Le mystère d'orgue (2003) - sound environment for Hermann Nitsch

Excerpt from a generative sound installation for a Hermann Nitsch exhibition at the Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg (Austria) in 2003. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/mysteredorgue.html As musical accompaniment for the major Hermann Nitsch retrospective at the Essl Museum, Karlheinz Essl has created a expansive sound installation which has its centre in the Rotunda and, from there, floods the large hall and the galleries with sound. For Nitsch, music has always been an integral element of his Orgien Mysterien Theater, which found its climax in the 6-Day-Play in August 1998. For this meticulously choreographed "Gesamtkunstwerk" the artist composed an original music score which has recently been released on 51 CDs. Sound samples from this recording have been used as basic material for the sound installation Le mystère d'orgue. A specifically developed computer program splits these samples into atoms of sound and re-combines them into ever-new sound shapes in real-time. The resulting sound stream wafts through the exhibition halls like an organ sound, surging and receding, thus creating an aura reminiscent of the original orgiastic-mystic environment for Hermann Nitsch’s performance relicts.