Fünf Bilder nach Fragmenten von Robert Musil. Stimme Gunda König. 1987 im Auftrag der
INA/GRM Paris in deren Studios entstanden. Magisterium Prize, Bourges, 1988

Dieter Kaufmann has taken the following fragments from the sketch “Journey to Paradise” in Robert Musil’s novel The Man without Qualities, using the computer to transform them musically. During August and December 1986, 28 segments, ranging in duration from 10 seconds to 3 minutes, were realised in studio 123 of the GRM, and were used as the tape component of the vocal theatre piece Journey to Paradise. For the GRM commission, Kaufmann composed an autonomous electro-acoustic work using these musical elements, all of them based on Gunda König’s voice. Robert Musil’s sketch is about the love between the twins Ulrich and Agathe, and the impossibility of prolonging “the exceptional state” of this pure love into eternity. In one passage of the text, Musil speaks of “the secret voluptuousness of the hermaphrodite who, divided into two separate beings, finds each identity without anyone touching them and guessing their secret”. The composition tries to uncover something of this secret by uniting the words and their music.

sand / boats / murmuring of people / further / arrivals / sound of a fountain / beautiful the distant world like a faint noise / at the centre of their hearts / at the centre of his/her heart / at the centre of my heart / now we can dream, the senses are drifting off to sleep / she said, smiling, laughed smile / beautiful / perfect, perfection, beauty, perfect beauty – an animal, a portrait, a woman / happiness in sadness – sadness in happiness chisel, sharp as a ray of shadow at midday / two pairs of eyes straining / examine objects / she murmured, a lucid terror like midday seemed to wring her heart (the greatest ordeal was always the sea) / pitiless mistress, rival, examination of conscience / bells / silent things, not at all clear / a love of the lack of love, gently holding out hands worry, summer, burning, the sun smouldering, fre / great beloved, peacock tail, beloved / oval mirror, the beloved, the beloved’s eye / emptiness everywhere / rainy day / the gates of paradise / gates of paradise