In his Second String Quartet, Jürg Frey succeeds in transforming every chord the instrumentalists play into a long « exhale » by using innovative bow techniques. To this collective instrumental breath, he adds the soft murmurs of the vocalists, who sing very quietly, in an almost spectral whisper. It is as if they are sharing a secret or talking to themselves as you do on certain nights, when you experience great joy or a deep sense of calm. This kind of music is, in a way, very similar to the ephemeral sound of Breathcore, Michaël Schmid’s singular «  choir of breaths » . It is the evening’s main theme, creating the kind of music that is «  diffused » rather than projected.

Jürg Frey notes that a musical composition can be conceived as path, with a start and a direction and what is essentially called development. If we shift our perspective, instinct suggests that we could also think of music as an expanse. The audience’s attention will then be drawn to the way in which some notes gently expand into space and time, like a liquid or a breath. The music then becomes a daydream, which Gaston Bachelard famously called «  a fragrant breath that issues from things through the dreamer » . The same goes for Albertine’s breath, according to Marcel Proust, which evokes «  the pure song of the angels » , as it has neither «  the solidity of speech or silence ».

Solid silence can be intimidating – its immensity always inspires a certain theological prestige – whereas breathing connects us. «  To breathe means to be immersed in a medium that penetrates us with the same intensity as we penetrate it » , writes Emanuele Coccia in The Life of Plants.

This immersive concert, where everyone is free to choose a place and position to listen, is thus all about breathing and the expansion of this breath. The accordion becomes a lung, the flute a larynx. Even the lightscape by Sylvie Melis, who has created a custom light work for this concert, is essentially an «  escape » of photons, in her own words, which are blown through spaces in matter.

Read more : [And on it went](https://www.wandelweiser.de/_juerg-frey/texts-e.html#AND) by Jürg Frey, on Wandelweiser website