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 \u2013 a search for forms of expression beyond standardized playing techniques. Tapping, breathing, striking, tearing, plucking \u2013 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 \u201cmusically observe and bring to life the tender, fragile, comforting breath of the Holy Spirit.\u201d For Mark Andre, the catalyst for this immersion and exploration of spartanly arranged sound spaces \u2013 which often seem archaic in their mysterious richness of gesture \u2013 was reading the text \u201cThe Curtain Is Torn\u201d 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\u2019s presence and God\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
Mark Andre now explores the previously hidden worlds of sound through each of the \u201crisses,\u201d 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)<\/p>\n
The composer prefaces the cycle with the following biblical quotation:
\n\u201cOn the seventh day, God completed the work he had created, and he rested on the seventh day after he had finished all his work.
\nAnd God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy; for on it God rested after he had completed all the work of creation.\u201d (Gen 2:2\u20133)<\/p>\n
Before \u201criss 2,\u201d which is divided into the sections \u201criss I\u2013XIV,\u201d he includes a quote from the aforementioned theologian Prof. Dr. Margaretha Gruber, a nun of the Franciscan Sisters of Sie\u00dfen (OSF):
\n\u201cJesus 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The work \u201civ 6\u201d for solo trombone was commissioned by our trombonist Michael B\u00fcttler, who performed with the Ensemble Modern at the world premiere of the \u201criss\u201d cycle. \u201civ\u201d stands for \u201cintroverted\u201d and represents a series of very intimate, fragile, and mysterious works for solo instruments and chamber ensembles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u2013 a search for forms of expression […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phoenix-en","location-gare-du-nord-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6503,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions\/6503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensemble-phoenix.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}