Nachleben (2026)
3D High Order Ambisonics
Nachleben is an acousmatic work built from two sources: mechanical sounds of the piano and unintentional human sounds. No conventional piano tones, no speech, no singing. Only breath, mouth noises, teeth clicks, and the physical life of the instrument: hammer actions, pedal mechanisms, string friction, body contact.
The piano interests me as a technology that reached its optimum and then stopped. Unlike most technologies, which consume themselves in perpetual progress, the piano arrived at a point where builders, performers, and composers collectively decided: this is enough. It represents a different kind of relationship between human effort and machine form, one where the goal was not endless innovation but a perfected dialogue.
The title draws on Aby Warburg’s concept of survival and transformation across time. Human and mechanical materials migrate continuously across uncertain perceptual ground. Breath initiates gestures that open into resonant piano worlds; bodily sounds dissolve into the instrument until the boundary between them becomes difficult to locate. The two systems question each other quietly, neither fully absorbing the other, neither remaining entirely itself.