Sonoskop is a group of  Berlin musicians who collaborate in different new music Ensembles in Berlin, such as Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, United Berlin, SonarQuartett, etc. The collective introduces itself with the following words:

„We create our own projects, substituted by Hauptstadtkulturfond Berlin, for example. Enthusiasm for new music in all its colours is our interest.Giacinto Scelsi is one of the most magic composers of 19th century, his pulse is our impetus.”

The musicians in this ensemble are:

Nikolaus Schlierf
Biliana Voutchkova
Skaistė Dikšaitytė
Tilman Kanitz
Daniel Eichholz

Programme:

• Riti: I funerali di Carlo Magno (A.D. 814) for cello and percussion (1962)
• Manto 1 for violin (1957)
• String Quartet No. 4 (1964)
• String Quartet No. 5 (1984)

Scelsi was an Italian composer who chose a path separate from all modernist movements and created music of a highly intuitive, mystical nature.

Giacinto Scelsi’s music was largely unknown throughout most of his life, as he refused to conduct interviews or make analytical comments about his works and rarely sought out performances. The attitudes behind his musical creations can be tied in with this reclusiveness; from the 1940s he saw music as a type of spiritual revelation. He began to compose his better known pieces at this time, works which involved static harmony with surface fluctuations of timbre and microtonal inflection. This type of harmonic minimalism was developed independently of other minimalist trends of the twentieth century, and was received with fascination by the musical world when his music finally began to receive performances and recordings in the 1980s. He wrote over 100 works, including several major pieces for orchestra, and works for chamber ensemble, string quartets, and solo and duo pieces. Many of his pieces were worked out in improvisation and subsequently written down.

(Text by Rachel Campbell)

This performance is part of the REMAIIN project, which has received grants from the European Union’s “Creative Europe” programme and the Latvian Ministry of Culture.
Read more about the project here – https://www.remaiin.eu.