Zweier Lasterkatalog – Catalogue of Mutual Vices (2017)

comprovisation for accordion and prepared soprano saxophone

Improvisation is made of short-lived intentions or fleeting desires to show something of personal or social relevance. Improvisers have to be attached to some pre-existing manners of performing to get anything performed. These ways of performing, these tricks, these mindsets can be our vices as improvisers. On the other hand, the written music by me on which the improvisation relies, might be seen as vicious by some. Both of the instruments, the accordion as known from folk traditions and the soprano saxophone with its commercial and decadent implications were not too long ago banned from playing in churches, citing “moral” grounds. From another understanding of the word, mutual vices can mean any activity that goes against any given moral code – and especially those that are deemed by someone to have a detrimental effect on their own social dynamic. Improvisation is what constantly happens in an everyday social dynamic yet its value easily goes without recognition.

The five movements, played in any combination:
I Simulacra
II Obsolete vices
III Path & Dependence
IV Mainstay
V Precepts

View and download the score (both in C and transposed version)

This work has been subsidized by funding from Teosto.

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