Ensemble Phœnix Basel

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Javier Torres Maldonado on “FENIX”

This composition is the result of my collaboration with the exceptional musicians of the ensemble that will premiere this work, Ensemble Phoenix Basel.
The creation of my work was based on a number of ideas that are currently shaping my work. In particular, I intend to create a connection between real sound bodies and objects and their manipulation through artistic invention processes on which various transformations depend. The result of this could be compared to “imaginary chemical reactions”. These reactions lead to contrasting musical elements which, for all their arbitrary and expressive deformation, nevertheless leave open clearly perceptible conclusions about the original sound object.

With regard to the title, I can say that the connection between the basic material and the formal unity occurs through the process of distancing (a game with real perspective) to which the original objects are subjected.

At the end of each process of transformation, the materials return in a different light, like a phoenix rising from its ashes.

“Fénix (naturaleza visible)” is divided into three contrasting movements.

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Balz Trümpy on “chamber concerto”

In addition to its original meaning of “competing”, the Latin word “concertare” also means “to work together, to agree”. In both meanings, it expresses the core of Western music-making practice. The principle is just as effective in a two-part invention as in a large solo concerto. My “chamber concerto”, which I wrote on behalf of Ensemble Phoenix Basel, is based on these aspects in both form and content. Soloists and groups alternate in concert and work together again in the ensemble. My starting point is the instrumental groups woodwinds, brass, percussion, piano and strings.

The interaction in terms of content is in turn reflected in the harmony of a chromatic modality that has characterized my music for many years. I am primarily concerned with creating a harmonic context with non-tonal means, both large and small. The course of the piece can be described as undulating, alternating between various degrees of intensification and moments of relaxation. In this respect, too, my intention is to create a coherent and organic sequence. However, this does not mean that the parts are always connected by transitions: An abrupt change can also be organic in a higher sense. Accordingly, I am less oriented towards the styles of the past fifty years. My main role model is Schumann, to whom I also feel a great affinity as a pianist; but Bartók also has a great influence on my music. This mainly concerns the aforementioned chromatic harmony and the form, rather than the musical content and expression.

Nuglar, January 2022

United Phoenix Records is an online label of Ensemble Phoenix Basel. Available downloads are mostly live recordings of the ensemble as well as released studio productions of the ensemble and ensemble members

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Notes by Phill Niblock (1933–2024) for the “Exploratory” Versions releases:

In the spring of 2019, the Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Switzerland, commissioned a piece of music from me, a scored piece for a mixed instrumental ensemble. I made a piece/score, with a lot of help from Guy De Bievre, of Belgium. There are 20 parts in the score, not specific to individual instruments. In June, I went to Basel (from Venice, where I was in a residency) to rehearse and to have performances, two in Basel and one in Geneva, at Cave 12. There were 11 musicians with a variety of instruments, listed elsewhere.

I titled the piece – Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel

The Rhine River winds through Basel, and Daniel Buess, the percussionist and co-organizer of the Phoenix, along with Christoph Bosch, had recently died, and he was greatly missed by the Phoenix members, and by me, knowing him from previous visits to the ensemble.

In the middle of the rehearsals, both Christoph and I thought the piece should be longer, so we increased the length from 22 minutes to 32 minutes, easy to do, since each bar of the piece, each note, in fact, was one minute long. So the last 7 minutes was made to be two minutes.

Liner Notes on Phill Niblock’s work “Exploratory, Rhine Version” by Christoph Bösch:

„It’s too short!”

What makes us, an ensemble for contemporary music, play Phill’s music for now nearly two decades? What is the fascination for us? There would be a lot to mention, what everybody would confirm, who ever came close to or “into” Phill’s music: density, sound as a deep, intense body experience and mental challenge, architectonic soundscapes with internally and externally elaborated structures and “finesse”, resonance in all its possible meanings – yes! All of that, but so much more: there is also this modest and quiet man, with whom we’ve shared precious moments and experiences we wouldn’t want to miss.

While rehearsing “Exploratory, Rhine Version” I suddenly got the feeling, that the last bit of the piece should be extended for some minutes and asked Phill about it. No answer, but an inner smile.

Two days later – with a bottle wine on the table – off context his answer: “It’s too short!”

“Exploratory, Rhine Version” was written in the memory of Daniel Buess, former percussionist and co-founder of Ensemble Phoenix Basel, who has passed away far too early in a tragic way.

Double-CD

Michael Hersch (*1971):

“POPPAEA” – an opera in one act based on a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann (2019, WP, commission by Wien Modern and ZeitRäume Basel) – 101’

With breathtaking emotional power, Michael Hersch and Stephanie Fleischmann retell the story of Emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea: the most powerful woman in the world 2000 years ago, a ruthless fight for one’s own goals, the burning of Rome and the end of a world. This opera premiere directed by Markus Bothe ventures on a red-hot journey to the dark side of Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea”. The Basel-based company “Piertzovanis Töws Architekten” turns the stage design into a statement for consciously dealing with the consequences of one’s own actions.

“Poppaea” is an opera about a woman whose desire is limitless; a woman who must endure many things and make her way through a world in which women are systematically silenced. The violence that prevails in this world is extreme. It begs the question: How far have we come? How little have we progressed?

(Michael Hersch / Stephanie Fleischmann)

ZeitRäume Basel

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This album captures part of the singular contribution of composer Mario Davidovsky (1934–2019) – his twelve “Synchronisms”, scored for instruments and electronic sounds and composed between 1962 and 2006. Musicians are drawn to this music due to its amazing detail, intimacy, warmth, intensity, humor and, ultimately, elegance. For those of us privileged to have known Mario, this sense is amplified by our experience of his generosity, intellect and humanity. Davidovsky’s music is personal and idiosyncratic, but it is also accessible and compelling. His work deserves to be more widely known.

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With this release the two founding members Christoph Bösch (flutes) and Jürg Henneberger (piano and Farfisa organ) focus on three masterpieces for their instrumentation.

The (still) far too rarely played “Paraphrase” by Swiss composer Jürg Wyttenbach is juxtaposed with Pierre Boulez’s “Sonatine”, the standard work of the 20th century for this instrumentation. Beat Furrer’s “Presto” is heard as a frenzied finale.

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Norbert Möslang (*1952): “patterns” (2018)

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A note by ILIOS on his piece:

Back in 2014, Swiss percussionist and friend, Daniel Buess co-founder of Ensemble Phoenix Basel invited me to compose a piece for the ensemble, to premiere in June 2016. Due to his active involvement in sound art and non-academic/classical musics, Daniel Buess had exercised for the few past years as the ensemble’s main link with the contemporary sound art, experimental music and noise scenes reaching out to fellow sound artists each year commissioning works that were aimed in expanding the unique nature of Ensemble Phoenix Basel as an open minded group of musicians with genuine interest in innovation. This was my first piece commissioned by such an ensemble and some general sketches and ideas were drawn, aiming to bring my own researches on the physicality of sound to a more structured frame consisting of classical instruments, in order to match them with the ensemble’s instruments’ possibilities and frequency range limitations.

With a few months till completion, the whole project was suddenly muted due to the tragic circumstances and eventual loss of Daniel.
In the peak of uncertainty and grief, the members of the ensemble and I, decided to go on with the piece; the composition itself gradually shifted direction evolving to an homage to the charismatic musician and beloved friend whose spirit was suspending among us.
Dedicated to his memory, the piece “El anillo invisible que sujeta el mundo de la forma al mundo de la idea” was performed in total darkness for three consecutive nights in Basel (HeK) and Geneva (Cave12).

This is the live recording of the Geneva performance.

Book & CD

“The sound of the typewriter is my original melody. It is almost a musical instrument and not a typewriter at all. I wouldn’t call it an erotic instrument, rather a magical one that hasn’t revealed its secret for a long time.”

Urs Widmer

We all know it: suddenly a warm wind comes up and dries all the clouds from the sky. The mountains move closer together, everything seems closer, clearer, more beautiful, brighter and the sun shines in its massiveness: postcard magic! The “Föhn” wind has its origin on the northern slopes of our mountains. It is loved and feared, longed for and cursed. It can be felt as far as the border runs in the north of our country, and the Swiss themselves even complain that it afflicts them, tormenting them with headaches, bone aches and pains of the soul. The Föhn belongs to the alpine world and to the alpine countries like the mountains themselves. It is deeply rooted in everyday life and a piece of distinctive identity, bringing sweet magic and devastating devastation. The “Föhn” is an archaic, cyclical weather and drama of the Swiss cultural landscape that has always helped shape its uniqueness. Surprisingly, this theme is rarely found in the world of music and theater, nor as a radio play or in literature, apart from the poignant scene in Schiller’s “William Tell” in the storm on Lake Uri…

Christian Zehnder

Musician and director Christian Zehnder wants to remedy this situation: his interdisciplinary music theater project “Föhn” explores, laments and celebrates this phenomenon that is so quintessentially Swiss. Swiss author Urs Widmer has written especially for this project, the myth of the “Föhn” in the Swiss Alps, which is still unwritten in the alpine cultural landscape.

Portrait-CD with works by Giacinto Scelsi (1905–1988)

Giacinto Scelsi, born on January 8, 1905 in La Spezia, is one of the most important exponents of 20th century music, although he worked in relative seclusion and on the fringes of the official music world.

His eminent talent as an improviser became apparent early on, and he began to follow the traditional path of a composer, including studying with Schönberg’s pupil Fritz Klein in Vienna during the 1930s. Scelsi eventually began to distance himself more and more from the constraints of Western compositional thinking. He experienced a personal and spiritual crisis, embarked on extensive travels through Africa and Asia and finally – strengthened by insights from Eastern philosophy and mysticism – found a new relationship to music. After the middle of the century, he no longer saw himself as a composer, but rather as a kind of medium with spiritual access to transcendental worlds.

He returned to Rome and from then on devoted himself to music that would penetrate into the interior of sound through micro-intervallic circling, energetic flowing in time, sound-colored plays of light and shadow. In ever new ways, he succeeded in opening up magical sound spaces with works of the most diverse genres, focusing the listener’s consciousness in a meditative way.

This sound esotericism rejects the classical-analytical approach. Musicologist Karl Dahlhaus comments: “Scelsi’s music can be described, but strictly speaking it cannot be analyzed. Categories such as theme and development, series and derivation, harmony, rhythm and even timbre melody fail in an irritating way in the face of music whose most obvious characteristic is a gesture of refusal.”

Of course, a refusal of this kind makes it clear, and not only that, it makes it sensually tangible, that there are forms of musical experience that have been systematically ignored in the West for many centuries, and that there are dimensions of spirituality that Western man can only access again through immersion in elementary sound, through intuition and the experience of the moment.

Giacinto Scelsi died on August 9, 1988 in Rome.

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Jérôme Noetinger (*1966) about “Les voix de l’invisible”:

In June 2012, Ensemble Phoenix Basel commissioned me to create a work for them to play.
It was the first time in my life I had received such a request. After several months of reflection, I accepted and began working on a way of communicating a music with other musicians.
Not knowing classical notation, I decided to do what I do know: that being, working with recording and loops, and thereafter, ask the musicians to play by ear.
After a first session, having their interpretations in mind, I could reorganise it all taking into account the physical limits of each instrument.
I am very happy with this experience and warmly thank everyone in the Ensemble Phoenix Basel for having made this possible.
The title, “Les voix de l’invisible” (The voices of the invisible) is inspired by Pascal Quignard’s book, “La haine de la musique” (The hate of music).

Jérôme Noetinger (translated by Liz Racz)

LP, CD & download

“JOLT Festival” Basel is an interdisciplinary art and music festival that took place November 7th to 13th 2011 at Galerie Stampa und Gare Du Nord in Basel.

Ensemble Phoenix Basel and Cortex (Daniel Buess: drums, electronics / Alex Buess: electronics) play “Phylum” (2005), composed by Alex Buess (*1954).

Other featured artists on this compilation include Oren Ambarchi, Stelarc, Ferocious41, Roy & the Devil’s Motorcycle and Papiro.

The festival was curated by Daniel Buess and James Hullick in the spirit of JOLT Sonic Arts Inc. The non profit organisation JOLT Sonic Arts was founded by James Hullik with the aim to develop and implement soundart-projects in the form of concerts, performances, installations, etc. After its establishment in its home town Melbourne, Australia it has moved on to become an international organization supported by a large network of local promoters. Daniel Buess is one of the first of the kind to organise a JOLT Event outside of Australia.

The Festival’s aim was to present a broad spectrum of music from Switzerland and Australia performed by top-class musicians wheareas collaborations where encouraged. Such as the swiss-australian noise-duo Buggatronic, a project by the electro/percussion duo CORTEX from Basel with the internationally renowned multimedia and bodyperformance artist Stelarc from Australia and the Ensemble Phoenix Basel with a premiere by James Hullick.
Furthermore the festival presented artist like Francisco Meirino, Herpes Ö Deluxe, Roy and the Devil’s Motorcycle + Papiro and a hip hop set by Ferocious41.

Both promoters where inspired by a mutual tour of Japan where on a night five to seven sometimes stylistically very diverse bands are booked that usually play short twenty to thirty minute sets. Buess and Hullick took this idea to the stage of JOLT Festval Basel.

Alex Buess recorded the entire festival on multi track and meticulously edited the material at his studio. Daniel Buess then selected the tracks for the JOLT Festival Basel Compilation.

The festival displayed the prominent exponents of the respective genre. This resulted in a variety and diversity that became the outline of the festival and which is clearly reflected on this compilation: a unique survey of exciting music which through this record will remain so for a long time to come.

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Even as a boy, I was interested in mass settings and set myself the goal of going through the history of music using these forms from the Middle Ages to the present day. At that time, I often listened to Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” and was full of admiration for J. S. Bach, but I was also fascinated by Stravinsky’s independent approach. During my work as a répétiteur for various choirs, I remained in contact with the subject, and so I developed the desire to write my own contribution. The “Missa” from 2007 was my first attempt.

It all started with the idea of fragmenting the texts of the Ordinary Missae (Kyrie – Gloria – Credo – Sanctus – Agnus Dei), like archaeological finds, in which transitions and connections have to be re-established. “Inter Missa” was the name of my project. However, I soon realized that my choice of text passages was too subjective, too judgmental. While composing the – for me problematic – “Credo”, I realized how much this text demanded to be considered as a whole. It was too precisely constructed, its content too condensed to be artificially fragmented. My idea turned out to be too deliberate. So I decided to compose all the complete parts of the mass and the result was “Missa” for vocal ensemble a cappella. Immediately after the premiere, which I conducted, I conceived an extended version. I had touched on the subject of the mass, but this first version did not yet come close to what I had in mind. Three years later, my ideas finally took shape in “Missa Nova”.

Lukas Langlotz, introduction to the world premiere 2007

“Missa Nova” is the setting to music of the five parts uf the Ordinarium (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus) of the Catholic Mass rite. I added also three purely instrumental movements, as Introitus and two Meditationes.

The work is not sacred music. Although the content formulated in the texts is Christian in character, on a deeper level they touch on questions that are transcultural and concern people everywhere in their longing for contact with something completely different. This aspect in particular occupied me. In addition, there was the desire to deal with a heritage that I have encountered again and again in many different contexts.

The composition is built around the central “Credo”. This is where the core of the discussion takes place, with all its beauties and problems. The “Credo” itself is constructed in three parts: A first purely instrumental part stands for the search for identity, for forms and concepts, in which a process of finding language takes place on a musical level, so to speak, which intensifies towards the entry of the singing voices (with the “Credo in unum Deum”). The deep problem of every religious “Credo” is that concepts are set for something that is beyond human comprehension. At the same time, this is precisely where the great fascination lies! In the second part, the friction with the dogmatic formulas takes place, music and text are put to the test. In the third part, only sound remains, as a metaphor for the inexpressible, the unthinkable.

Lukas Langlotz, 2009

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The Ensemble Phoenix Basel has mastered the art of combination. It is an ensemble that would be quite likely to devote a single evening to a concert programme such as the one compiled here from live performances: five weighty pieces, about a quarter-of-an-hour each, in variable instrumentation.

Typical of these Basle musicians is their individualistic programming policy that allows them to give concerts that feature both Swiss and international works, ranging from recent pieces to those well-established in the contemporary repertoire. The programme of the present CD confirms this too: the ensemble has used several live recordings to conceive a purely ‘live’ CD.

Andreas Fatton (traduction: Dr. Chris Walton)

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The idea for this CD production arose following the world premiere of Alex Buess’ work “Parallaxe A” in February 2001 as part of the “European Music Month 2001” in Basel. The work proved to be very difficult to record in its original version with 24 musicians, since it involves an enormous mass of played as well as electronically generated sound, the intensity and density of which can only be reproduced unsatisfactorily in stereo. Based on this experience, the idea for the “biomechanical” version of “Parallaxe A” was born, which we subsequently recorded and produced.

Dror Feiler and Tim Hodgkinson are very close to Alex Buess’ music in terms of the physical and psychological energy and intensity of their music. For this reason, we decided to combine two pieces by these two composers, as well as an older composition by Alex Buess (“Maxmell’s Demon”), with “Parallaxe A”. All pieces contain electronics and show a certain kinship in sound aesthetics and musical language. Furthermore, another thing these three composers have in common is that they all did not follow the conventional academic path of a composer, but as performers come from idiosyncratic experimentation with instruments and sound material. The three of them play saxophone and other wind instruments, work with electronics and have many years of experience as musicians, instrumentalists and composers. Alex Buess and Tim Hodgkinson were playing together in the experimental rockband “GOD”; Dror Feiler’s bands are named “Lokomotiv Konkret” or “The Too Much Too Soon Orchestra”.

Andreas Fatton (traduction: Christoph Bösch)

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This  CD presents exceptionally diverse works for ensemble by the multi-award-winning composer Detlev Müller-Siemens (*1957).

In the cycle “Phoenix I–III”, a freely chosen source material is “mapped” out of itself according to a certain rule as many times as necessary until the initial state reappears. This results in a limited number of transformations, all within the same framework and sharing a common basic character. Overall, each of the three pieces moves in its own way between the two extremes of a compact sonority on the one hand and a liana-like intertwined melodicism on the other.

“Light blue, almost white” refers to a text by Samuel Beckett. ‘Light blue’ – with it Müller-Siemens associates a melancholic basic attitude, as it can be found in cool jazz, but also in Japanese art. ‘Almost white’ refers to a noisy realm, the breath.

The title “Cuts” stands for incisions in time as well as for longitudinal cuts. A quarter-tone cantilena of the saxophone in the second movement is spun around by weightlessly circling lines, melodic, murmuring voices that do not perceive each other.

Ensemble Phoenix Basel, founded in 1998 by Jürg Henneberger, consists of up to 25 musicians with many years of experience in contemporary music. The ensemble always seeks direct collaboration and confrontation with renowned, but also young, lesser-known composers of our time.

Christoph Bösch