Bernd Richard Deutsch: Massenkristall

I took the term »mass crystal« from Elias Canetti’s book Crowds and Power. Canetti uses it to describe »small, rigid groups of people, clearly demarcated […], which serve to trigger crowds.« He goes on to say: »Their unity is much more important than their size.« Such a mass crystal can be, for example, an orchestra or even a choir. My composition was originally written for the Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival, with Canetti’s work and Thomas Mann’s novella Mario and the Magician as the starting points. In addition, no text was to be used; the choir was only to sing phonemes. In my piece, I have attempted to reflect different aspects of the concept of ‘mass’ musically.

 

The composition is, roughly speaking, in three parts: a slow introduction and its shortened reprise frame a fast main section. In the introduction, chromatic ascending and descending movements of varying scope are varied, with the individual notes lingering to suggest an increase and decrease in density. The atmosphere is sluggish and almost somnambulistic. The middle section, on the other hand, is repeatedly characterised by rhythmic activity and pulsation, with different textures often alternating abruptly. Some moments have an almost puppet-like character.

 

I had in mind the image of the hypnotist Cipolla from Thomas Mann’s novella, under whose influence a crowd of individualists increasingly merges into a mindless and arbitrarily manipulable entity and finally begins to dance collectively as if in a trance. Aggressive elements increasingly gain the upper hand, and after a final dramatic crescendo, the crowd seems to fall back into its initial lethargy.

(Bernd Richard Deutsch)