"KONTRABACH"

KONTRABACH<>David Sontòn

"Kontrabach is deep, Kontrabach is dark, yet Kontrabach is an experience for everyone, a broadening of horizons."

In the arrangements of Kontrabach, J.S. Bach's music shows a completely new side of its own. The special feature is the very unconventional and daring instrumentation with double bass clarinet and double bass. Marc Lardon and Daniel Sailer manage the balancing act between baroque and contemporary with their interpretations. The music usually sounds two octaves lower than usual, chords are sometimes more reminiscent of clusters, but the music remains harmonious and comprehensible at all times and at the same time impresses with a new quality and independence.

In the last 7 years we have exclusively interpreted music by J.S. Bach with our duo, but now it is time to take the step into the present. We also want to play contemporary music with our duo, for which the instrumentation is virtually predestined. But understandably, there is hardly any literature for double bass clarinet and double bass. That's why we asked the Grisons composer David Sontòn to write a piece for us.

Sontòn's composition "La harpa da taghel" for double bass clarinet, double bass and tape refers to the Grisons writer Theo Candinas. The piece lasts about 30 minutes and forms one half of the program, the other half will be music by J.S. Bach.
In the concert program, we will juxtapose Sontòn's composition with the music of J.S. Bach and thus hope to bring contemporary music closer to a wider audience.

Marc Lardon, double bass clarinet
Daniel Sailer, double bass

As a Rhaeto-Romanic composer, I have already set several texts in this language to music,
such as "La canzun dil bau", "La canzun da Sontga Margriata", the saga "La metta da fein", "Sospiroso" by Arnold Spescha or "Daspö ons" by Leta Semadeni.
In my search for a suitable text, I soon came across Theo Candinas, a Romansh writer who was very important to me. Firstly because he was so unique among his writing colleagues, and secondly because he dared to do it like no other writer of his time,
to illuminate the present in a sharply socially critical tone. Which didn't just win him friends...
One of the close links with the two musicians from Kontrabach is also the critical illumination of our society and its connection with history.
This ultimately led to the combination of Theo Candinas' thinking with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, who from a musical point of view was also unique for his time and has had a significant influence on music-making to this day.
My research into low-pitched instruments led me to a very special instrument from Celtic times (here again a link to Graubünden and the past), but not from our region, but an instrument from Iceland, namely the tagelharp.
This ancient, bowed hand harp is characterized by its very low register and the rather loosely stretched strings.
The sound of this instrument captivates the listener with its calm, sombre but also soothing character. This in turn led me to the opening chorus of what is probably Bach's most important work, namely the St. Matthew Passion. The first 10 bars of this "Ouverture" by Bach form the basic musical material of the entire piece. Inspired by the enormous length of the St. Matthew Passion, I decided to compose a piece that is also very long for a duo, lasting over 30 minutes, as I had no restrictions from "Kontrabach" in this respect.
David Sontòn Caflisch


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.