Skulptur "Walzer für Emsbüren" | Emsbürener Musiktage

The sculpture "Waltz for Emsbüren" points the way to Hanwische Straße and the Emsbürener Musiktage Days, which have been held there in the Liudger Realschule since 1976. Like a musical ensemble, 50 bright orange musical notes of varying sizes, made of steel, stand side by side in a semicircle.

At first glance, the sculpture very clearly alludes to the theme of music. The striking musical notes immediately evoke music; moreover, they are arranged side by side like the musicians of an orchestra.

At second glance, the sculpture reflects music or sound in a completely different, less obvious way: the differently sized note heads, arranged in a row, are reminiscent of the symbol for a voice message. This effect is particularly noticeable when driving past, following the semicircle and turning into Hanwische Straße from the train station.

However, this isn't just any voice message being symbolized here. A brief recap: As part of the first Emsbürener Musiktage the world-famous pianist Stefan Askenase performed, among other pieces, Frédéric Chopin's "Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 34" on October 20, 1976. According to the concert program, he concluded the evening with this brilliant, rhythmic piece.

Spotify link to the "Waltz in A-flat major", played by Stefan Askenase

The artist Ansgar Silies based his sculpture on a recording of this Chopin waltz, played by Askenase. The size of the individual noteheads is derived from a waveform view of the first few bars of this recording. Most people today probably know such a waveform view primarily as a symbol for a voice message. However, it has always been a common way of representing audio files, especially in audio editing. This view displays the time horizontally and the level vertically, thus showing, in a simplified form, the dynamics of a sound recording.

 

Silies translated the different peak levels of the sound recording into the sizes of the note heads, as can be seen in the sketch: each orange line represents the diameter of a note head.

In this case, the 50 orange notes symbolize the exact dynamics with which Stefan Askenase began the "Waltz in A-flat major" and are reminiscent of the music played during the first Emsbürener Musiktage in 1976.

A heartfelt thank you goes to the supporters of this project:

BvL Group

Municipality of Emsbüren

Evering Elektro

Cultural Association Kirchspiel Emsbüren e.V.

Lohaus GmbH Planning and Engineering Office

Rolling Transport

Silies Art & Sound

Silies Projekt Bau GmbH & Co. KG