Cancellation of the Alps

Matthias Lincke, violin, composition
Andrea Kirchhofer, violin
Elias Menzi, Appenzell dulcimer
Hiasl, double bass
Fridolin Blumer, double bass
Sheldon Suter, percussion, zither

Aufhebung der Alpen
Composition for 2 violins, 2 double basses, dulcimer and percussion
by Matthias Lincke

The ice of our glaciers is melting. And with it, the Alps are losing their aura of eternity and indestructibility. The once immovable Alpine backdrop is beginning to waver, and many a view is turning away from the mountain regions as the epitome of home and security and adopting a global perspective in search of new concepts for security and continuity.
Culturally, this is clearly reflected in a split in Switzerland. On the one hand, there are groups that vehemently cling to the concept of home and uphold the customs associated with it. On the other hand, a global perspective on the new imperative is developing, which is critical of old traditions and their patriarchal, colonialist references.

Matthias Lincke's current composition "Aufhebung der Alpen" ("Abolition of the Alps") is situated in the field of tension between these positions. The ambivalence of the situation is expressed in the term "Aufhebung", borrowed from Hegel's dialectic.
On the one hand, we can understand "Aufhebung" as the dissolution of old, outdated forms, on the other hand in the sense of preserving elements of tradition with a promising future, indeed "upholding" them.
The composition "revives" the culture of the Alps and at the same time perceives it anew in its fragility, transience, even strangeness.
With a new sensitivity, the musicians involved turn to the tradition and enter into a relationship with it. However, this is not out of an idealising impulse, but as respectful visitors to a largely undiscovered terrain.

Starting from the composition, the musicians unfold a panorama of the tonal diversity of the Alpine region.
In the course of the programme, traditional Appenzell string music is juxtaposed with an experimental, sound-painting approach, and the opposing worlds enter into new connections.
Fragments of old tunes from the culture of the alpine people lie like boulders in a soundscape that leads from gently rising meadows to rugged slopes and is criss-crossed by serpentines.
Old dances and their ritualised sequences become the subtext of their own sound world, a bubbling "primordial soup" from which they rise anew in an unfamiliar perspective.
The result is music that lives from the vision of leaving behind what has become superfluous in a double "abolition", but instead carrying on essential elements of tradition.
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