in-between

Multifaceted tonal colours, virtuosity, and a field of tension between ruptures and connections characterize the music of Turgut Erçetin. In particular, he illuminates the in-between spaces in a wide variety of dimensions. As Paul Griffiths explains in the booklet, the composer explores “the space between instruments or groups, between harmony and noise […], between spectra, between what is played and what resounds from the performance space.”

At the center of the album lies the cycle “Das Phonem zwischen zwei Wörtern” (“The Phoneme Between Two Words”). The largest part, (b), draws on one of Turgut Erçetin’s research fields: vanished architecture, here referring to two demolished Byzantine buildings. In this work, the SWR Symphony Orchestra as a modern orchestra meets a Baroque ensemble with musicians from the ELISION Ensemble. However, the two formations do not appear as opposites but as mutually interacting seeds. The smaller pieces (a) and (c) function as fanfare and epilogue: they condense the themes of fusion and separation, ultimately leading the ELISION musicians back to modern instruments.

Ensemble Musikfabrik is featured in two works on this album: “Resonances (b)” and “Thousand Dead Bodies Under My Bed, All Cloaked with the Breath of the Living”. The latter recalls how the past continues to live on – in art, in memory, in trauma. Within three interlaced ensembles, an interplay unfolds: characteristics drift from one group to another, while the very nature of the piece as a whole gradually shifts.