Skills

Composer Sven Helbig’s suite for strings, French horn, mallets, and electronics, *Skills* explores humankind’s motivation to strive for brilliance. In “Immersion,” sound floats free, pierced only by the mellow tones of a horn rising above the textures, making sense of confusion. Growing in intensity within a beautiful ostinato, “Repetition” is underpinned by a reassuring mechanical synth beat, before the inevitable setback of “Despair,” a work of almost Beethovenian sparseness and raw anguish. “Lore” is a quirky celebration of individuality that transcends our mundane search for perfection, while in “Metamorphosis,” the music drives urgently on, seeking a natural conclusion. The suite ends with a beautiful hymn to our capacity to achieve miraculous things.

This is a fascinating psycho-musicological study from German neoclassical composer and experimental musician Sven Helbig