A concert as part of the PANTOPIA FESTIVAL Vol. 03 – Neues Erinnern

In this fourth concert of the ‘in Kollaboration’ series, the Oriel Quartet performs together with the composer and guitarist Marc Sinan. The central piece of this program is Sinan’s “Auf dem Nichts” for electric guitar and string quartet, which deals with the genocide of the Armenians in the First World War. Alongside this are Messiaen’s “Quator pour la fin du Temps” in arrangement for for electric guitar and strings, as well as Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet and Steve Reich’s “Different Trains”. The pre-recorded spoken audio tracks of “Different Trains” are mirrored in “Auf dem Nichts” – in this case, chants by Armenian prisoners during World War I, which, in turn provide some of the historical background to Shostakovich’s work (dedicated “to the victims of fascism and the war”). Messiaen’s technique “modes of limited transposition” was a forerunner of serial music, which in turn is the basis for the compositional technique “musical set theory” on which Marc Sinan’s piece is based. The tonal language of the e-guitar offers a broad dynamic spectrum, not dissimilar to the diversity of the piano. The arrangements of ‘Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus’ and ‘Louange à l’Immoratlité de Jésus’ combine the sound world of the electronic soundtracks of “Different Trains” and “Auf dem Nichts” with the acoustic classical format of Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet.