recent – Henning Raach

The Music of Jürgen Wuchner

Recently, a German book on Jürgen Wuchner and his compositions was published by Wolke Verlag, edited by Monika Schießer-Wuchner:

Serendipity. Jürgen Wuchners Kompositionen

Click on the link and scroll down the page. You see “Bb- und Eb-Stimmen zum freien Download”. If you click on that field, you get the sheet music for Bb and Eb instruments.

I hesitated to make this free download public. I recommend buying the book so the publisher and the authors get their fair share. Even if you do not speak German, there is the sheet music for C instruments. I am writing this article to help proliferate Jürgen Wuchner’s music.

Farewell to Darmstadt

Another part of my life came to an end in October. Writing about it puts the question in which attitude I do it. I want to write thankfully. In 2009, I came to Darmstadt. First I worked at the Technical University, then at the accelerator GSI. I wrote a monography. For 10 years I took part in the workshop band of Jürgen Wuchner who died in 2020. Eight times I participated in the Jazz Conceptions, a one week summer workshop. I enjoyed the vibrant music scene, especially the concerts at Jazz Institute and at Knabenschule. The Frankfurt Radio Big Band played at Centralstation. Darmstadt also has a Staatstheater (public theatre) with opera. Each summer the Jürgen Wuchner Workshop Band gave a promenade concert in Orangerie Garden if it did not rain. I feel sad that I had to leave friends. Certainly will I return as a visitor.

Climate Change

At present the Corona crisis is very severe. Many people die from the virus. The damage to the economy is huge. Nonetheless, I want to write on another problem of mankind, the climate change. I have read a German book on this subject by two climatologists from Potsdam, Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber. They report on a large consensus in science that the global warming is caused by man. Doubling the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere would mean a temperature rise of 3 Kelvin (+/- 1 K at a confidence level of 95%.) Those who want to know more are advised to read the reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.) I think their scientific arguments should be taken seriously, as well as their concern to use the knowledge of our time in a responsible way.

Black Hole

Recently scientists succeeded in taking a picture of a black hole. Therefore, I want to write a few lines about this phenomenon.

In a black hole, matter is so highly compressed that even light cannot escape from its vicinity. General relativity treats a black hole as a point, i.e. it has no extension. This is hard to imagine. However, take as an example the electron which is considered as a point particle, although it has a mass at rest.

A black hole is surrounded by an event horizon. Everything that passes it becomes invisible for the world outside. If a matter-antimatter pair is created from the vacuum near the event horizon, a particle may cross it. The other particle seems to come out. This is Hawking radiation.

In particle physics, there are collisions at high energies. Can a black hole be produced in a collider experiment? This question was subject of a court dispute. The physicists bring forward the argument that the cosmic radiation contains particles of much higher energy. Although the cosmic radiation hits the Earth, our world still exists.