In researching artists to inform my creative sound project, I was led to the work of German composer Bernhard Günter. His creative practice engaging with minimalism, electroacoustic music and the fine aesthetic placement of sound, laid very sparsely yet purposefully together, is a core tenet in what is known as lowercase, which Günter is associated with. His album from 1989, ‘Un Peu de Neige Salie’, is an almost extreme focus of dedicated sound. So stark and minimalist that it may only suggest the particular aural obsessions of the artist. I immediately connected with his work, less to search for enjoyable qualities, but because it stands as definitive, inexorable proof that work this finely pointed and attuned to subtlety can be robust and engaging and strong. It reminded me of my own obsessive sitting in front of the bass amp at the start of this final project, turning dials so infinitesimally that, with some temporal distance, only I could perceive any progression or change by skimming through the timeline. I am excited by the confidence that, through Günter’s compositional work, careful, precise minimalism where every moment feels like a core and irremovable component is entirely possible. Certainly, this is an approach I have learned from and incorporated in the production of my final piece. The same deep listening I find myself sinking into, aurally exploring just one or two interplaying sonic objects, is a chief concern in Günter’s work also.
The comprehensive yet restrained compositional organisation of music and silence, movement and stillness, density and space, I see reflected in the Korean musical tradition of Gugak. At the Busan National Gugak Center in April 2023, I attended a performance of the third topic of the Gugak concert schedule, Sprinkle Rain, which was comprised of a number of curated, minimal scenes. Where Mozart may have composed a cavalcade of notes and movements for just one instrument, the Korean folk tradition emphasises the resultant flavour when minimal instruments, acts or the voice interact.
In Günter’s ‘Crossing the River (Night Music)’, he cites inspiration from the Buddha’s Zen teachings; ‘my teaching is like a raft used to cross the river’; also stating on his Soundcloud upload of the piece that, ‘the piece actually contains some sounds taken from a recording of a Buddhist ceremony’. There must be a parallel to be drawn between Günter’s interpretation of the sparsity and serenity found within Buddhist atmospherics. While I feel a certain anthropological discomfort with Günter looking in on Buddhist tradition as a sonic object to be interpreted, perhaps our European perception of the rituals of Zen is stark and spare, seeking a peaceful emptiness.