MICHAEL PELZEL (*1978)
Carnatic Pandora for violin and orchestra (2023)
Commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta and ACHT BRÜCKEN / Musik für Köln, supported by 
the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the Fondation SUISA
HELMUT LACHENMANN (*1935)
Accanto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1975/76)
YIQING ZHU (*1989)
Deep Grey for Orchestra (2021) D
REBECCA SAUNDERS (*1967 )
Traces for Chamber Orchestra (2006/09)
CAROLIN WIDMANN, VIOLIN
BOGLARKA PECZE, CLARINET
PETER RUNDEL, DIRECTOR
In their performance at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall as part of the renowned "Eight Bridges" festival, the Basel Sinfonietta draws on South Indian musical traditions, practices the destructive handling of what one loves in order to preserve its truth, makes deep gray sound colorful – and leaves sonic traces that end in nothingness.
In recent years, the Swiss composer Michael Pelzel has undertaken several trips to India. During these study visits, he immersed himself in the classical Carnatic music of South India. This eccentric, richly ornamented music has profoundly influenced the composer – and inspired his new violin concerto, "Carnatic Pandora.".
For the German composer Helmut Lachenmann, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto is the epitome of beauty, humanity, and purity—and at the same time: an example of a fetishized means of escapism; an "art" that has become a commodity. With all its compositional reflections and material derivations, it became a hidden point of reference for the "Nestor of New Music," around which his music for clarinet and orchestra traces the paranoid arc of veneration and fearful love. The piece is "Accanto": off-kilter.
The young Chinese composer Yiqing Zhu, with his orchestral work «DeepGrey» – which, performed by the Basel Sinfonietta, was awarded the 1st prize of the Basel Composition Competition 2021 – opens up to the human ear the colorful depths between black and white.
"Traces," a work for chamber orchestra by the British composer Rebecca Saunders, known for her intricately woven sound textures, is a play with silence, which the composer circles with sound, but sometimes also shatters with harsh and loud sounds. The tone colors are traceable, yet always ultimately end in nothingness.
With the kind support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
World Premiere
D German Premiere
Program subject to change
