The Swiss pianist Alain Roche not only seems to have no fear of heights, but also a very early riser. Back in January 2020, the inventor of “Piano Vertical” amazed people at the “Out of the Box” festival on the factory premises with early morning musical exercise that aimed high: on three days early in the morning on the site of the planned concert hall, he played a 45-minute Concert – at a height of 78 meters, to which a crane had pulled its wing vertically. The instrument, like the piano stool with a special and particularly stable backrest, is a custom-made product developed together with the Swiss piano makers Fernand Kummer and Cédric Berthoud: so that the hammers strike the strings correctly vertically, a completely new mechanism is necessary.
The spectacular images that went around the world back then can now be experienced again, 182 times. From the solstice on December 22nd to June 20th, 2024, Roche will perform his hanging game under the title every morning before sunrise until dawn “When The Sun Stands Still – Solstice To Solstice” play. Whatever the weather and always timed to coincide with the sunrise.
Roche’s “Piano Vertical”, which he has staged with a good 120 piano hangings since 2013, is not about records. It’s about “breaking down generally accepted ideas and taking a different look at the everyday.” For him, playing the piano up and into the vertical is a “poetic act”. A total work of art that also incorporates current references. Just as the 2020 program under the title “Chantiers” (Construction Site) literally alluded to its venue, the concert hall fallow in the Werksviertel, “When The Sun Stands Still” now also has an aesthetic and social message.
Once again, the spectators, who can lie down in deck chairs, are given headphones so that they can hear the piano playing. This time, however, natural sounds are also recorded simultaneously and in real time: 40 highly sensitive microphones are distributed across Bavaria: from the Zugspitze to the Pottenstein natural cave or the Bavarian Forest National Park to the Ferchenbach near Elmau Castle or the moorland near Bad Heilbrunn. The awakening of nature, the connection between rural and urban (sound) space becomes an improvisational part of Roche’s composition, and is ultimately intended to create awareness of the diversity and richness of our landscapes and biotopes and call for their protection.
Regardless of the spectacular show value, one can understand it as a commentary on the changing climate and times when Roche’s project combines nature with culture every morning, from solstice to solstice for half a year.
Alain Roche: When The Sun Stands Still, Friday, December 22nd, to Friday, June 21st, half an hour before sunrise, Werksviertel, Atelierstraße 18, www.werksviertel-mitte.de