The Drum Speaks brings together the German composer Klaus Hinrich Stahmer and the South African journalist and poet Sandile Dikeni. Dikeni's poems, recited from memory and spontaneously as he performed them in public, alternate with Stahmer's instrumental works inspired by African literature, art and the talking drums. Discogs marks it as a first recording.
Stahmer came to these pieces by reading modern African literature, studying the work of modern African artists and listening to talking drums. His close collaboration with Dikeni gives the disc its shape, a combination of lyric poetry and music. The poems were recorded on 10 February 2005 at the ARD studio in Johannesburg. The instrumental tracks were recorded at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg on 28 July 2004 and at the Musikhochschule Münster on 29 September 2005, in coproduction with Bayerischer Rundfunk, with Jürgen Rummel as engineer and for the mastering.
Ndim Lo! and Night That Dreams Dreamless are played by Carin Levine on flutes, Jennifer Hymer on piano, and Stephan Froleyks and Olaf Pyras on percussion. Chaka is written for the Omphalo-Quartett on African drums. People out of Nowhere, for two pianos played by Andreas König and Aki Hoffmann, is heard in three parts spread across the disc: Umhlaba, !Igadi and Ageless Night. A Prayer, which closes the record at over eight minutes. Between them come Dikeni's poems, among them See My Heart, Hell's Protection, Guava Juice, Red Song, Lean Blues, Ode to the Musical Guerilla and Love Poem for My Country, each lasting from under a minute to about three.
The music reflects Stahmer's interest in the musical traditions and the political problems of Africa, and Schott calls Dikeni a poet of freedom. He recites his poems just as he performs them in public, from memory and with great immediacy. The alternation of spoken word and composed music makes the record a sequence of short scenes, fifteen tracks in under fifty minutes, rather than a portrait of either artist alone. The voice of the poet and the instruments never overlap, so each poem acts as a frame for the next piece.
CD, Wergo WER 6687 2, released in 2006 in the WERGO Colours series. Total running time 48'09".
