Cello Couterpart is the attempt, to define the disintegration of narration (melody) and medium of narration (the instrument) as the starting point for a composition rather then ignoring it, “telling” stories, as if the relation of narration and medium of narration remains unhurt.
Melody represents itself as pure scale – an ossified gesture of relation, which in fact relates nothing. The instrument is no longer a compliant medium, but is treated as an alien counterpart instead. The harmonic structure of the instrument is distorted by means of a rubber wedge placed underneath the second and third string. This alienation of harmony, as well as the autonomy of the right hand (intensity and rhythm of bow-movement) towards the left hand (pitches and their durations), focus increasingly on the material character of the instrument.
While this physical aspect of playing cello – the vibrating strings, the friction of the bow’s on the string, the rhythms of pressure and release of pressure as produced by the right arm – traditionally subordinates to the expressivity of melody and harmony, the cello as a body is now becoming expressive, it is starting to “speak”. And it speaks out against the rigid melody projected onto it.
The “anti-cadence” on the empty a-string marks a climax of the composer’s withdrawal from the piece: he listens to the cello speak for itself.
What follows, is the attempt of a structured observation of the alien landscape “cello”. The harmonic, timbral and rhythmic structure of the instrument, its empty strings and their harmonics, the pulse of the bow, the relation of bow pressure and harmonics, defines the coordinates of a different kind of a melody, which listens to the sonorous material and develops it rather then dictating to it.

Hans Thomalla