In an oriental mood

The appeal of non-European music has existed for centuries. But mostly it was only used as an exotic coloring for thoroughly western music. This only changed in the music of the late 20th century. After intensive study of the Arabic maqamat, the microtonal harmonic and melodic elements of oriental music, Friedrich Cerha and the Swiss Klaus Huber created a whole series of works in which the European musical tradition enters into a creative dialogue with the Arabic one. Gerhard E. Winkler and Hossam Mahmoud, who comes from Salzburg by choice, also tie in with this in their commissioned works. The links between the two cultures are not only the Arabic instruments (played by Syrian musicians), but also the compositional techniques. In his piece entanglement 2, Mahmoud even goes so far as to network the musicians with one another using a special notation. The fact that between this encounter of cultures with Adriana Hölszky’s string quartet suspension bridges there is a hidden reminiscence of Franz Schubert is not just a smug aperçu.

PROGRAMM