Max-Lukas Hundelshausen: Carl Orff Competition 2018 Orpheus. – Eurydike. Hermes.

Like a treasure, Orpheus raises the frame drum that is filled with pearls. She is precious to him, like Eurydice. Her steady pulse drives him forward. Her being is his meaning and longing. So he meditates on her existence as he walks the path to life. But doubts soon overcome him as to whether his recovery attempt can succeed, whether his lover does or does not belong in the realm of the living, whether she can be full of life again or is filled with emptiness, whether she still is or is no more. His doubts make him waver: she may not be the Eurydice he was in love with anymore after all. This thought turns his head. He has to make sure! He sees her companion, Hermes, stop his lover. His pained exclamation: "He has turned around––" echoes through Orpheus' mind. The pearls are scattered on the ground. They, which have been lifted with great effort, have fallen effortlessly, powerless and limp, to earth, lost like tears. The last thing he can remember is his love's empty "Who?" asphyxiating him. His last song like in the legend ends in silence.

"Orpheus. - Eurydice. Hermes "uses the Morse code rhythm for the initials of the dedicatee Carl Orff. It gives birth to a pulse that is based on archaic, pastoral dances. At the climax of the piece, the Morse code rhythm turns around together with Orpheus.

The magic of the sculptures by Antje Tesche-Mentzen is reflected in the musical language of the song. As with Tesche-Mentzen's sculptures, the music is concrete only in the human psyche and emotion, the face and expression. Especially the beginning and end of the composition are based on the physical forms. Here, the voice is shaped and pummelled manually as a physical sound sculpture and made to tremble. At the same time a golden aura glitteres in the harp like the broken, injured arpeggio of a lute (playing instruction "Près de la table") that has forgotten how to walk. The last notes of the harp pick up this beginning again, but in reverse. Just as Orpheus has turned around, so did his lute. But wherever he turns, he can do nothing about their destiny. Whereas the hovering state, which does not submit to a meter, is bravely broken in the beginning, it ends in a resigned, weary, dull state.


The mp3 is not a live recording, but a MIDI simulation. It gives a slightly better impression of the harp part than the MIDI file. Of course, neither mp3 nor MIDI file can represent any of the music-theatrical elements of the composition comprehendably. Those can only be presented in concert.