Apparat - Krieg und Frieden (Music for Theatre)
The illustrious Sascha Ring—AKA Apparat—has just quietly released his ninth album into the wild. The unusual compositional process behind Krieg und Frieden, the soundtrack to Sebastian Hartmann's theater production of Leo Tolstoy's eponymous novel, was detailed by Mute:
During the first meetings with Hartmann it became clear that there was no script or anything comparable, Hartmann instead develops the whole text with the entire ensemble. After time spent with Tolstoy’s original text Ring returned to Germany and spent four weeks in an old abandoned factory building and rehearsed with the whole 30-piece ensemble. Says Ring, "This is anything but conventional theater. It’s a free space, where a bunch of freaks can go wild. It starts with the lights and stops with the actual actors. At night, we worked on the music in the empty hall. It was kind of magical."
Here in the States, one need not travel farther than the nearest Wal-Mart to find a bunch of freaks going wild, but it's still a bummer that Hartmann's production is unavailable to us. However, we are lucky enough to have its soundtrack. Not originally intended for release as a stand-alone album, it was revisited and revised following the play's final performance. Ring called it "a bit of a weird record with not many beats and lots of drones," though such understatement belies an album that is much more than incidental, shivering with introspection and murky drama. The overarching tone of K&F is interrogative, comprising a set of musical and ethical questions—some perhaps drawn from Tolstoy's own philosophical musings—which appear to be posed as much to Ring himself as to listeners, and any resolutions offered seem more acquiescent than revolutionary.
What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky—the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew—"not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!... War and Peace
Anesthetized by a cocktail of neurochemicals, the fallen prince experiences a deep, existential relief while gazing at the skies above the Russian town of Austerlitz. The analogous track, entitled Austerlitz, reflects this spiritual solace in the face of death; its morbid intro melts into a carefree duet, adrift atop atmospheric syncopations. Krieg und Frieden is lashed together by a vein of melancholy, which pulses from the opening chords of 44 until the bleak denoument of A Violent Sky, affecting even the most upbeat and tranquil of passages along the way; these moments embody the proverbial fireplace in wintertime, so comforting only by its relation to the bitterness outside. 44 (Noise Version) is more or less an A natural minor scale, one of the most familiar gestures in all of Western music. But the memory is clouded, as if viewed through a frosted window, and eventually fades back into the ether. Similarly, PV begins as a winter lachrymae, but it is interrupted by the cacophonic clash of war horns and an anxious rhythmic drive. Jumbled percussion and uncertain harmonies adorn LightOn's restless lyrics, capturing a world in violent disarray, yet through it glimmers a message of resolute hope and solidarity.
The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused among the Russian people.War and Peace
K&F is a collage of winter scenes. In it, you can hear the shearing winds and creaking, frozen Siberian forests which repelled Napolean's forces in 1812. The fizz-pop-clack of the steam engine in Tod withers seamlessly into the distant, icy slopes of Blank Page, whose downward motion gives the sinking feeling of freefall–the opposite of 44 (Noise Version)–and out of the gray quietude emerges bleak, snow-tipped branches and fluttering birds' wings.
Like the maneuvering of a marauding General, Ring's Krieg und Frieden advances to the purlieus of pop, with its dark emotionality, extensive orchestral palette, and even the creative impetus itself, i.e. its relationship to literature and theater. With ten years of diligent musical empire-building under his belt, Ring deserves an Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile Pop erected in his honor. Vive l' Emprereur!
"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already been taken by the French as a trophy.) "That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at [Prince Andrew] Bolkonski. Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so differently. War and Peace