A rapid "curtain" opens the first movement, an "ear catcher" consisting of tremolo and sextuplet-runs. From this a pulse becomes evident – the tone b sounds in accented quarters, is passed from one instrument to the next. Now this constant of the tone b is illuminated, while it is put in always new relations. It is a matter of "circling" from the b in second intervals, of wobbled or trilled tie-tones as well as natural notes of the horns. In the course of the piece stronger and stronger noise-like sounds are added, key-noises and airflows which are exactly notated and show at the end of the movement as ostinate figures a consolidated structure. B is therefore principal tone and "breath tone" – the sound of breathing (Hhhhh) becomes constituting in the process of the movement. Indeed, this was not necessarily intended with the composition of the movement, the composer, nevertheless, does also not contradict this perception.
If the horns already played isolated natural tones in the first movement, this element becomes determining in the second movement. The two horns open the movement with cantable lines, interrupted from agitating sextuplet-objections – Bröder calls them "disturbing fires" –, which finally bring the horns to falling silent and dominate in a highly virtuoso part. Calming brings the regular pulse already well-known from the first movement, which rings out now however only in the horn in quarters. Yet it is "warped" by the other voices in syncopated and dotted triplets and quintuplets. Like in the first movement by the ostinat noise-figures, the conclusion of the second movement also solidifies by recurring intervallic and rhythmic patterns.
Magnus Bastian
(from: programme to the 5. concert „Soli fan tutti“ of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, 18.3.2007)