The Art of the Fugue - An electro-acoustic listening adventure!

Contributors

Frederic Belli → trombone
Johannes Fischer → percussion
Nicholas Rimmer → piano

Program

Johann Sebastian Bach → The Art of the Fugue BWV 1080

A full-length electro-acoustic listening adventure between epic sound architecture, improvisation, strict counterpoint and pulsating vitality!

The Art of the Fugue is performed in all kinds of sonic guises, on piano and organ, with string or saxophone quartet through to large symphony orchestra. As different as the instrumentation may be, the substance of the composition itself seems invulnerable. The formal architecture and the indescribable gravitational forces of the individual pitches in relation to each other testify to the visionary power and creative imagination of the old master. The greatness of this last score by Johann Sebastian Bach lies in particular in the impressive abstraction of the form and the material, which is brought to the point here in such an incomparable compositional manner and yet in no way simply appears hermetically as a list of contrapuntal techniques, but rather touches us as pure music, as an immediate sound form of spiritual power.

The Belli-Fischer-Rimmer trio approaches the score in its own personal way: in the form of a creative development process in which the original text is transformed into a well-structured, composed dramaturgy that is fed by the sound material of individual counterpoints. The formative backbone is formed by the last, unfinished fourteenth counterpoint of the collection, with which the whole evening begins and which, divided into five sections, runs through the program as a constant. The various episodes of the last counterpoint are flanked or contrasted with other counterpoints and canons, some of which are performed in unusual arrangements. Thus, sound surfaces or ostinati emerge from Bach's original, developing a pulsating life of their own, some fugue themes are fragmented like old frescoes, appear blurred, or transform into electro-acoustic textures that unfold spaces for improvisational spontaneity. The trio processes the musical source material with typical contrapuntal structures borrowed from geometry, such as mirroring, inversion, folding or layering. The initially obvious division of the trio is supplemented by a fourth voice, that of the electronics. Trombone, piano and percussion instruments share the stage with semi-modular and organic synthesizers from Korg, Soma or Arturia as well as all kinds of effect devices. Acoustic sound combinations combine almost imperceptibly with electronic mixes and live samples. Inspiring interactions arise between today's perspective and the origin of the composition, historical performance practice and contemporary playing culture, and allow the approximately 270-year-old score to appear like an archaeological find in a new, contemporary light.