ALCHEMY OF PERCUSSIONS

  Košice Music Spring 09.06.2025 Tabačka Kulturfabrik 19:00

PERCUSSIONS DE STRASBOURG: INVARIANT
Minh-Tâm NGUYEN
Thibaut WEBER
Alexandre ESPERET

Programme:

Johann-Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonata for Organ
Michaël Levinas: Les Invariants
Johann-Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonata for Organ
Toru Takemitsu: Rain Tree
Johann-Sebastian Bach: Trio Sonata for Organ

In his trio sonatas, Bach transcended the boundaries of 17th-century organ music, developing a completely new style of writing that was subsequently widely used by his sons and students. Bach's six trio sonatas represent an exceptionally innovative part of his organ work and have been the subject of transcriptions for various instrumental ensembles since Mozart's time. As Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel wrote about the sonatas: "Their beauty cannot be praised, they are a work of the composer's maturity and can be considered his greatest contribution to this genre."

The French composer Michaël Levinas wrote in his composition Les Invariants : "The concept of invariant (unchangeable, solid and stable) is used primarily in mathematics, physics and linguistics. The advent of tempered tuning in the Baroque introduced the concept of invariant into the musical thinking of composers, especially JS Bach. The stability of tuning, which allowed the development of the tonal system, created the basis of a language based on stable tones of the scale, allowing for complex forms. Many masterpieces were created, the basis of which was the boundless openness to non-European identity and culture of tone color.

Tōru Takemitsu was a Japanese composer, writer, and music theorist. His music is delicate and refined. He combines elements of Japanese and Western philosophy, and delicately manipulates instrumental and orchestral timbre, using Western and traditional Japanese instruments, and using silence to create a unique and extraordinary sound world. His composition Rain Tree for a percussion trio combines beautiful sonic elements to create one of the most impressive compositions for these instruments.