Diego Castro Magas + Cristián Alvear: Jürg Frey

Chilean guitarists Cristián Alvear and Diego Castro-Magas perform Tombeau, a new work for two electric guitars by Swiss composer Jürg Frey, a central figure of the Wandelweiser collective, premiered at hcmf// on 29 November 2026.

Having developed his own language as a composer with the creation of wide, quiet sound spaces, Frey's work is marked by an elementary non-extravagance of sound, a sensibility for the qualities of the musical material, and a precision of compositional approach. Sometimes his compositions bypass instrumentation and duration altogether, rather touching on aspects of sound art.

In Tombeau, the two guitars meet as equals, their tones unfolding side by side with none in the foreground; the music never overrides the room, allowing the sounds already present in the room to become part of the listening experience.

Tombeau is also a personal reflection on transience, on the irreversibility of time. In Frey's words: "It has recently become a physical experience for me that every sound, the moment it emerges, is instantly, irrevocably and at great speed transformed into the past. My music is slow; the transformation of every sound, of every moment of sound, into the past is swift, incomprehensible, ineffable."

Soon to be released on the experimental music label Another Timbre, Tombeau is a major new work by one of contemporary music's most influential composers, performed by two of its most dedicated interpreters.