Conrad Schnitzler – Slow Motion

Description

1 Slow Motion 1
2 Slow Motion 2
3 Slow Motion 3
4 Slow Motion 4
5 Slow Motion 5
6 Slow Motion 6
7 Slow Motion 7
8 Slow Motion 8
9 Slow Motion 9
10 Slow Motion 10
11 Slow Motion 11
12 Slow Motion 12
13 Slow Motion 13
14 Slow Motion 14

Composed for the soundtrack for the film Slow Motion by Karl Horst Hödicke (1976).
Cross-border commuters of all kinds characterized this eventful time. Conrad Schnitzler (born 1937) and Karl Horst Hödicke (born 1938) – both of whom have long been part of the official art canon – were multifunctional artists; They painted, they performed, they sculpted, they made films, and they made music, always on the edge of what was “permissible”, but mostly beyond what was considered “modern” in art at the time. Schnitzler, Hödicke and many others defined a completely new avant-garde. How, when and where Schnitzler and Hödicke met is not known.
But it is not surprising that Schnitzler created the soundtrack for Hödicke’s film “Slow Motion” (1976). Both artists were cut from the same cloth; for both there were limits only to be crossed. The film “Slow Motion” consists of 14 sequences. For each of these sections, Schnitzler composed music that not only followed the minimalist imagery, but emphasized it in an ingenious way. Schnitzler’s musical and Hödicke’s cinematic approach were absolutely compatible.
“Slow Motion” is an important document in Schnitzler’s entire oeuvre because, on the one hand, it fits seamlessly into the many other publications of his music, but on the other hand, it shows the artist as an equal and constructive co-creator of an experimental sound film. The fact that Schnitzler maintained his aesthetic independence on this project also makes “Slow Motion” particularly worth listening to. And it is definitely a document of the time.