On August 2008, I visited for the first time the city of Bludenz, in Austria. I was commissioned by the festival Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik to write a new piece for the next edition. Together with Alexander Moosbrugger, the curator of the festival, I walked through the city.

We were looking for some spots that could be suitablefor an eventual performance. Furthermore, I was hoping to discover some parameters to use for writing the composition. Suddenly I smelled chocolate. The fragrance surrounded and followed me. We were already a couple of streets away from the point where I first smelled it and I could still smell the chocolate as strongly as at the beginning. It seemed strange to me that a lot of people were baking a chocolate pie at the same time, so I asked Alexander if he also noticed the smell. His answer was simple: Bludenz is known for the production of Milka chocolate and it sometimes happens that the fragrance covers the whole city. The brand Milka is famous, I already know of it since I was a kid, but I never knew its chocolate was produced in Bludenz. Since I love chocolate I felt at home.

Back in Berlin I couldn’t resist using the chocolate parameter, so I decided to write a piece based on a selection of different kinds of bars of Milka chocolate. I also incorporated in the score the traditional Milka advertisement tune that can be heard on television and radio. The piece was performed on the 29th of November 2008. It was the last piece of that evening and also the last piece of the festival. After the musicians, following the instructions in the score, had been breaking the bars of chocolate on chairs on stage, the audience was offered to eat the bits and pieces. The chairs were taken off the stage and were placed in the entrance hall. In this hall, the audience could read the score, on the glass facade. The score was drawn with white removable chalk. The drawing was 27 meters long and 2 meters high.