Bernhard Lang
GAME 15 'Mirror-Games'

for 4 voices and string quartet (2022–2023)

The idea of combining 2 quartets is intriguing indeed: on the one hand the purity of solo voices, the primary sounding of the human body, on the other hand the art of instrumental playing in its highest refinement, with the widest field of parameters and their connectivity: the string quartet.

Symmetry in sound and structure seems to be an intrinsic topic here, the doubling of the square, taking quadruple structures as a point of reference for the composition also refers to renaissance composition, which will be present through the whole piece, including motetic compositions as an additional point of reference.

Canons will be the machines of repetition, self-similar loops organizing the relationship between layers and voices, also referring to the mirror-concept.

Self-organisation will create the time-structure, the piece will therefore be non-conducted.

In many regards this piece is related to its predecessor GAME 245 'The Mirror stage' for 4 voices, electric guitar and ambisonic loops, produced at IRCAM 2020, based on a Palestrina motet.

Bernhard Lang, Vienna, 2024