Gerhard Ruhm
Gerhard Rühm is a radical experimenter, a restless explorer of traditions and genres, atomizing their elements in order to recompose them with conceptual precision and a multiplicity of compositional techniques. He has worked with music and visual art, but basically the world is language for Rühm, the dictionary its body, and the alphabet its backbone.
Gerhard Rühm is a radical experimenter, a restless explorer of traditions and genres, atomizing their elements in order to recompose them with conceptual precision and a multiplicity of compositional techniques. He has worked with music and visual art, but basically the world is language for Rühm, the dictionary its body, and the alphabet its backbone.
Blumenstück
Blumenstück for piano was composed in 1984 as a sound meditation for private use and it celebrates the beauty of the piano sound through tenderness and slowness. All the sounds of the work derived from a word list that lists 168 flower names. All the letters in these names were assigned to notes on the keyboard according to a fixed system. Each sound has to be played softly and as long as possible. After the attack, all sounds should fade away into silence...
Phonetische Poesie
** 12-page booklet reproducing the original liner notes ** Reissue of the groundbreaking LP from 1971 of Phonetical Poetry / Sound Poetry pieces by the most relevant artists of the last century. Curated by Franz Mon.
Including pieces written by the fathers of Russian Futurism Velimir Chlebnikov, Alexej Krutschonych, and Kazimir Malevitc, followed by poems by Raoul Hausmann and Kurt Schwitters, the French school of Francois Dufrene, Henri Chopin, Maurice Lemaitre, to Bob Cobbing, Peter Greenham, …
Diotima Hat Ihre Lektüre Gewechselt
**300 copies** The 1971 detective audio play Diotima Hat Ihre Lektüre Gewechselt goes back to the records of a murder trial that took place around the turn of the 20th century: two music students were killed upon their own request - because of a love affair - by their piano teacher, who afterwards lacked the courage to shoot himself too, as planned. The court records are read out by two girls in alternation. The text is accompanied by background noise that the listeners can understand in relatio…
Ausgewählte Kurze Hörstücke 1961-1987
**300 copies** Unlike previous Gerhard Rühm editions on Tochnit Aleph which portrayed his phonetic poetry and longform radio-plays, the pieces on Ausgewählte Kurze Hörstücke are more conceptual, actionist, and (mostly) sound-based works recorded between 1961 and 1987. Liner notes by Gerhard Rühm in English and German.
Braublff - Materie und Laut
**Edition of 250 copies with silkscreened booklet** Braublff (Materie und Laut) is an archival piece with work from Gerhard Rühm, Alessandro Bosetti, Tomomi Adachi, ArfArf. With specific contributions and live recordings. Braublff is a series of live events organised by DE PLAYER (Rotterdam) and KRAAK (Ghent) and brings together contemporary vocal poets, text-sound composers and language-based artists with the pioneering work of the avant-garde. It deals with the question: “Where and how…
Masoch
Edition of 300 copies. Comes with 16 page booklet. First release of Gerhard Rühm's Radio-Play 'Masoch'. A ritual recitation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Ignatius von Loyola for one female and one male speaker, a chorus of speakers, and tape. "When the sexual pathologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term »masochism« in 1890, he was referring to the preferred literary topic and the lived obsessions of the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. With the help of biographical highlight…
Verlautbarungen
37 solo text-pieces, phonetic poems and poetry duets (with Monika Lichtenfeld) written and composed between 1952 and 2010. Recorded 2011 at Piethopraxis Tonstudio, Cologne by Marcus Schmickler. Comes with 24 page booklet with liner notes by Gerhard Rühm in english & german.You can listen here to "Gebet" (Prayer), 1954, is an example of vocal constellation. The succession of vowels "a, e, i, o, u" repeated in this order is wrapped up in consonants to the point of producing syllabic coordinations.…
Pencil Music
Originally released under the title "Bleistiftmusik" as a C30 cassette in a signed and numbered edition of 80 copies by Edition Hundertmark as 74. Karton. "I was surprised that it was possible to read the acoustic event from the object drawn, and some insecurity about the association of visual signs and sound phenomena (caused by the directional openness of the reading process) appears to increase even more the attraction of seeing them combined. The pencil-sound piece did not always remain th…