Molasse is the name of a geological formation in the Alps, based on fossils and relicts of the Jurassic nature, which became petrified and now build our mountains and hills. I was fascinated by the idea of building completely new structures and forms out of recognisable organic material. The harmonic fundaments of my piece are “objets trouvés” from our musical tradition, for example tonal or pentatonic scales, triads, rhetoric gestures and specific rhythmical patterns. All these objects become part of a hidden, strict, sometimes nearly serial organisation, a kind of map that recomposes them and totally changes their meaning and semantics. They now build new contexts, sometimes homogeneous, often heterogeneous, sometimes wild and instable, but then petrified and strengthen again.

Despite of that strict concept behind, due to the large scale of different materials used in my piece there is an immediate strength, almost something spontaneous in it and also a huge variety of sounds and gestures, like the astonishing number of creatures who built the molasse vivante.

Michel Roth