Basel Sinfonietta

Description

Vera Fischer, flute
Vivi Vassileva, percussion
Titus Engel, conductor
Basel Sinfonietta
James Dillon "Lightning Strike"
Nina Senk "Changing" for Orchestra
Tan Dun Percussion Concerto "The Tears of Nature"
The season opener is themed around natural events: as fascinating as they are unpredictable, they impact our world and its living beings. Three electrifying works bring the interplay of these forces to sound. One of them is James Dillon's "Lightning Strike" from the 1990s, a concerto for flute and orchestra. Following "Transcendence" and "Bright Night", it is the concluding work of his "German Triptych" — in it, the Scottish composer set to music the idea of enlightenment emerging from darkness. The work by Slovenian composer Nina Šenk unfolds less abruptly. "Changing" begins with a single tone, to which new material is slowly and steadily "attached". Created after the COVID pandemic, the composition deals with instability and change. The monotonous core idea remains recognizable but never identical. In a quiet forward motion, the piece rises and falls like breaths — thus, the orchestra becomes, in a sense, the organic respiratory tract with diverse percussion elements. The destructive, tragic power of nature is expressed in Tan Dun's Percussion Concerto "The Tears of Nature", which addresses three real natural disasters. The first movement "Threat of Nature" is dedicated to the earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 and the many affected people. According to the composer, following the brutality of nature comes regret — the tears of nature. The devastating tsunami in Japan inspired the second movement "Tears of Nature" and is interwoven with musical representations of water. The third movement "Dance of Nature" refers to Hurricane Sandy in New York and emphasizes the resilience of the inhabitants. For despite the tragedy, the entire work does not lose sight of a crucial message: the strength of the human spirit, which "strives for life, fights, and dances with nature".