Ensemble Phœnix Basel

In 1990, French composer Mark Andre experienced a moment of revelation when he came across a score by Helmut Lachenmann, who would later become his composition teacher. For it was here that Andre discovered music of an unvarnished, existential urgency, sparked by a practical exploration of performance practices – a search for forms of expression beyond standardized playing techniques. Tapping, breathing, striking, tearing, plucking – the vocabulary of these almost physical states of musical aggregation has since become a crucial key for Andre, not only to unlock entirely new sonic spaces. As a devout Christian, he seeks through his compositions to “musically observe and bring to life the tender, fragile, comforting breath of the Holy Spirit.” For Mark Andre, the catalyst for this immersion and exploration of spartanly arranged sound spaces – which often seem archaic in their mysterious richness of gesture – was reading the text “The Curtain Is Torn” by theologian Margareta Gruber. In it, she examines the passage in the Gospel of Mark in which the tearing of the temple curtain upon the death of Jesus Christ is interpreted as a symbol of both God’s presence and God’s absence.

Mark Andre now explores the previously hidden worlds of sound through each of the “risses,” infusing them with familiar and unsettlingly foreign constellations of sounds that, in their subtlety and tension, compel the listener to pay attention. Whether this might reveal the breath of the Holy Spirit remains a secondary consideration. (Guido Fischer)

The composer prefaces the cycle with the following biblical quotation:
“On the seventh day, God completed the work he had created, and he rested on the seventh day after he had finished all his work.
And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy; for on it God rested after he had completed all the work of creation.” (Gen 2:2–3)

Before “riss 2,” which is divided into the sections “riss I–XIV,” he includes a quote from the aforementioned theologian Prof. Dr. Margaretha Gruber, a nun of the Franciscan Sisters of Sießen (OSF):
“Jesus chooses the rift as the setting for his life. And it will tear him apart; the place of his death, stretched between heaven and earth on the cross, makes this visible.”

The work “iv 6” for solo trombone was commissioned by our trombonist Michael Büttler, who performed with the Ensemble Modern at the world premiere of the “riss” cycle. “iv” stands for “introverted” and represents a series of very intimate, fragile, and mysterious works for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.

Program