Konfigurationen

Zimmermann’s original Konfigurationen are of course influenced by Anton Webern’s structural thinking, but draw their tonal charm to a large extent from the highly nuanced handling of resonances through pedal effects or resonant muted notes. The effects are predominantly very subtle, it is intimate music for small spaces, not for large halls – even for the performers, some of the sound effects are barely perceptible.
In Christoph Maria Wagner’s arrangement, the original piano part of the configurations was retained with very few exceptions. The other instruments’ function is primarily to either accentuate and colour the piano’s actions – or to emphasise the resonance effects mentioned above and make them more clearly audible. In many places, the ensemble takes on the function of a kind of “reverb machine”. I deliberately filtered out consonant combinations from the spectrum of resonant sounds again and again – this makes the underlying sound sensuality of the original version and its orientation towards the overtone spectrum more obvious.
The choice and use of percussion instruments is slightly different in each of the 8 short movements in order to give each individual section a distinct timbral characteristic. Only percussion instruments that Zimmermann himself used in his works such as the Soldaten were deliberately used.