Ensemble Proton Bern

The system of tuning in music has been the object of experimentation since at least classical antiquity: according to history, the fact that an impure octave is the result of a series of pure intervals has occupied theoreticians and practitioners since Pythagoras. During the Renaissance, the approaches to solving this problem blossomed, and — in a nutshell — new instruments were developed that could realise various tuning systems without relying on today’s standard of 12 notes per octave. The arciorgano is one such instrument, built by Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576). Inspired by an antique approach to enharmonicism that uses intervals smaller than a semitone, Vicentino built an instrument with 36 notes per octave that was able to render the meantone temperament of the day transposable. However in the course of the Renaissance this practice did not become standardised; in today’s compositional practice, deviation from the 12 equal tempered notes eg. of the piano is common.

With new works by Burkhard Kinzler, Anda Kryeziu and Caspar Joannes Walter, we engage three composers who work intensively with tonal systems, not only for the sake of theory, but in order to create very individual soundscapes. To be able to delve into these tuning systems, we replace the piano and the modern harp with the arciorgano and a baroque harp. Through a collaboration with the Basel collective Studio 31+, we experience musical research up close: in an exchange between the composers and the research department of the University of Arts Northwest Switzerland, Ensemble Proton can bring pioneering music of the 21st century to life and not just be at the cutting edge, but leading the edge itself.

The collective Studio 31+ comprises musicians, scientists, composers and instrument makers. It performs research and documents the field of pitch system expansion within one octave.