The title of Johannes Maria Staud’s new concerto for percussion, Whereas the reality trembles, came to the composer late in his composition process, the lingering effects of a prolonged immersion in the works of American poet William Carlos Williams during his pandemic seclusion. Staud had recently written two other works inspired by Williams’ texts, and found that the phrase showed him exactly what he expected from a percussion concerto.

“Williams often speaks about reality as a bit shimmering; [his work] is very much obsessed with the space between events,” says Staud, a 2022 Austrian Art Prize winner whose two-and-a-half decades of work often draws inspiration from literature and the visual arts. “What is reality? Is it the orchestra, is it the percussion, is it the political environment in which I make music today? For me this is a poetic space where I feel free to invent music on a very playful level.”

As with poetry itself, layers of meaning start to unfold as we talk about his work process and collaboration with Christoph Sietzen, the percussionist who performs the world premiere of Whereas the reality trembles with The Cleveland Orchestra in 2023. A shimmering reality — one that appears solid yet is not fixed, and holds pure potential in the spaces in between — captures the duality, dynamism, and molecularly vibrant process that underlies the creation of Staud’s newest piece.

He found the perfect partner in Sietzen, an artist whose raw energy explodes on stage in performances of riveting and defyingly refined artistry. Listening to composer and performer talk about the creation of a percussion piece, one can’t help but imagine lots of play. Flowerpots, metal drums, cowbells, junk percussion — the infinite possibilities of sound and of objects that can create sound. Where does one begin?

Both say the choice of instruments, informed by exchanges of ideas and snippets of experience that spark questions and more ideas and experimentation. The percussion concerto opens with marimba and pitched cowbells, a combination that Sietzen knew from a previous work and suggested to Staud. For the composer, whose music creates its own sonic ecosystem — vibrant, layered, textural, melodious, full of color and surprise — it’s the combination of sounds that interests him, not an object or sound on its own.

Staud took to the pairing of metal and wood; the solo percussion in the new concerto includes two-plus octaves of tuned cowbells, assorted woodblocks, mokushos and wooden boxes, a metal barrel played with a foot pedal, and metal cans and canisters. (The fact that cowbells are never quite in tune pleases Sietzen: “They’re never a hundred percent in pitch so It gives this little imperfection, which actually makes it really interesting.”) Staud also likes to combine “high-tech and low-tech instruments” — the metal barrel, for instance, gives a bit of a “trashier sound,” he says. “I like it very much.” Flowerpots too, another Sietzen suggestion. Not long before our conversation, they had been discussing how to find harder flowerpots that wouldn’t break when vigorously struck.

Giving definition to the body of instruments known as percussion is its own shimmering reality. Since ancient times, in cultures across the globe, humans have hit, shaken, scraped, and cobbled together objects — from gourds and sticks to drums and log xylophones — to create rhythm, sound, and melody as part of rituals and entertainment.

“What we know as ‘percussion’ today was either developed in the 20th century or was found in different ethnomusicological contexts and mixed together in a very rich, constructive, and colorful way. This is not cultural appropriation, but curiosity, deep respect, and mutual inspiration between different backgrounds,” Staud notes. “It’s our aim now in the 21st century to give this ‘instrumentarium’ real meaning and to compose many works for it.”

A turning point in Western music for percussion came in the 20th century with groundbreaking works such as Edgard Varèse’s Ionisation for 13 percussionists (1929) and Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937). From there sprang a proliferation of boundary-pushing compositions, led by percussion pioneers John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, whose inventiveness in sound-making broke open a whole new world of aural perception and sonic possibilities.

“Composers really started to discover percussion,” says Sietzen, “and I think with the music of our time it’s such an important instrument.”

Whereas the Reality Trembles thus arrives at a ripe moment for the percussion canon. Staud, a former Cleveland Orchestra Young Composer Fellow whose oeuvre encompasses orchestral, ensemble, and solo works both with and without electronics, notes that with great soloists comes opportunities to create new concertos with daring soundworlds. Being matched with Sietzen for this co-commission from Cleveland along with Wiener Konzerthaus and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was a stroke of good fortune. “He’s a very profound artist,” Staud says. “He’s obsessed by good sound and good instruments. It’s very easy with him."

As a performer, Sietzen says getting to the heart of a composer’s intentions drives his collaborative process. Approaches vary wildly: One composition can focus on tuned instruments only; another might find him pulling scraps from a junkyard (as he did copiously for Georg Friedrich Haas’s Konzert für Klangwerk und Orchester, which premiered in 2019).

“There’s something special with each new percussion concerto because there’s usually a new approach; each composer tries to create something that hasn’t been there before,” Sietzen says.

Ultimately, the rigorous and relentless process of choosing, trying, experimenting, and constructing may be imperceptible except behind the scenes. Sietzen has the keen ability to meld with his percussive instruments, unleashing something beyond rhythm and melody — a fusion of pure energy, sound, and exceptional refinement that sublimates into sheer rapture and joy. It’s a perfection made up of millions of nuances, perhaps a shimmering reality all its own.

(Luna Shyr, February 2023)

Originally written as “Christoph Sietzen and Johannes Maria Staud break new ground in Whereas the reality trembles, a concerto for percussion” for The Cleveland Orchestra on the occasion of the world premiere performances of Whereas the Reality Trembles. Reprinted by permission of the author.