KARAS.KRÄHEN, a composition for voice, sho (or accordion), violoncello, percussion and tape, was composed in 1994/1995. For the premiere in August 1995 in Tokyo, Gerhard Stäbler wrote the following text:

Black. With enormous beaks. They fly in flocks, with their almost human cries they "chop" – visibly and invisibly – the sound of the megalopolis Tokyo ... They are said to be cunning, to poke in rubbish ... They are said to announce disaster, to be strangely connected with fortune and magical powers ... Are they reminding of the past, predicting the future? Did they, do they accompany events threatening manhood – 50 years ago, today – or did they, do they warn? And thereby promise to protect those from misfortune who understand them... Do they even bring luck? These in the country of the rising sun and on the old continent their heavilier built sisters?

KARAS.KRÄHEN follows these thoughts musically, emotionally ... and takes up things which, in Asia as well as in the West, have been attributed to crows from time immemorial. From Chinese mythology we know that celestial bodies, especially the sun and the moon, have been playing an important role. We know about the original 10 suns which overheated the earth and that 9 of them were shot down by the legendary archer Yi. Ever since, the tenth one is carried over the vault of heaven by a three-legged crow. The same mythological bird is found on the left shoulder of the autumn formal dress of the Tenno, as a – certainly still positive – symbol of the sun. Today however, the one sun is already capable of overheating the earth – and in the age of atomic bombs and nuclear power stations, artificial suns imitate it in a terrifying way. This way the bird which has the task of carrying this donator of life, the sun, around the earth, to many people becomes a curse. This way, characteristics are attributed to the crow, which not only in Greek mythology were given to it: it becomes a symbol for the night and a synonym for the bringer of bad tidings as well, for a messenger of Death. Originally white as it was, Apollo, the greek god of the light blackened the bird holy to him (Koronis in Greek designates the crow as well as Apollo's beloved, whom he accused of unfaithfulness). By doing so, Apollo punished the bird and tried to subordinate to the light everything dark (and therefore female). In the ancient world (especially with Plato) and in the jewish-christian tradition as well, the dominance of the light in the end gets a social meaning, which has left its mark until now: in the overstressing, in the claim of power of everything male over everything female, in the pre-eminence of rationalism, in the thirst for progress, which developed until now to an almost unrestrained progress mania; in the insistant clinging to aggressive and conquest ideologies, which in this century have lead to (and certainly in the next century will lead to) disastrous wars; in the racist rating more highly of "white" over "black", of "master races" over so-called "subhuman creatures", ideologies which made both our countries in West and East to scourges of many people, whom we inflicted inconceivably brutal wounds to, which have not healed up until now.

The composition KARAS.KRÄHEN, which these thoughts twine around, was caused by the bloodcurdling screams of the crows mainly in Tokyo, which pierced the winter nights during my three months' stay last year at the Japan Foundation. It was only in summer however that I could record the shocking voices of the black birds, when, wrapped in the high buzzing of the cicadas, they made the impression of being bathed in glistening silver. In order to sound out the surroundings, I undertook expeditions with the recorder, especially early in the morning, on the way to and in the Meji Park in the center of Tokyo, accompanying, like the crows, the dustmen of the city. Having this in mind, in the ear, I captured on tape scenes of a buddhist ceremony in the Corean seaport Pusan, the rattling of a sewing machine at the market there as well as the busy hustle and bustle in cafés and restaurants, not only in Corea, but also in Japan. I worked out the tapes at the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995 at the Center for Arts and Media Technology in Karlsruhe. It became clear that the material recorded, by means of filters, by stretching time (through fastening or slowing down), by suddenly fixing the sounds, came close to the stopping or freezing of time; various dimensions of a world moved closer together this way and began to pervade each other. This aspect is completed by the instruments joining the tape (which in this case include the voice as well). KARAS.KRÄHEN is dedicated to Harue Nonaka and Ichiro Kajiki in cordial friendship.

Gerhard Stäbler