“Draco dormiens numquam titillandus”¹

Dear listener,

Titillatio is Latin for “tickle”. A rather strange and peculiar title, but one that explains the artistic choices of this concert: those who are tickled generally cannot keep still, they must move in order to be able to bear it. More or less like with some aspects in musical practice: performers have to start playing and “grooving” according to certain rules not to sink into boredom, constantly balancing between planning and acting.

So where to find Titillatio?

First of all, you will certainly have been able to hear some background noises: these were designed by Oleksandra Katsalap to welcome you even prior to the start of the concert in a different environment, far from the everyday world, almost like an oasis. This, at times, took the form of an “occult” third musician, to whom we had to react and with whom we communicated: the simplest and purest form of “sonic tickle”.

Continuing, or rather beginning, you could listen to Oleksandra Katsalap's piece, in which electronics, in the form of robotic commands, vigorously tickle and incite the performers to mechanical actions immersed in the space of the stage.
Having reached the end of the first improvised “bridge”, you may have noticed that we arrived at the core of this project, a meditative pause made up of ancestral organs and almost shamanic landscapes composed by Caspar Johannes Walter.
Finally, after a second bridge the hardest form of tickling took over in Bernhard Lang's piece, with its rhythmical force and hypnotic, exaggerated loops: this was the sign that the game is good when it lasts only for a short time, and that we had apparently awakened the dragon!¹

In this booklet you will find some words from Katsalap and Walter themselves in the form of an interview, as well as some reflections on Lang's work. We hope that this was a slightly different way to experience a concert and that you could appreciate our efforts in creating a project with a certain unity.

Thank you for being with us and see you soon

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¹ “Never tickle the sleeping dragon”, the official motto of the school of Hogwarts, from the “Harry Potter” series

“Did I wash the door sussurrando?”

In the closing months of 2022, the young Ukrainian composer Oleksandra Katsalap was asked by Ailouros to write a piece for voice and piano. This took the form of a cycle of five pieces of different styles, which were first performed in June 2023. Not entirely satisfied, the composer decided at the beginning of 2024 to condense some of the previously written material and to expand certain stylistic aspects only touched upon in the 2023 cycle.

Here, then, the meaning of the opening sentence is partly unveiled: an evolutionary synthesis linking memories, anxiety and instincts in a piece called “ADSD”.

“Yes.”

“Arciorgano”, a.k.a. “Torniamo all’antico e sarà un progresso ¹”

“I have accompanied the Arciorgano from its conception until now”, says Caspar Johannes Walter, professor for composition at the Musikakademie Basel and one of the primary researchers of the Basel based Studio 31.

What is exactly an Arciorgano, though?

It is an organ with 36 (instead of 12) keys per octave, which reconstruction by Bernhard Fleig in 2016 was based on historical evidence of a similar instrument in the 16^th century.

Why is it relevant to build a new instrument on such old designs?

To put it simply, to offer a great solution to the everlasting quarrel between just intonation and equal temperament. What seems to be just a technicality, discusses our own roots to their core. The fact that this is possible could potentially create an enormous wave of new music.

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¹ “Let us go back to the past and it will be progress”, from a letter written by G. Verdi to musicologist F. Florimo in 1871

Differenciating the repetitions or repeating the differences?

What appears to be a formal paradox or perhaps even a not particularly fruitful question, is in fact completely fundamental for a composer like Bernhard Lang (and for those who have to interpret his signs). It is actually no mystery that repetitions (or, in his case, looping) are one of his stylistic signatures.

Is it really something innovative, though?

Lang's looping has an almost hypnotic effect on the listener, as these repetitions are deliberately exaggerated. This insistence nevertheless allows the listener to dissect an element, appreciate all its nuances and finally, according to the French philosopher Deleuze perceive it differently. It is also interesting to note that Lang drew inspiration not only from this idea, but also from its application in the artistic field: the Austrian composer makes no secret of the fact that director Martin Arnold’s films had a great effect on him in this respect.

Furthermore the fact that “I am a knot” has a text by Christian Loidl on which to rely is to be considered. A text that Lang seems to have chosen precisely because of the Austrian poet's skilful and almost obsessive use of stream of consciousness: “in einer Art von neuem Rap-Gesang, zwischen Sprechrhythmus und punktueller Intonation.”¹

So how does one resolve the initial dilemma? Hard to say. Bernhard Lang seems to tread carefully exactly between these two concepts. Difference and repetition are thus, to paraphrase Deleuze, complementary and placed so close together that they lose their identities.

I am a knot

I am very much

I am a quivering eye

I am a pond shaken by the fall of a yellow leave

I am the arm that moves

I am the man who dreamed he had a cunt

and felt very good about it

I am a fast driver

I am a slow drinker

I am awake after five hours of sleep sometimes

I’m a believer in sliding systems

I am an Austrian

I am thirty-one years old

I remember

I am an abyss of pink

I am the one they say with smooth golden skin

I am proud of admirers

I am humble

I am the disappearing kitchen hand

I am a child

I am a grown up child

I am grey haired

I am oblivious

I am not choosey at this point

I am brown haired my optic because of wanting to see clearly

I am a dancing ball of confusion

I am a bubble

I am wind leaves right now

I am the ear that accommodates hammers leaves wind

I am the wordless empty mouth that explodes

I am a short skinny person

I am a man with a Nose

I am a skeleton

I am a devourer of integral yoghurt

I am a Buddhist

I am a traveler in a self-created world of seas and tumbling mountains

I am not suicidal

I am not positive

I am a tree of stars and spiders

I am a Virgo in many ways

I am the result of fake immaculate conception

I am a private joke my mother confided to me

I am a monkey expert in disguising as a human

I am a would be yogi had I discipline

I am a Mystery

I am very obvious

I am a would be yogi had I discipline

I am tired of labelling but an addict of costumes

I am a little sleepy now

I am watching people laying their pens down

I am curious what comes

I am flat footed

I’m a dancer though

I am not sure

I am fond of mixing and merging

I am the beauty of a rainbow in a raincoat

I am a brush stroke and an ink blob

I am an ex religious stubbing block

I am tired of me-ness and meanness

I am weary

I am very tolerant toward myself

I am indulging in idle words

I am liquid turquoise pouring out of my pen

I am a crutch of a long poem

I am surprised now and then

I am a little bored

I am not A leister Crowley

I am not a snake at this point

I am a lizard that’s what I wanna be

a Lizard conscious of every lick of its tongue

every change of hue

every firefly in it midday night.

[Text and translation: Christian Loidl]

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¹ “In a sort of new rap-singing, between rhythmical language and punctual intonation.”, from an interview on Lang’s Songbook II conducted by Sarah Maria Sun in 2017

Велике спасибі, Саша, за те, що приділив нам свій час, терпіння, допомогу і так багато себе як музиканта. Життя довге, але цей досвід, хороший досвід, залишає свій слід. Дружба - це дорогоцінна річ, і ми ніколи не забудемо, ким ти був, ми завжди будемо радіти тому, ким ти є, і з нетерпінням чекати, ким ти будеш!

Tausend Dank Johannes! Wir werden diese Erfahrung, deine Aufgeschlossenheit und deine Bemühungen, etwas wirklich Sinnvolles zu schreiben, nie vergessen. Wir werden dir immer dankbar sein!

Vielen Dank, Sarah und Andrea, für eure Anleitung und wertvollenRatschläge! Wir werden sie immer mitnehmen, denn die Zukunft hat immer ein Auge auf die Vergangenheit.

Thank you, dear listener, for staying with us and reading these words through!

Un grandissimo, tondissimo e grigissimo “grazie” a Ziominino! Ma!