Vom Anfang zum Absturz

The concert project Vom Anfang zum Absturz (from the beginning to the crash) of the Basel Sinfonietta focuses on a commission for the Swiss composer Mauro Hertig, together with Simon Stehen Anderson’s Piano concerto and the reference work San Francisco Polyphony by György Ligeti.

With his work San Francisco Polyphony, the Austro-Hungarian composer György Ligeti strove in the direction of a polyphony that was more transparent, more clearly drawn, thinner and more brittle. In this work, too, Ligeti’s micropolyphony plays an important role, but the individual voice is given greater significance.

A major focus of the concert programme is the composition commissioned from the up-and-coming Swiss composer Mauro Hertig. With Losing the Red Queen’s Race (commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta and premiered), he has the orchestra play a game that cannot be won. On the contrary – it is only through the failure to imitate a melody that the chain of reactions unfolds its peculiarity. The performers become actors in the overall sound not by mastering it, but by overtaxing it. A musical parody of the so-called Red Queen Hypothesis, which says that all living things must change permanently in adaptation to a variable environment in order to survive.

And then a grand piano falls from the sky. The impact causes the instrument to burst and shatter, captured in image and sound. It is all part of the concept of Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen and his Piano Concerto (for piano, sampler, orchestra, and video) from 2014, which is to capture the energy released and create a new instrument. The sounds of the broken instrument form the starting point of a veritable piano concerto. Live, pianist Nicolas Hodges plays an intact instrument; opposite him, the broken one is projected onto a screen. The crash of the piano is thus perceptible throughout the composition but can be viewed with a certain distance. The entire orchestra is experienced as a broken instrument.

The concert project Vom Aufgang zum Absturz of the Basel Sinfonietta is made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further information:
baselsinfonietta.ch/de

Dates

November 6, 2022
Burghof, Lörrach

November 30, 2022
De Singel, Antwerp

December 1, 2022
De Bijloke, Ghent