Ensemble Phœnix Basel

As an ensemble for New and Contemporary Music, it is our concern to give space to important currents of what is, from today’s point of view, “historical” New Music and to “listen” to their modernity. Certain pioneers of New Music are indispensable and obviously significant for the further course of music-historical developments, while others are ending points, third phenomena of a self-contained world without direct reference to the before and after. A particularly idiosyncratic representative of the third genre is Giacinto Scelsi, Count of d’Ayala Valva, whose music does not fit stringently into the picture of the currents of modernism; his music will probably always sound unique and unmistakable.

Gérard Grisey, in contrast to Scelsi, is the founder of one of the most important currents of new music; “spectralism” continues to influence generations of composers till today. Unlike the largely self-taught Scelsi, Grisey underwent a complete musical education at universities and was in direct contact with all the “grands” of the time such as Ligeti, Stockhausen and Xenakis. Grisey was intimately familiar with the music of Giacinto Scelsi, which he discovered for himself during his stay in Italy at the Villa Medici in 1972–74.

In this program we juxtapose these two composers with their duo works; Grisey’s complete duos for two solo instruments, Scelsi’s duos for two string instruments – intarsing each other in the program.