Zodiac Signs

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The Zodiac in Baroque Music

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Sunday, 20 June 2027, 19:00

Kartäuserkirche, Basel

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Programme

• Johann Abraham Schmierer (1661–1719): Zodiaci musici in XII Partitas balleticas, veluti sua Signa divisi, or in zwölf Ballettischen Parthyen / als seinen zwölf Zeichen / musikalisch vorgestellten Himmel-Kreyses (1698/1691)

• Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007): Tierkreis (1974–75)

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Musicians

Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez (cello and concept) – Anne Simone Aeberhard (recorders) – Mojca Gal (violin) – Niels Pfeffer (theorbo) – Thys Grobelnik (harpsichord) – Avishai Chameides (viola)

 

What do a Baroque dance suite and a music box have in common? In this case, a fascination with the heavens.

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Almost three centuries separate Johann Abraham Schmierer's Zodiaci musici and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Tierkreis. Both take the twelve signs of the zodiac as their starting point – yet arrive at remarkably different musical worlds.

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Stockhausen assigns a distinct melody to each zodiac sign and originally composed the cycle for music boxes; versions for a wide variety of instrumental combinations followed. Schmierer's twelve Ballettische Parthyen (dance suites) remain more enigmatic: rather than assigning individual suites to particular zodiac signs, he draws on the 17th-century fascination with organising music into cycles inspired by nature, the seasons and the celestial order.