Mamlok, Ursula: Mosaics

based on Haiku poetry

As a firm avant-gardist, Ursula Mamlock primarily focused on instrumental music, mostly with typically reduced means and expression. Text-based pieces, vocal music, especially choral music are exceptions in her oeuvre, thereby arousing special interest. For example, Mamlok set several haikus to music (in English translation): The fragile precision of these suggestive Japanese poems was in line with her sense of aesthetics. Her work Mosaics consists of eight extremely short pieces. The mixed choir singing in a soloistic manner does not develop in a linear way but helps to create different colourful pictures that interact with each other, a kind of light, restless serenity. 'Even Webern did not dare write such short pieces, especially not for choir', judges Mamlok's biographer Habakuk Traber. 'In the literature for vocal ensembles, Mamlok's "Mosaics" stands out unique.'