Musical drops on hot stones

About this event

We all know how musical drops can be—just think of a tap dripping in many different pitches. We would like to turn off this tap, on the one hand to avoid waste, and on the other to calm our nerves. The situation is quite different with Frédéric Chopin's sparkling “Raindrop Prelude,” which we enjoy very much.

We are familiar with the effects of nature on us. We know them from hot stones, volcanoes, and geysers, but also from a visit to the sauna. We all perceive that rain pattering on bare rock sounds different from rain falling on soft ground. Péter Eötvös, for example, has proven to us that stones can make sounds with his works for percussion. The fact that a stone exposed to rain not only sounds different but actually dissolves and turns into soil—a process that takes a very long time—has to be explained to us from a scientific point of view. Prof. Dr. Friedhelm von Blanckenburg from the Department of Geosciences at Freie Universität Berlin is interviewed about this by students from the Institute for Music Journalism at the Karlsruhe University of Music.

Works by

Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, John Cage, Carlos Salzedo, Luna Donath, Burt Bacharach a.o. 
 

Featuring

Students at the Karlsruhe University of Music

concept: Prof. Maria Stange