Blomdahl/Radigue

The pedal point is a kind of exceptional state in polyphonic church music: a passage in which the bass part pauses on a sustained note, slowing the melodic flow. In other genres, such bass notes are more often the norm, and are usually known as drones.

Tony Blomdahl’s Der Wohltemperierte Orgelpunkt is a kind of synthesis of these two diametrically opposed ideas of movement versus stillness. Written for hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes and electronics, the work brings the minimalist drone aesthetic into contact with ideas from J.S. Bach’s maximalist Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, which is based on the principle that all twelve keys should be equally represented.

Slowly evolving sounds are also central to Éliane Radigue’s music. Radigue became known as a pioneer of electronic music in the 1960s and 1970s, when she worked with both feedback and analogue synthesisers. During the last two decades of her long life, however, she wrote primarily for acoustic instruments, and when she died in early 2026 she left behind an exceptionally rich catalogue of works. At this tribute concert, Julia Eckhardt and Enrico Malatesta perform solo and duo pieces for viola and percussion.