In 1978, Morton Feldman composed ‘Why Patterns’, the first of three pieces for flute, piano and glockenspiel. In this rare instrumental combination, each instrument has a well-defined sonic identity and physical playing style. Feldman takes advantage of this by attributing to each musician his own characteristic motifs. Paradoxically, we hear these totally emancipated motifs merging into a harmonious, psychedelic sound universe. Feldman's management of time is also conducive to this intoxication. Although the individual voices are notated with particular rhythmic precision, they are, except in the final phase of the work, uncoordinated. In this free space of time, the voices meet only by chance.

Het Collectief asked two composers, both of whom have a great affinity with Feldman's work, to write new works for the same unique instrumentation.

David Fennessy (IRL - °1976) talks about his music: ‘I'm not sure there's a coherent line of research in my work. Each piece is its own little universe, with its own technique, language, rules, problems and solutions. One of his most recent works, ‘Panopticon’ (2019) for cimbalom and strings, struck a chord with Het Collectief because of its great sensitivity to sound and its free and highly original approach to the physical uniqueness of the instrumentation.

In the work of Jean-Luc Fafchamps (B - °1960), who has been playing mainly since 2000, his cycle ‘Lettres Soufis’ plays an important role. Fafchamps uses Sufi philosophy as a starting point for 28 different compositions, as many as there are letters in the Arabic alphabet. The new composition for The Collective could also be part of this ongoing cycle. On why ‘Lettres Soufis’ was written: ‘My penchant for paradoxical constructions and a multidirectional sense of synthesis are freely expressed here’. Indeed, Fafchamps succeeds again and again in bringing together the incompatible and building from an original idea a surprisingly attractive world that goes far beyond the beaten track of contemporary music.