ACHT BRÜCKEN Festival day 4ensemble mosaic – Sichtbare Musik (Visible Music)This was a concert of great ideas: hanging electromechanical snare drums, surround sound processing, electro-extended conductor, teddy bear tantrums and lots more. One of the pieces I liked the most was ‘zaehmungen no. 2 bogenwechsel’ by Eduardo Moguillanksy: string players with tape bows “music tape on their bows drawn over tape recorder playheads”, modified melodicas and lots of extended techniques from the other instruments. Fascinating to watch and hear. The only aspect which didn’t work for me were the triggered samples in the keyboard. Despite working musically, it was the one sound which wasn’t corporeal in nature and so we lost the concept of an ensemble of interesting new ways to make sounds from their instruments. This issue was addressed directly by Alexander Schubert’s ‘Point Ones’, where the conductor Enno Poppe was fitted with sensors on his wrists which triggered samples based on his movements: kind of a rusty robot where the squeaks from movement could be any sound.Overall an interesting concert, despite almost every piece seemingly to put more emphasis on technical innovation than the working proportions of live music. All played very well by Mosaik. The second concert was the Bamberger Symphony conducted by Jonathan Nott playing Ligeti’s ‘Apparitions’ and ‘Clocks and Clouds’ with a second half of Le Sacre du printemps. Interesting to hear how Ligeti in his 40’s (Clocks and Clouds) was searching for more subdued ways to create a climax, without loud boisterousness.Le Sacre on the other hand, makes full use of boisterousness! It is always a great pleasure to hear that piece live. 1