Striking sonorities in the sound of our time

The Berlin company Nico and the Navigators, currently touring with this production (twice more this coming Friday and Saturday at the Kasseler Musiktage), approaches the material with gripping immediacy. Early Baroque original sound suddenly spills over into breakdance, modern beats underpin madrigals and passacaglias, while a wall of massive folios is playfully devoured, scattered and ultimately dismantled in the course of the bustling action: a play of sonic and visual metaphors and allegories, unfolding as a performative Gesamtkunstwerk – virtuosic without striving for perfection, open to improvisation, and filled with a vitality that, echoing the musical figure at its center during these early November days, is able to integrate both grief and disquiet.