A one-of-a-kind project for early and modern instruments, tunings and techniques: the young Swiss composer Martin Jaggi fulfils a commission from Musikfestival Bern with “Planck”, written for 21 instruments, or perhaps more aptly, for five Ensembles from the independent scene.
For the first time, Die Freitagsakademie, Les Passions de l’Ame, Ensemble Proton Bern, klavierduo huber/thomet and Artist in Residence Brian Archinal with Ensemble This | Ensemble That perform as one. In Berne, a new, young culture of musik-making has evolved over the past two decades, characterised by a high level of excellence as well as attracting national and international acclaim. Bringing together the Ensembles of the Bernese scene for the Musikfestival in this special programme and concert format also sends a strong cultural-political message. Martin Jaggi’s “Planck” represents the gathering of a great amount of musical energy in Berne, that will be released in the course of the festival’s programmes, just as galaxies and star-clusters were following the big bang.
“In 2009, the satellite Planck made by the ESA was sent into space, to take the most detailed pictures of cosmic background radiation known to man. What we got back were more or less baby photos of our universe in its infancy (age 380 000 or about 13.5 billion years ago). In my work, I’ve used data that was gathered by Planck, to generate musical material. I’m trying to make the expansion of the universe following the big bang audible and to look deep into the path of time using musical means.” (Martin Jaggi)
