[ Peşrev (2006) ]  [ de-sero (2006) ]  [ desertum (2003) ]  [ Sieh, ich starb als Stein… (2002) ]  [ gurêz (2002) ]

    In this approach, melody works like a prisma, opening multiple harmonic vectors. Grammatically speaking, it may be compared to the subjunctive mood.

    All of these scores evolved during a period when the composer was practicing Islam. They are connected by aspects of classical Middle-Eastern monophony that translate the basic polarity of “breath” and “beat” into a specifically “Sufic” expression. Their pitch supply, relying on a 24-note temperament (a sort of 11-limit harmony without pure thirds, sixths, and sevenths) is rather Persianate and refers more accurately to the Ottoman 17-note scale than to contemporary makam intonation. The idea is comparable to a prisma: to open multiple threads, each of them speaking in a conjunctive mode.

    for large orchestra, dedicated to Róbert Wittinger
Finalist of the Saarbrücker Orchesterwerkstatt 2006
Premiered under the title “Ikaros” by the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony under the direction of
Manfred Schreier

“the night‘s most lasting discovery” (Sandra Sinsch, Saarbrücker Zeitung, 2006)

    The term peşrev comes from Farsi (pīš-răv: “ahead-going” = “prelude”). In Ottoman-Turkish art music, it denotes a monodic, circular form in which developmental sections interchange with a fixed ritornello, mülâzime. Stefan Pohlit‘s orchestra piece of the same name is the largest peşrev ever composed. Its polyphony unfolds, as if suspended in the air, from a descending scale, constructed after studying several compound makam species. The scale‘s pitches are interpreted by reference to overtone relationships. In this, Peşrev forms a bridge to the still audible impact of French Spectralism on Pohlit‘s early style. A network of interrelated modes determines the peculiar spiral, circular progression, implying manyfold directions in harmonic space. Due to the gravity inflicted by harmonic tension something very close to “volplane” occurs, pushing forward from the changing “ground level”. Similar to Pohlit‘s observations in Jean Sibelius‘s IVth Symphony (“Grenzen harmonischer Deutbarkeit – J. Sibelius’ IV. Symphonie”, Musiktheorie III/2005), the tonicality of single-pitch keynotes has spread onto a triangle of three fundamentals, interrelated by a major third.

structure:

serhane (exposition)– mülâzime 1 into the finalis
hane-yi sâni – mülâzime 2 (false recapitulation) into the dominant
hane-yi sâlis – mülâzime 3 into the finalis (extended recapitulation)

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    1^st performance: Stadler-Quartett at Musik-Sprachen-Geflechte (Biennale Heidelberg) 2006 upon invitation by Sandeep Bhagwati
    Further performances by students of the Darmstadt Summer Courses 2006, by European Music Project
(2007, broadcast on MDR radio, see recording), and Hezarfen Ensemble (2015, 2016)

    The larger structure of de-sero bends the underlying rondo-sonata towards a three-part peşrev. In Latin, de-sero means : “to unlink”, “to dissolve”. The name is taken from a paragraph in Raoul Schrott‘s essay Die Namen der Wüste. Basically spoken, Pohlit‘s second string quartet is composed over the finale of Jean Sibelius‘s IVth Symphony. Its purpose was to reveal the “selective 11-limit” harmonic system that emerges, for the first time in history, in this movement. The apparent interchangeability of the harmonic seventh 4/7 and the harmonic undecimal augmented fourth 8/11 in 24-note temperament creates a “double key” A–E-flat and causes the general perception of fundamentals to merge three mediantic relations into a triangular compound. As a surprising consequence, the importance of semitone sensibles (the main argument of common music history to explain dodecaphony as a result of post-Wagnerian harmony) has vanished in favor of the threequarter-tone.

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    for flute and piano 1^st performance: Andrea Ritter, recorder, & Markus Stange, piano, at Festival KlanGriffe Karlsruhe, 2003

    This is an early example of the same 24-note temperament that would be perfected in later works, such as Peşrev. It has been performed at several occasions in Germany, South Korea, and Turkey. The composers liked its condensed melodic structure so much that he adapted it several times to larger instrumentations. Im 2004, it was extended to two different ensemble pieces, first-performed by Ensemble Reconsil in Vienna (2003) and members of the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe (2004), respectively. The latter version also appeared in the cycle The Names of the Desert (after Raoul Schrott), performed upon Pohlit‘s Konzertexamen graduation in Wolfgang Rihm‘s Composition class at ZKM Karlsruhe in 2005. Yet a larger version for orchestra (renamed Zarzūrah) won the promotional award of the Orchestration workshop of the SWR Radiosymphonieorchester Stuttgart in 2009, conducted by Matthias Pintscher.

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    for mezzosoprano, flute, clarinet, trumpet, percussion, dedicated to Georg Bossong
    1^st performance:
    Denise Seyhan (mezzosoprano), ensemble for new music of the Hochschule
für Musik Karlsruhe directed by Mindaugas Piečaitis, ZKM Karlsruhe, 2003

    As one of Pohlit‘s most performed early pieces, this “Sufi cantata” juxtaposes a famous Persian poem by Jalâluddin Rûmî with its German translation by Friedrich Rückert. It evolved out of the friendship with the renowned philologist Prof. Dr. Georg Bossong who promoted the composer‘s occupation with Arabic and Farsi. The melodic structure relies entirely on the original meters of the poem. Learning Farsi at the time, Stefan Pohlit was able to interpret the peculiarities of each language version in such a way that the music translates both of them vis-à-vis in a double-dialogic perspective, reflecting both on Rûmî‘s mystic and Rückert‘s Romanticist worldview.

    The score contains detailed information about the pronunciation and meaning of its text sources. After further performances at the KlanGriffe Festival Karlsruhe (2003) Hugo-Wolf-Akademie Stuttgart, Karlsruhe Europäische Kulturtage and a broadcast within a portrait of the composer on R.TV Karlsruhe (all in 2004), Gare du Nord Basel (2009), and the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg (2011), it was included in the album Orient by Phoenix Ensemble Basel (Mezzosoprano: Marianne Schuppe, direction: Jürg Henneberger) at United Phoenix Records: Link

    Klaus Hinrich Stahmer discussed the piece in Reclams Liedführer (2008, p. 1063).

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    for recorder quartet commissioned by the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet (ALSQ)
Released on CD (Fugue Around The Clock by Channel Classics Amsterdam, CCS 19498) in 2003

    “especially memorable” (John Duarte, Gramophone, 2003)
    “a breathtakingly bold collage of sounds and noises” (Wolfgang Nussbauer, Schwäbische Post, 2005)

    Karel van Steenhoven, then recorder professor at Karlsruhe Hochschule für Musik, asked for a composition that would deal with the fugue structure and, and the same time, make use of various extended techniques. The result is a kind of marching theme in strict counterpoint, modeled after Bach but updated by the special case of “selective 11-limit harmony” in 24-note temperament. The idea behing was to evoke a passage of from Herodotus‘s Histories (III, 26), the tale of the army of Kambyses that got lost under a strong desert storm and disappeared near the Siwa oasis (named Jupiter Ammon at the time). The piece was presented at various festivals and included in the ALSQ‘s concert tours in North America, Europe, and Asia between 2002 and 2006.

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