Date / Place I
18 April 2020 Gare du Nord, BaselDate / Place II
19 April 2020 Gare du Nord, BaselSeries
PhoenixTitle
Synchronisms + DifférencesProgram
Mario Davidovsky (1934–2019) “Synchronisms No. 1” for flute and electronic sounds (1963) – 4’21” “Synchronisms No. 3” for cello and electronic sounds (1964) – 5’03” “Synchronisms No. 6” for piano and electronic sounds (1970) – 7’32” Luciano Berio (1925–2003) “Synchronisms No. 6” for five instruments (flute, clarinet, harp, viola, cello) and tape (1958/59) – 17’ “Synchronisms No. 9” for violin and tape (1988) – 8’52” “Synchronisms No. 10” for guitar and tape (1992) – 9’50” “Synchronisms No. 11” for contrabass and electronic sounds (2005) – 7’23” “Synchronisms No. 12” for clarinet and electronic sounds (2006) – 6’34”Musicians
- Jürg Henneberger
- conductor
- Christoph Bösch
- flute
- Toshiko Sakakibara
- clarinet
- Consuelo Giulianelli
- harp
- Maurizio Grandinetti
- guitar
- Ludovic Van Hellemont
- piano
- Friedemann Treiber
- violin, viola
- Jan-Filip Ťupa
- cello
- Aleksander Gabryś
- double bass
- Christof Stürchler
- sound engineer
Program description
CANCELLED DUE TO THE CORONA CRISIS!
Mario Davidovsky is one of the great figures of American New Music – but has hardly been played in Europe. As a pioneer of electronic music, he was already working at the “Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center” in 1960. His work includes by far not only electronic music. His most famous works, the “Synchronisms”, a series of over a dozen works written over a period of more than 40 years, have influenced generations of composers. In combining “classical” instruments with pre-produced electronic sounds, Davidovsky, unlike many other composers of this genre, is not interested in special “sound effects” in any way, but rather seeks a fusion of instrumental sound with electronics, resulting in both continuity and intrinsic musical expression. The earliest “Synchronisms” date from a time when today’s sound technology was still in its infancy, but they are nevertheless masterpieces without equal; the long time span in which the “Synchronisms” were created also documents the technical progress in this field over the time. In addition to a large number of awards for his work, Mario Davidovsky received the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 explicitly for his work “Synchronisms No. 6”.
Luciano Berio is in many ways a European counterpart to Davidovsky. His in-depth study of individual instruments and their playing techniques in his Sequenzas is based on a similar interest that Davidovsky pursued in his Synchronisms. Our program features a work by the young Berio, composed at the end of the 1950s. In Différences, he explores the infinite variety of sound possibilities of the five live instruments and juxtaposes them with their “mirror images” recorded on tape and electronic sounds. Sometimes an electronic shadow of the instruments, sometimes foregrounded, the tape is conceived as a fully-fledged sixth chamber music partner.
Since the concerts had to be cancelled due to the Covid crisis, the EPhB decided to do a combined audio and video production of Davidovsky’s “Synchronisms”. Bandcamp