The three parts "da braccio I - III" which are performed as part of the live-on air- version of "THE RELATIVE VIOLIN" form the first step of anew realtime composition project by composer Karlheinz Essl. While themusicians are still performing on stage in Vienna and Vancouver, Karlheinz Essl at Studio 4 ofthe Austrian National Radio receives their sounds (as audio signal resp.RealAudio) as two sources on which he will build up three different liveperformances.

The next "da braccio"- step will take place in November 2000 at the"Bludenzer Tage fŸr zeitgemŠ§e Musik" in collaboration with theviola d'amore player Garth Knox (Paris).

"da braccio" is based on Essl's interactive realtime compositionenvironment m@ze¡2 (1999 ff.) It represents itself as a computer program for guided improvisations with one orseveral string players. As sound material Essl extracted samples from threestring compositions which have been composed between 1985 and 1998:

Helix 1.0 (1985) for string quartet
absence (1996) for violin solo
trois - seul (1997/98) for string trio

Several structure generators (implemented in MAX) which work inrealtime allow the composer to react spontaneously to the input given bythe live musicians. Each structure generator is conceived for a specific compositional task suchas musical gestures, textures and sound scapes. The parameters of thesegenerators are controlled in realtime which allows the composer to playthis environment like an instrument.