Commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Ascolta

"The identities of masterpieces seem firmly fixed. Even before the concert begins, we know basically what they will sound like – which introduces the danger of becoming a museum object. The Danish composer Simon Steen-Andersen and the ensemble ascolta follow a different approach: like a theater director taking on a piece, Steen-Andersen performs famous pieces inspired by night (including its spooky side), from Bach to Ravel. He stages them afresh for ear and eye, updates and dusts them off – thus removing them from their historical distance into the here and now. In other words, instead of a fussy “reading of the classics,” he underscores the originally unsettling impact of these works. In Schumann’s Träumerei, time seems to stand still, while Ravel’s Scarbo morphs from a virtuoso piece into a horror trip and the famous revenge aria from The Magic Flute becomes a techno hymn by a drag queen. “Maybe that’s what Mozart’s ‘Queen of the Night’ and Ravel’s Gaspard sound like when you’re high on coke", remarked Stuttgarter Zeitung."

Program book of Lucerne Festival 2017