What a joy it is that we can still experience beautiful moments and find inner peace through music – moments that in a turbulent world appear like pearls bathed in soft light. The quotations from Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies that turn up unexpectedly in Ming Wang’s composition represent such precious jewels: fragile memories of peace, clarity and timeless simplicity. Yet simultaneously we are aware of living in an age of deep uncertainty — wars, a pandemic, environmental catastrophe, global crises and political unrest. These conditions are equally reflected in Wirren∙Perlen (‘Confusion∙ Pearls’ ) — in the painful note clusters, the sharp, abrasive dissonances and the occasionally overpowering musical gestures.


A scaffolding of chords lies at the heart of the piece. Hidden in the background, this structural device holds together the consciously stage-managed confusion while lending the apparent chaos an inner order, in which the pearls of silence and holding back reveal themselves.