Music by J.S. Bach, Franz Schubert, Claude Debussy, George Gershwin, Steve Reich, Gene Pritsker, Kai Schumacher and others ||
Tranquillity and intoxication, ecstasy and exhaustion, dream and reality - in its new programme, the SIGNUM Saxophone Quartet embarks on an odyssey through the realm of unlimited possibilities and contrasts, the night. For their Goldberg Nights, they have invited a fifth night owl, pianist and composer Kai Schumacher, who is also at home in several artistic universes. The fixed star in the night-time concert sky is Johann Sebastian Bach, who composed an ingenious piece of night music with his Goldberg Variations. SIGNUM and Kai Schumacher combine excerpts from the Goldberg Variations with other night addicts from music history, such as Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert.
For the Romantics, the night was the favourite biotope for melancholy, otherworldly soul excursions. Four Americans, on the other hand, make audible what the night sounds like in the city that never sleeps: Steve Reich makes minimalist soundscapes pulsate in Electric Counterpoint, while George Gershwin lets his sleepless thoughts fly over the brightly lit skyline in his Preludes. John Cage transports the listener into an enraptured dreamscape and with his Goldberg Blues Variations, composed exclusively for this programme, New York composer Gene Pritsker combines baroque, jazz and avant-garde in an unheard-of way. Last but not least, Kai Schumacher, a man of the 21st century, conjures up the pounding ecstasy laboratory of endless club nights in his own compositions (Rausch, Tranceformer).
