On the Dancefloor

Dance is more than movement to music. Dance is passion and pure lust for life. Celebrations call for dancing. That was as true in the palaces and the taverns of the 18th century as it is today in the techno temples of the new era. This is the surging river that ECHO-Klassik winners Spark have set out to bridge in their project 'On the Dancefloor.' The Classical Band throws an arch from the spirited ballet music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to the chamber techno penned by contemporary composer Sebastian Bartmann, finding that two seemingly contrasting worlds actually fit very well together. The question is: what can a gavotte of 1778 and a techno piece of 2017 learn from one another? In the view of Spark, the Classical Band, quite a lot. Mozart in his day knew how to build wildly throbbing structures so as to create this trance-like state that today's dance-mad club-goers still live for. On the other hand there is scarcely a techno piece that does without baroque or classical figurations. This sets in motion a stimulating, lively dialogue between yesterday and today, between the ultimate Classical maestro and the trend-setters of the contemporary composing circuit. The two centuries and more that separate Mozart from Bartmann and his contemporaries are brilliantly illuminated by Spark. The musicians have consciously chosen to keep jumping back and forth between these worlds, sparking direct connections between them. So you sense intimately how timeless dance is and how similar are the emotions aroused by the dances of quite different times and genres. There is always this boundless delight in going wild to music, feeling utterly alive and letting the rhythms stream through your body - complete surrender, total immersion in the intoxicating whirl of sound. That is just what Spark would wish for all listeners to this album: nights of wild dancing through all the ages of music!