ZwölftonWien / 26–27

Ensemble for new music / Vienna / twelve players

Zwölfton

Music written in the last five years, played by twelve people who can hear each other, with nobody standing at the front.

Season 26 / 27
0C
11B
3D♯
4E
8G♯
7G
9A
5F
6F♯
1C♯
2D
10A♯

A row is only an order. It tells you what comes next and nothing at all about how loud, how long, or whether anybody should enjoy it. We have taken that as a working method rather than a style.

Six nights

Season 26 / 27. Two of them are somewhere other than the Konzerthaus.

  1. 18.092026

    Erste Reihe

    Saariaho / Czernowin / Haas

    Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

    Season opening

  2. 23.102026

    Nichts wiederholt sich

    Two premieres, one of them ours

    Wien Modern, Halle E

    Festival

  3. 04.122026

    Kammer

    Feldman, all of it, in one sitting

    Alte Schmiede

    Late

  4. 29.012027

    Zwölf Antworten

    Twelve one-minute commissions

    Konzerthaus, Schubert-Saal

    Premieres

  5. 12.032027

    Grundton

    Scelsi / Radigue / Lucier

    Sargfabrik

  6. 07.052027

    Letzte Reihe

    Everything commissioned this season, again

    Konzerthaus, Berio-Saal

    Season close

Three rules

Agreed in 2019, tested every season, still standing.

01

No conductor

Twelve players who can hear each other. Anything that needs a thirteenth person standing up to hold it together is a piece we have not rehearsed enough.

02

Nothing older than five years

With four exceptions a season, chosen by the players, argued about in March and announced without justification.

03

The composer is in the room

Every commission includes three rehearsals with the composer present and one where they are asked to leave, so we can find out what the score actually says.

Twelve

Fixed personnel. Substitutes are named on the night, on the door, in the same size type.

  1. 01Ines HaberlFlute
  2. 02Tomás RuizOboe
  3. 03Nora PichlerClarinet
  4. 04Jan KovačBassoon
  5. 05Mia SteinbachHorn
  6. 06Elias FuchsTrumpet
  7. 07Ruth AlmásiPercussion
  8. 08Vera LindqvistPiano
  9. 09Aleks NowakViolin I
  10. 10Hanna BergerViolin II
  11. 11Paul WinterViola
  12. 12Sofia MarekCello

Twelve people is the largest group that can still argue properly.

Vera Lindqvist, piano, on why the ensemble never grew

Everything we asked for

Every commission since the first season, including the ones nobody plays now.

  1. 2027Ana Lucía FerrerUntitled (in progress)12 playersPremiere 07.05
  2. 2026Kenji OharaSecond Room8 playersPremiere 23.10
  3. 2026Mirjam BeckZwölf Antworten I–XII12 × 1′Premiere 29.01
  4. 2025Idris SalahAnemometer6 players + tape4 performances
  5. 2025Léa FontaineSans mesure12 players7 performances
  6. 2024Petra HoxhaKante / RandSolo percussion11 performances
  7. 2024Nils ØdegaardDer lange Ton12 players5 performances
  8. 2023Yuki TanabeSieveString quartet9 performances
  9. 2023Amara DialloWeather Report8 players6 performances
  10. 2022Rob FeenstraNothing Doing12 players3 performances
  11. 2022Selin AksoyHalbtonPiano + electronics14 performances
  12. 2021EnsembleErste Bestellung12 playersRetired

On record

Our own label, pressed in runs of five hundred, never repressed.

  1. ZT 08Der lange TonØdegaard2025LP + digital
  2. ZT 07Sieve / KanteTanabe, Hoxha2024Digital only
  3. ZT 06Sans mesureFontaine2024LP + digital
  4. ZT 05HalbtonAksoy2023Digital only
  5. ZT 04Nothing DoingFeenstra2022LP, out of print
  6. ZT 03GrundtonScelsi, Radigue2022LP + digital
  7. ZT 02KammerFeldman20213 × LP
  8. ZT 01Erste BestellungEnsemble2020Digital only

What a rehearsal week looks like

Four days on a piece nobody has heard, and the first of them is spent reading it out loud, badly, all the way through.

Day one is a read-through with no stopping. It is unpleasant and it is the only time the whole shape of a piece is audible before we have opinions about the bars.

Day two is sections, day three is the composer's day, and on day four we play it twice with a stopwatch and pick the take that was worse but more alive.

Anybody can call a halt. In practice it is the percussionist, because she is the only one who can see everyone.

Coming to hear it

Where
Most nights at the Konzerthaus. Some in a former coffin factory.
Tickets
€ 9 – 34. Standing is € 9 and there is always standing.
Length
Between forty minutes and four hours. It says which on the ticket.
Applause
Whenever you like. We have stopped minding.

Scores, invitations, complaints

reihe@zwoelfton.example

Ungargasse 14/2, 1030 Wien. We read every score that arrives and answer in about six weeks, which is slow and honest.