Performative InstallationECM New Series 476 4193 ***

Heiner Goebbels is such a man of the theatre that his shows (he calls Stifters Dinge a “performative installation”) don’t always stand on their own when the music is heard separately from the whole. Stifters Dinge (Stifter’s Things), a tribute to the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter, is a performance without performers. Five pianos that sound, mostly in non-pianistic ways, without the intervention

of pianists, move slowly across illuminated black pools to a sonic background rich in atmospheric effects and vérité. It includes recordings of Papuan incantations, readings by William S Burroughs and Malcolm X, an interview with Claude Lévi-Strauss (in French, with Bach’s Italian Concerto playing in the background),

and a traditional Greek song. But, even in this perfect-seeming recording, without the visuals there's a lack of cohesive focus. Something seems to be missing. See url.ie/7ebo