BRENTANO A Cabin in the Rockies 1 . Good Morning, Good Fairy 2 . Both of Us 3 . Mad Dog in the Fog 4 . Our Good Is the Moon Over Alaska 5 . The Secret Garden 6 . Midnight in Paradise 7 . Wild Neighbors 8 . Laurel Canyon 9 . Not All Who Wander Are Lost 10 . Talking with Trees 11 . Me and the Wizard 12 . A Bridge Across the Ocean 13 . Flying Lights, Flying Colors 14 . Eisler in Hollywood 15 . Last Evening in Carmel 16 . For Whom the Bells Tolls 17 . No Time to Stop 18 . Sandpiper's Grave 19 . Let It Rain 20 . Burning Bodega (A Nightmare) 21 . WOLFGANG RICHTER Sandman's Lullaby 22 (arr. Nuss). Wie ein Vogel zu fliegen 23 (arr. Brentano). VAN HEUSEN I Thought About You 24 (arr. Brentano) • 1-3,5-7,9-11,13-16,18-20,22-24 Benyamin Nuss (pn); 4,8,12,17,21 Klaus Martin Kopitz (syn) 1-3,5-7,9-11,13,14,16,18-20,23,24 Christian Köhler, cond; 1-3,5-7,9-11,13,14,16,18-20,23,24 Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg • MONS 874825 (63:31)

I’ve been listening (and relistening) to this latest album from Mia Brentano—who is once again the heroine of Klaus Martin Kopitz’s ongoing musical narrative—with a sense of optimism and discovery. This narrative, which began in Hidden Sea, transformed into a Mystery Trip, and invited us to a Summerhouse, now arrives at the start of a new journey, one chronicled in Mia Brentano’s American Diary. Much like these previous albums—previous chapters in the ongoing musical novel Kopitz has written (and, indeed, continues to write)—American Diary includes attributes particular to the Mia Brentano sound: repetition, collaged sounds (instrumental music, noise, computerized sounds), modern Romanticism, Classical roots, and the fusion of several musical genres (including jazz and popular music). It is a sound that is wistfully familiar, and altogether new. I find it nostalgic, in a way, as if I have always known this sound and yet, it is continually surprising. Every chance that I listen feels like a new opportunity to rediscover this sound and this narrative.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with my friend, Klaus, on a number of occasions (this marks our fourth interview; if anyone else at Fanfare ever interviews him, I will be devastated and immediately jealous). And each time, I am grateful for the chance to listen and learn a little bit about his work, as well as the thought and care which he puts into his compositions. We have never actually spoken in person—or by phone—and so, in a way, he is about as real to me as Mia Brentano, his musical persona. She is not real in a physical sense, but I believe that she is real in a creative “energy” sense. She exists within the sound of the music; she exists in the transformation of feelings and memories into musical notes and melodies; she exists in that ethereal space between the specific and deliberate act of listening to music and the difficult process of attempting to understand and interpret it. At least to me, she exists on a level that is on par with my friendship with Klaus. She speaks to me not with words, but within her music—that wonderfully melancholic, haunting, and nostalgic sound.

And so, this American Diary, if you’ll indulge my metaphor a bit longer, reflects a very personal and vulnerable side to Mia Brentano, who is experiencing and chronically events in the New World (North America) as well as looking back at her European roots. She’s indulging in a very American pastime—looking back with a desire both to somehow relive the past and forge a new path into the future. Much of that desiring search for past and future is heard in the opening group of pieces for solo piano with orchestra: A Cabin in the Rockies, Good Morning, Good Fairy, and Both of Us. With its sweeping strings, A Cabin in the Rockies emphasizes the lonely isolation of the piano, performed with creativity and intelligence by pianist Benyamin Nuss, who is as much a contributor to the Mia Brentano sound as Mia herself. His approach to the keyboard work in these compositions lends a great deal to the familiarity of the music and creates a persona for Mia herself, the tireless chronicler of this diary. Good Morning, Good Fairy includes syncopation in the piano part, which pairs or almost competes with the accelerated pace of the strings. We find a little reprieve in the hymn-like piece, Both of Us, which feels close and intimate due to the limited range of the ensemble.

Mad Dog in the Fog is the first of five pieces that Kopitz performs himself. Using synthesizers, noises, and programming, the lack of musical instrumentation in these pieces lends a kind of opposing point of view to the optimistic arc of the narrative thread in this album. In one way, that opposite point of view symbolizes darker, threatening elements within America itself, and, in another way, it also represents conflict within the album’s narrative. Afterall, I probably would not find the album to be so nostalgic and captivating without these negative elements—these bits of otherness and darkness that push against the lightness. The best—and most frightening—of these mechanical (as opposed to instrumental) pieces is the track Burning Bodega (A Nightmare), which incorporates a woman’s scream and a pattern of synthy cymbal sounds, drilling, and other noises. Wild Neighbors includes haunting nighttime sounds that had me considering the perspective of an animal listening to humans, those “wild neighbors” who encroach on the spaces of animals. Me and the Wizard is another synthesizer piece with a ticking rhythm and synthetic guitar sounds; while For Whom the Bells Tolls includes drumming and chiming sounds that gradually become syncopated.

Other pieces with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg pair the uplifting movement of the solo piano with the comforting repetitive pattern of melodies infused with jazz elements and the tunes of popular or familiar songs. One of my favorites of these is Our God is the Moon Over Alaska, which, like its poetic title, delivers a distinctive cadence that seems to flow forward and float back, a motion similar to waves in the ocean. Midnight in Paradise combines sustained notes from the ensemble with a jazz line from the piano into a modern, jazzy nocturne. Not All Who Wander Are Lost is a hopeful, uplifting song without words—very much like a hymn or sacred music; while Laurel Canyon juxtaposes the refined texture of the piano, which sounds quite small and delicate, against the sumptuous melody of the strings.

The last group of pieces are those written for solo piano, performed by Benyamin Nuss, who arranged the last piece, Sandman’s Lullaby, himself. This last track is poignant and distinct for feeling somewhat unfinished—not from lack of care or ineptitude, but almost as if Mia herself is attempting to conclude with a hopeful tone while knowing that she has left so much unsaid. Nuss inhabits that kind of contemplative space in Eisler in Hollywood, a piece full of wistful longing, as well as The Secret Garden, a warm-toned piece of circling melodies, and I Thought About You, which is patient and contemplative, but to the point.

To listen to the pieces in order—rather than sorting them into these groups as I have above—is to engage in a close, personal conversation with the composer. Even if you don’t really buy my hypothesis about the “realness” of Mia Brentano, I’d argue that the creative optimism of this music—which is new and forward-looking—is real and, therefore, part of its appeal. And that act of looking forward, while remembering the steps that came before, is the very best part of the Mia Brentano sound. Jacqueline Kharouf

 

To Make Good Music: An Interview with Klaus Martin Kopitz
By Jacqueline Kharouf

I am happy to present this fourth installment of my on-going interview series with composer and musicologist, Klaus Martin Kopitz. Fans of this series may recall that I’ve interviewed Klaus for his three previous albums: Mia Brentano’s Hidden Sea, Mia Brentano’s River of Memories: A Mystery Trip, and Mia Brentano’s Summerhouse. I think it’s a testament to Klaus’s creativity and ingenuity—both as a composer and as an interview subject—that we continue to have so much to talk about and discuss. In this interview, we (of course) chat about his fourth album, Mia Brentano’s American Diary, but we also discuss the far-reaching influence and origins of American music; the narrative and musical structures within American Diary; the distinctive characteristics of the Mia Brentano sound (including Klaus’s incorporation of the synthesizer); and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a dash of American politics.

If you’re new to this series, then I should probably introduce Mia Brentano—aka Klaus Martin Kopitz. Mia is a composer, a traveler, and a mother. She is originally German but believes she probably should have been born somewhere in North America. She is a bit shy about describing her work, but thankfully she is dear friends with Klaus, who is well-versed in the art of dancing about architecture (that is, writing about music).

This current album, Mia Brentano’s American Diary, isn’t your first foray into bringing American cultural and musical influences through your compositions or in arrangements for pieces included on your albums, but I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about the inspiration behind this current project. Did you write—or were you inspired to write these pieces—after taking a specific trip to the US (a trip that sounds like a tour of parts of Canada and California)?

The immediate inspiration was actually a trip through Canada and the United States, which I took with my wife in the fall of 2022. We started in Calgary and drove first from there through indescribably beautiful landscapes to Vancouver. We stayed wherever we liked—in Banff, Revelstoke, Kamloops, and Whistler. Further stops were in Alaska and then California, where we drove on Highway 1 from San Francisco to L.A., always with a view of the sea. Of course, I knew California from many films, but the feeling of actually being there was overwhelming—and very inspiring from a musical point of view. In particular, some smaller, lesser-known places were absolutely magical, especially in Big Sur. Strangely enough, there were only a few films shot there. One exception is The Sandpiper, featuring Elizabeth Taylor (1965), to which the piece Sandpiper’s Grave refers. Our trip from San Francisco to Bodega Bay, where Hitchcock filmed The Birds (1963), was also a great experience. I later remembered that the soundtrack—created by the Berlin composer Oskar Sala—used one of the first electronic instruments, the Trautonium. This is how the idea came about to integrate some electronic pieces—in addition to those for piano and strings.

How do you define or think about American music? How do you distinguish it from German music? Or, as a composer, is it not too important to make such distinctions?

The roots of American music lie largely in Europe, but in my opinion, it was something new right from the start. American music was never especially elitist, nor as decidedly academic as German music was at times. This strange love of the academic can already be found in Bach, especially in The Art of Fugue, and later in works such as Beethoven’s Great Fugue op. 133. These are remarkable, very impressive works of art, but only people who have studied counterpoint themselves are able to adequately appreciate them. But these tendencies continued and in the 20th century “serious music” was downright regulated, not just in Germany. Eventually, twelve-tone music and serialism were invented, which could be described as the high point of academic thinking to date. These techniques were supplemented by a ban on melodies, a ban on octaves, a ban on repetitions and similar restrictions. The question arises to what extent this is still music, because in the end the only thing that counts is what I can hear and perceive, but the amazing thing was that hundreds of composers accepted these regulations. Composer Conlon Nancarrow once described—rightly, in my opinion—much of this self-proclaimed avant-garde as “paper music,” i.e. music that seems to be very interesting when you look at the score, but nothing more. When you hear it, it’s rather boring. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean all atonal works in general. Berg’s Wozzeck is one of the best operas ever, and where would we be without Ligeti’s Atmosphères. But these are not “academic” compositions.

In any case, I think that American music is more free, more open, and more interested in new, original sounds, and more in constant dialogue with the audience. There may be some commercial reasons for this—musicians want to please other people and make money—but there has also been a lot of experimentation. I’m thinking of Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, John Cage, Frank Zappa, or John Zorn.

Additionally, very important influences came from African music and African American folklore, to which Scott Joplin first added a European touch in his ragtimes. Later came blues, jazz, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, but also Steve Reich and minimal music, which also represented something new. All of this completely changed music, and none of that happened in Germany. But music is a universal art, and so American music has also changed the European one.

German music would undoubtedly have developed differently if Hitler and the Second World War had not existed. As early as 1928 there was a jazz class at the conservatory in Frankfurt, the first in the world, led by the Hungarian composer Mátyás Seiber. But in 1933 it was banned and Seiber had to emigrate—like many other composers. (Violinist Daniel Hope demonstrates in his interesting book Sounds of Hollywood that European emigrants almost entirely “invented” American film music.) This dictatorship meant not only death and oppression, but also stagnation and decay. Later, after Seiber’s death, Ligeti wrote Atmosphères to his memory. When I listen to it, I feel a great sadness in it.

I now often find my role models in popular music, which is sometimes referred to as second-class music, which it isn’t by any means. Blues, jazz, folk, and rock ’n’ roll have also produced outstanding, distinctive personalities such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Joni Mitchell. I don’t know if you can compare them with Bach and Beethoven, but their music moves people at least as much.

It wasn’t just American films and music that influenced me intellectually, but also great writers from Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain to Francis Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Kurt Vonnegut, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, Paul Auster, John Irving, and Donna Tartt. I also really enjoy reading the smart essays of Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker. Ross, who also wrote for Fanfare for several years, has given moreover a lot of thought to newer music, which I found very stimulating for my own work. At the end of his book The Rest Is Noise (2007) he says that it no longer makes sense to pit classical music against pop music and outlines the music of the future as a “great fusion.” This is also the theme of his book Listen to This (2010). How unimportant a certain style or genre is in terms of quality of art is basically old wisdom, of course. As early as 1856, the Austrian poet Franz Grillparzer remarked at the end of his mocking poem Die Kritiker (The Critics):

Und sie übersehen in stolzem Mut

Die wahren Gattungen: schlecht und gut.

(And with proud courage they overlook

The real genres: bad and good.)

Duke Ellington put it similarly in 1962: “There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.”

Anyway, that’s what Mia is trying to do: to make good music, music on the bridge between classical and popular music, or so to say between Old and New World—and, above all, music that she likes to listen to herself. So, she also enjoys experimenting with noises and electronic sounds.

And as a follow-up to my previous question, do you think your music is moving closer to a more “American” sound—or an “American” genre of contemporary classical (fusion) music—as part of a natural progression in your own development as a composer? It seems like you are moving away from some of your deeper classical roots (you’ve written quite extensively on Beethoven, for example, as well as Robert and Clara Schumann) to something new. Is this new compositional territory personified by American music?

Beethoven means a lot to me, as do Robert and Clara Schumann, the latter also as a composer. Otherwise, in my work as a musicologist, I’m mainly interested in biographical questions and not so much in the analysis of individual works. I researched a lot about Beethoven’s “Elise” and his “Immortal Beloved” because I wanted to know who these women were, including a woman named Therese von Zandt, who I believe was Beethoven’s beloved in 1803/04. Unlike today, love relationships in the 19th century were treated very discreetly; it was taboo to talk or write about them. But clarifying such biographical questions is not only exciting, but perhaps also helps to understand the music better. Especially in the 19th century, which is still very close to us today, music was not just a series of tones like later twelve-tone music, it was very emotional. This also applies to the so-called Kreutzer Sonata, which Beethoven wrote for the black violinist George Bridgetower. His father came from Barbados or Jamaica and his mother was German. I have discovered numerous previously unknown sources about him and want to publish them in a book soon. Beethoven must have loved Bridgetower very much, otherwise he would not have written this sonata for him.

To answer the first part of your question: I don’t yet know in which direction my music will develop. But I will continue to study American music, as well as popular music in the broadest sense. There’s great music there, and there’s a lot of it I don’t even know.

This might be an unusual question, but I wanted to ask you about the listening order on the album. Would you prefer that listeners listen to the album in order (that is, is there a specific narrative arc to the album as a whole)? Or would you encourage listeners to encounter the pieces in their own ways (randomly, or not in list order)? I only ask this not only because of the number of tracks (there are 24), but also because the album could be separated into three groups: the group of pieces for solo piano; the group of pieces for piano with ensemble; and the pieces for synthesizer alone. The synthesizer pieces are isolated from the piano and ensemble pieces because only the piano performs with the ensemble. Likewise, the piano sometimes performs alone, but never with the synthesizer. In another way, your choices of instrumentation and arrangement could also guide the listener through this album with narrative clues. Solo piano might represent Mia herself (the heroine archetype); the piano with ensemble could represent the setting or arch of the narrative (Mia’s travels through America); and the synthesizer could represent the conflict or points of tension within the story. I’ve given this album a kind of close reading—something that I might do when reviewing a novel or short story—but I think your work (perhaps more than any other composer that I’ve interviewed for Fanfare) relies quite heavily on narrative structure and I wonder: how much do you think about or consider narrative both as a means of writing music and in terms of the final order of the pieces on the album?

Well, I tried to make a so-called concept album and would be very happy if listeners could listen to it from start to finish. It tells the story of a journey, in individual episodes. Shortened you could say it starts at dawn with A Cabin in the Rockies and ends late at night with Sandman’s Lullaby. I also hope that there are enough contrasts so that there is no boredom. On the other hand, each piece is self-contained and works on its own. It is a cycle of individual pieces, each of which can stand on its own.

The number of pieces is a reference to the 24 hours of a day, but also to the 24 keys and those famous cycles of the past, which also consist of 24 pieces—for example by Bach, Paganini, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, or Shostakovich. Seen like that, the album could also be called 24 Preludes in Different Ways.

From my point of view, the five pieces for synthesizer embody thoughts, dreams and memories that exist only in Mia’s mind, perhaps most clearly in Burning Bodega (A Nightmare). This is really a bad dream in which she processes a real experience, but it is surreal, not reality. The same could be said about the three pieces for solo piano, such as Eisler in Hollywood, that too is a dream. When the orchestra joins in, a door opens to the outside, to the real world. However, the boundaries are fluid, and it is not possible to separate the two exactly.

When I start working on a piece, it doesn’t matter at first, I move on a purely musical level. It’s about finding original chord connections, good voice leadings, the correct placement of rests, the question of the extent to which a certain passage is easy to play, and good, memorable melodic lines.

Usually, I only ask myself questions about the instrumentation and the title at the end. Then I also think about what story the piece wants to tell me, or whether there is a scene from a film that it could fit into. So, I’m looking for an appropriate title that can be ambiguous or a bit enigmatic. Everyone knows how hard it is to describe music with words. In the film Playing by Heart, a young woman named Joan, played by Angelina Jolie, says: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” That’s exactly it, right? Of course, a piece doesn’t have to have an imaginative title, it can also simply be called Sonata or Étude, but then perhaps others give it a title—Moonlight Sonata, Appassionata, or Revolutionary Étude. The need for a succinct title that stimulates the imagination is apparently great.

At a certain level, your music relies very much on building connections between sometimes very disparate things. You include different, disparate sounds—synthesizers and analog instruments; found sounds, voices speaking different languages, and noises and music—refer to different media—visual art and music, literature and film—and incorporate disparate times and places—the past and the present, Germany and America (“the other side of the world”), as well as the future. In your own way, you demonstrate that nothing really is separate. Everything has meaning because everything is connected. I love that each of your albums also share this connection—and interconnection—despite differences of context and genre, or diverse types of musical arrangements. American Diary is your first album to include a large ensemble, the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg, conducted by Christian Köhler. I wonder if you could tell me a little about the experience of working with so many instruments, not only writing for the larger scale sound of the big ensemble, but also how you wanted to manipulate or control that large output of sound. In previous interviews, I think you hinted that you were writing music for the large scale of a big ensemble, but was this larger, orchestral project something you had been working towards as a natural part of your development as a composer? Or was it part of an attempt to challenge yourself to try and work outside the comfort zone of more intimate pieces for solo or duo piano?

Yes, I had been planning to write something for orchestra for a long time, but that is associated with a lot of difficulties. Compositionally there is no significant difference whether I write a piece for piano or for orchestra, but there is a big difference in the realization. If necessary, I can play a piano piece myself, but not an orchestral piece. But most orchestras are very conservative and play almost exclusively classical music, i.e. pieces that everyone already knows. That’s why I thought about using a virtual orchestra, for example the Vienna Symphonic Library. This has already proven itself in the film industry, and composers like Jerry Gerber also use this technique. The advantages are obvious: it costs significantly less than a real orchestra, the implementation is quicker, and I can work very flexibly and make changes at any time right up to the end. That’s probably the future. On the other hand, I didn’t find the virtual orchestras I’ve heard so far very convincing. In my opinion they still sound a bit too clean and unnatural—just like an imitation. Virtual instruments as piano, guitar, harp, and drums already sound very good, but strings less. Be that as it may, when the opportunity arose to work with the German Film Orchestra, I didn’t hesitate for long and took the chance.

And then how was it to work with a conductor? Did you give Christian Köhler any help in terms of how to approach certain pieces or did you leave Köhler to give his own interpretation or demands on the music?

When I spoke to Christian Köhler for the first time, he immediately told me that his orchestra was exactly the right partner for this type of music. It has to be said: Studio Babelsberg, founded in 1912, to which the orchestra belongs, is one of the oldest film studios in the world, where many known movies were shot, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Metropolis, the first science fiction film (1927), The Blue Angel (1930) with Marlene Dietrich, or Solo Sunny (1980), one of the best East German productions. After the German reunification, several Hollywood directors also worked there, such as Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds, 2009), Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014) and Steven Spielberg (Bridge of Spies, 2015). The orchestra played the music for some of these films.

Our collaboration was short and basically limited to one day, December 5th, 2022, when the recordings were made. But we didn’t need any more time. I had prepared everything well, and the musicians are used to sight-playing music without rehearsal. However, I had also avoided difficult or even virtuoso passages. In any case, I am extremely grateful to the musicians, for sacrificing their skills and time for this project.

I wanted to also ask about continuing to work with Benyamin Nuss, who has performed on each of your albums. In my mind, I link him, and his expression on the piano, to the distinct Brentano sound and I wonder if there exists a kind of intuitive aspect to your working relationship, as well. Have you taught Benyamin—through your compositions and collaboration—how to inhabit the Brentano sound, or was it always there for Benyamin? Does he ever bring out aspects or nuances to the music that are surprising to you?

Working with Benyamin Nuss actually works on an intuitive level. He looks at the sheet music and immediately knows what I mean. In addition, there are no technical barriers for him, he is an incredible virtuoso. The second piece, for example—Good Morning, Good Fairy—is quite difficult. In the middle section, the part for the left hand is hardly playable, so I offered to record it separately so that he could distribute it to both hands. But he only made a little gesture that meant we didn’t have to talk about it. But sometimes he makes himself suggestions to me, which are very good. After we recorded Wolfgang Richter’s children’s song Wie ein Vogel zu fliegen (To Fly Like a Bird), Benyamin started improvising on another children’s song by Richter: Sandmann, lieber Sandman (Sandman’s Lullaby). It’s the title song of a children’s bedtime TV program, which is broadcast every evening. I didn’t plan this in any way, but I think it’s perfect that the album now ends with a little lullaby.

Another distinct characteristic of your music is your take on duality. I think it is incredibly interesting that as we’ve worked on these interviews and met each other every few years or so, I tend to think of you as both Mia and Klaus. For example, when I read the album notes I feel a sense of you—Klaus—and this creative “other”—Mia—who is distinct and yet interconnected. I quite like the interchangeability of this duality. I feel like Mia is not only your personal alter ego and your friend, but also my close friend too. And as I was thinking about this duality in terms of this album, I wondered about your work on the synthesizers as representing an alter ego to Benyamin’s work on the piano. Could you tell me a little more about your own performance on the album? Have I asked you to tell me a bit more about how you first learned about or came to learn your skills on the synthesizer? You only play on 5 tracks—the exact 5 on which Benyamin does not perform—but these five synthesizer tracks offer not only a kind of counterpoint to the optimism and beauty which Mia encounters in her journey, but also a bit of the uncanny or mystery that is also a distinct characteristic of your music. Why is it so important—at least musically—to incorporate both sides of the coin, the good and the bad, the darkness and the light?

I’m very happy that Mia has also become a friend of yours. Regarding the five pieces in which I use synthesizer, speech, and noises, I have to add that they are somewhat older and were created between 1988 and 1995. When I said that they only exist in Mia’s mind, like thoughts, dreams or memories, that’s also true in the sense that I had actually forgotten them for a long time. Burning Bodega, for example—the piece with the scream of a woman, like from a horror film—dates back to the time when I was working at the theater in Neustrelitz and was created for a staging of Professor Mamlock by Friedrich Wolf, the premiere was on July 3rd, 1988. I had produced the track a few days earlier in the East Berlin Academy of Arts, using a synthesizer Yamaha DX-7 and some other devices, controlled from a computer via MIDI. Later I added some overdubs, guitar and drums, played by David Brucklacher and Hans Dekker. When we finally were in Bodega, the set of Hitchcock’s Birds, it came to my mind again, now in connection with the climate crisis, which some people don’t want to acknowledge. Coincidentally, at the same time I was reading T. C. Boyle’s apocalyptic novel Blue Skies, which describes “the world after.” Anyway, I thought I should release the piece now on American Diary. It was similar to the other four pieces that I also created in the studio. As an artist I can’t ignore the darker sides of life, unfortunately they’re part of it. Of course, I am also worried about the future of our beautiful planet. Electronic sounds and noises are ideal for expressing these feelings of discomfort and fear. They can sound very scary.

This album is also a kind of auditory diary of America—a combination of past and present; of our fascination with many cultural influences and trying to make something new from the roots of our immigrant forebearers—and all our invisible bridges. Lately it feels like these bridges that once united us are burning—much like a forest fire—and instead of uniting us these bridges are marking the divisions between us. Americans are camping out on two opposing sides (not only politically, but culturally, and perhaps generationally as well) and staying on either side without crossing to meet each other halfway. In a way, your album represents an American dream, an ideal that we had once had but I wonder if it is still as ideal as it used to be. Is that general hopefulness, that general optimism, preserved in this idealized world of natural wonders, journeys, “the longing for vastness and distance” that is filtered through the Mia Brentano lens?

Thank you for mentioning this touchy topic, because if you read the booklet of my album, you might think that my view of the United States is a bit naïve. But there is no denying that there are worrying developments recently. America has long been a very open, tolerant country and a global role model when it comes to democracy and the rule of law. However, there now seem to be many people who despise democracy and have a downright hatred of those who think—or live—differently. I really hope that this changes again. There are also things that I don’t understand and find difficult to comment on as a stranger, least of all in the form of music. I mean, for example, those people who run after an angry old man who always shouts: Make America great again! What does he want? The truth is: America is great! Of course, there are people for whom the American Dream has not come true, but I wonder whether a single old man can change that—if he even wants to. You can easily do a lot of things yourself, it’s a free country, and—of course—not all dreams will come true. But if a dream doesn’t come true, you should wake up. The most important thing is certainly to fight for the preservation of freedom and democracy. These are the basics of everything.

In that respect what worries me isn’t so much the angry old man, but the people who genuinely believe that he alone will lead them to a better future—in a country, where everyone will be happy. In view of today’s flood of information, it is understandable that you are looking for simple, quick truths—it’s the same in Germany and many other countries, unfortunately. But whoever shouts the loudest is not always right, even if he is on TV almost every day. In truth, it is usually stupidity that shouts the loudest. Two American psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, discovered this back in 1999. The so-called Dunning-Kruger effect could also be interpreted the other way round, namely that a simple truth—a sleeping child, the beauty of nature or a good book—is rather silent. The question of what is the best for a country and its people could easily be answered if we could see the future, but we cannot. So you have to think about it again and again, exchange different positions, consider consequences, and look for solutions together. I don’t think it will work any other way.

But what fascinates me so much about America is its unbelievable creativity, not just in art, but in so many areas. In this respect, I’m optimistic that even the current crisis—if I may call it so—will sooner or later lead to new insights that will have a positive impact for every one of us.

What’s next? Or what are you working on now?

I’m working on a larger cycle again, but haven’t decided on the cast yet. I would be very interested in new, unusual line-ups, perhaps six harps and four marimbas, or three saxophones and electric guitar. But perhaps it will also be a cycle for two pianos again.