Jakub Rataj compositions move between the poles of interior and exterior, perception and reality. His music explores the fragile spaces between body and soul, between experiential time and measurable time, between intuition and structure. It is not conceived as a linear progression, but rather as a journey through an open, heterogeneous soundscape in which certainties are constantly called into question.
Structure does not have hierarchical dominance in Rataj's work. It arises from the intuitive process of composing itself and remains deliberately fragile. The starting point is often a pulsating moment—a kind of perceptual pulse—which, however, quickly dissolves and is overlaid by a complex mixture of internal and external impressions. Rataj does not understand movement in the traditional polyphonic sense, but as a multi-layered process of breath, pulse, meter, and their spaces of difference. Even pausing is movement: a moment of change, not of standstill.
This approach is particularly evident in the Piano Quintet H (2017). An initially dull, percussive pulse in the lower register forms the starting point for a two-layered event that plays homophonic statics and self-sustaining polyphonic processes off against each other. The harmony is fed by closely spaced quarter-tone clusters, from which melodic lines of high emotional intensity develop. Microharmonic equidistance, glissandi, cluster surfaces, and noisy textures form resonance spaces of great tonal delicacy.
These compositional strategies are further developed in the string quartets Second Breath and Kratzer, whose microformal structure appears asymmetrical but follows a hidden symmetry. Flageolets, microglissandi, and spectral textures illuminate the delicacy of the spaces between notes in an almost microscopic way. Landscape impressions—such as the sea or winter cold—serve as poetic sources of sound and connect Rataj's music with the tradition of his Bohemian origins, from Janáček to Dvořák.
In Stria for solo violoncello (2023/24), Rataj transfers this material into a soloistic, game-theoretically experimental dimension. His work thus proves to be a consistent exploration of the space of difference – sensitive, highly individual, and of great tonal suggestion.