MEDIATHEK

Love and Hydrogen is composed with a combination of elements called "relativity music." Relativity Music is music in which one pitch becomes different pitches through motion, specifically through the Doppler Effect - and since the Doppler Effect occurs relative to the position of the listener, members of the audience perceive different music according to their position in space. Instruments called sound pendulums are used to realize this: miniature loudspeakers play sine tones and are manipulated by the performers, creating microtonal variations of a constant tone. In Love and Hydrogen, the instruments are used in a way that explores the impossibility of true communication between people.

Harmonically, the opera makes use of chords based on "neutral" thirds, the interval a quarter tone between a major and a minor third. These intervals have a fascinating, unsettling character. If the upper pitch of these neutral thirds is set in motion with a pendulum, the interval swings between a neutral third and the same interval approximately 1/12 of a tone lower, which suddenly sounds clearly minor. These changing harmonies increase in width and frequency until finally the entire ensemble sound is set in motion, and collapses, like the zeppelin as it is destroyed.

The entire opera becomes a realization of this idea of relativity music: the concept is applied to the parameters of light, space, costume and performance. The opera takes place around the audience, as opposed to in front of it, and certain interactions between characters are felt and perceived, rather than observed directly. Elements of the staging such as fans and open windows create relative, tactile sensations. The audience enters the performance space by way of a chaotic sound installation in the foyer, preparing it to enter the performance space, which, with its whiteness and utter stillness, suggests the experience of boarding a zeppelin for flight.