KLANGSPUREN - MAURICE & SOLOVOICES QUARTET

Program: Justė Janulytė Nodo Infinito for 4 voices and 4 strings (2024), US premiere, 20’

Bernhard Lang GAME 15 ‘Mirror Games’ for 4 voices and string quartet (2022/23), US premiere, 42’

Performers:

Quartetto Maurice: Georgia Privitera, violin; Laura Bertolino, violin; Francesco Vernero, viola; Aline Privitera, cello

SoloVoices: Svea Schildknecht, soprano; Francisca Näf, mezzo-soprano; Jean-Jacques Knutti, tenor; Jean-Christophe Groffe, bass

The mirror is the basic motif of this concert – inspired by the “Tabula Smaragdina,” a fundamental text of alchemy that continues to fascinate to this day and is attributed to Hermes Trismegistos. In a sense, the Italian Quartetto Maurice and the SoloVoices from Switzerland mirror each other – not only in the number of their members, but also in the coherence of their timbres, here the string quartet, there the four voices. Bernhard Lang and Justė Janulytė enter the hall of mirrors and play with the reflections and doublings that arise when the two ensembles are brought together. In Mirror Games, Lang refers to the “Tabula Smaragdina.” Symmetry in sound and structure, curved reflections through loops that do not quite coincide, doublings and quadruplings, but also reductions to the duo instrumentation give this piece its structure. Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė has the eight musicians sit in a circle. Her work Nodo Infinito is inspired by the Buddhist symbol of the endless knot, which represents the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Cause and effect are ultimately mirror images of the same principle. In her “monochromatic” style, Janulytė composes slow waves, an ebb and flow of intensity in which the string and vocal quartets never quite navigate at the same tempo. Above (or below) it all is the question: Are we really who we see in the mirror?