadow of Smoke Rings on the Wall, Artitude Kunstverein, Berlin (2011) and Tomorrow Gets Me Higher, Wilde Gallery, Berlin (2010). Fattal’s works were also shown in 2012 as part of the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art in Moscow. Fattal is curator for Tape Modern Berlin, a series of group exhibitions of established and emerging artists. In 2013 Fattal received the Berlin Senate’s catalog funding, in 2010 the Berlin Senate’s Fine Arts Work Grant and in 2008 the GASAG Promotion Prize. Fattal completed his studies at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2009.
Further information: http://www.amir-fattal.com
