The French composer Yann Robin, born in 1974, is one of those composers who work with cycles. At the outset, a piece might not have been conceived as part of a series; it can, however, be the first one of such and inspire research into the problems of form, of sound, of material. It is often an encounter with a musician which sets things in motion. For twenty years Yann Robin has collaborated with the Ensemble intercontemporain and its soloists, with pieces and cycles conceived for and with them. Each exchange, each search leads to the discovery of instrumental potential and unimagined possibilities, and to pushing back the limits of tessituras.

The experience of fragility in people’s own existence and the collective threat have found manifold echoes in the arts. New orchestral works by Matthias Pintscher, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, Miroslav Srnka, Beat Furrer and Charlotte Seither are powerful testimony to an exceptional period.

Philipp Maintz has focussed more intensively on the organ in his output in recent years. In a conversation, reproduced here in excerpts, he answered questions from his editor Robert Krampe.

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s “Dies illa” is about “the proverbial ‘fear of dying’, the moment which will confront us all and which we suppress as best we can throughout our lives”. He composed the choral-symphonic work for the 200th anniversary of the Basler Gesangverein setting a text by Alain Claude Sulzer. In this work for chorus and orchestra, the moment of death is depicted in five verses from different perspectives. Scartazzini makes reference to the second movement of Brahms’s “Deutsches Requiem”. In this movement, “Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras”, the Swiss composer sees an “almost baroque-like memento mori” which has always captivated him. The premiere on 17 and 19 November 2023 in Basel Cathedral is conducted by Facundo Agudin with the Basler Gesangverein and the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

A ten-minute orchestral tutti, comprising an “archaic unison movement” and “iambic percussive accents”, opens the single movement First Symphony by Heinz Winbeck with almost elemental power. This is followed by more peaceful passages, but the basic mood of the music remains anxious and driven. In between, allusions to, or direct quotations from Gustav Mahler’s 3rd and 10th Symphonies are constantly heard, as an expression in sound of longing and evocation of a different, more humane world. Heinz Winbeck (1946–2019) ambiguously named his First Symphony “Tu solus”, which refers firstly to the Gloria of the Catholic rite, but secondly to the absolute isolation in the sense of “you are alone”, and dedicated it “to the memory of Sophie Scholl”.

Miroslav Srnka’s orchestral work “Superorganisms” will be premiered by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ryan Wigglesworth in Tokyo on 27 June 2023 after the scheduled premiere in Berlin had to be postponed due to illness. Superorganisms are forms of existence in which kindred beings work together synergistically and in a self-organized manner. An example for superorganisms in human culture are symphony orchestras – and this is where Miroslav Srnka’s new work comes in.

Miroslav Srnka has composed a concerto for the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and the Gürzenich-Orchester Cologne. François-Xavier Roth conducts the world premiere of "Standstill" on 11 September in Cologne. Three questions on his new work to the composer.