Module
for one performer

Siegfried Koepf 1992

Program note

John Cage has made musicians aware of the phenomenon of controlled chance operation. As I see it, though, the phenomenon has always been present in music, at least going back to the invention of notation, where we find it in the transition from musical potential of the score to its re-actualization in interpretation. It was Cage then, who turned chance operation into an actual compositional technology.

Module, a cycle of solo improvisation pieces for any instrument, focusses on this very transition from potential to actualization. From the author's perspective, the score implies both the aspect of control and – in necessitating the performer's sovereign cooperation – the aspect of chance