Since 2014, Berlin-based label bastille musique has been one of the most dynamic and high-quality contemporary music labels on the musical landscape. We talk to Sebastian Solte, its founder. Strongly interested in creative music, he doesn't hesitate to dip into the repertoire at times, or leer towards the frontiers of jazz. 

SebastianWhat went through your mind to come up with the crazy idea of creating a contemporary music label in 2014, at a time of the darkest record crisis?
Just do it!(Just do it!)

Why the name " bastille musique "?
The name may evoke certain associations, which is neither unintentional nor coincidental.

Where did the idea come from for this very special presentation of the discs, like boxes? boxes or clothing boxes, in stapled cardboard, with black tissue paper surrounding the record and booklet: a presentation that is both luxurious and intriguing, but also in its simplest outward appearance?
The minimalist design was developed by a graphic artist I've known for a long time. He worked for many years in Japan and has a great sense of simple, substantial aesthetics. When the idea of founding the label came up, I knew he had to be the one to take care of the product design. In fact, I'd describe the look as a recognizable form of understated elegance. And never forget: content is king.

What's your background, where are you from?
I'm a music lover from southwest Germany. And as I'm an economist, I know that contemporary music is the best way to get rich quick!

How many people are on the label team? What are the profiles and positions?
We have an artistic director, a general manager and an intern, as well as the graphic designer I mentioned. We work with a wide range of creative people: composers, performers, ensembles, orchestras, recording producers, sound engineers, mixing and mastering experts, writers, musicologists, photographers, film-makers, archivists and audiophiles.

From the very first discs, you often use recordings made by radio stations, SWR or WDR (the first disc was released in 2016). Only some discs are produced by bastille musique. How do these partnerships come about?
It always depends on the repertoire, the performers and the best approach combined with the best team to make the recording. We always look for the ideal solutions when planning a recording project. On the other hand, our catalog also includes a number of recordings that were sometimes made years before the label came into existence. This reflects another aspect of our work, which is to go on a treasure hunt.

What is your economic system?
Not to waste time on false problems but concentrate on the essentials and work hard.

Do you receive support in Germany? Patronage? In what proportion?
Sometimes, but only on a project basis. We're always grateful to the institutions that support our projects, and especially to the individuals and donors who offer us their support. But above all, we take care of our buyers, those who buy the recordings and listen to them with pleasure.

Are your contemporary music discs widely bought? Who are your listeners? Do you know their profile?
It may come as a surprise, but yes, people still buy music! And not just vinyl records, but also CDs and downloads. For many music fans, it's a conscious choice to directly support the artists and labels they enjoy via platforms like Bandcamp. I've noticed that this is increasingly a movement of resistance to the power of monopolies or oligopolies that try to control an entire market. People are increasingly aware of this.

Your catalog includes many composers from the second half of the twentieth century who are no longer with us, such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz StockhausenLuciano Berio and Bernhard Alois Zimmerman, Iannis Xenakis and even Gérard Grisey. Others are still alive and active (Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders or Gérard Pesson). What is your aesthetic line? How do you choose your record releases? Who chooses the artists and composers?
That's true, and it's mostly a matter of intuition. By the way, you forgot to mention Brigitta Muntendorf, who is very lively and dynamic, a very special composer in the best sense of the word! There's a lot of great stuff out there that should be published and deserves more attention, but of course our resources are limited. Nevertheless, this is also a good thing, as it forces us to concentrate on the few projects we can select. Less ismore.

There's a bit of classical music on your discs (Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Scriabin) as well as modern jazz (Stefanovich-Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, or SDLW). What are the reasons for these choices? What are the proportions?
Basically, it's a selection of music that I find interesting to listen to. Like many projects, the release of SDLW is the fruit of coincidences and personal encounters: pianist Tamara Stefanovich contacted me to say she'd started playing with the avant-garde jazz trio Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard. So I was lucky enough to be invited to one of the first rehearsals of these four exceptional composer-performers. Their rehearsal in 2019 was like a thunderclap! So we organized concerts, produced their first album and even went as far as the Salle Cortot in Paris, where we first met, Guillaume. Music is and always has been a chain of (personal) encounters. With music from the past, from past decades or centuries, it's a question of intertemporal encounters, a phenomenon that still fascinates me every day.

Could this label have been created anywhere other than Berlin?
The story of SDLW's birth is a typically Berlin one. The idiosyncratic encounter between Christopher Dell, Christian Lillinger, Jonas Westergaard and Tamara Stefanovich could only have taken place here. The process of creating bastille musique was closely linked to my work as manager of theZafraan Ensemble from 2012 to 2020, which explains the presence of three great discs by this ensemble on the label. Thanks to them, I got to know Christophe Bertrand's music, which led to the huge recording project at WDR thanks to Harry Vogt's support. Like SDLW, Zafraan is an example of international musical encounters in Berlin, with its ten members from five countries, including Emmanuelle Bernard from France and Miguel Pérez Iñesta from Spain. I was delighted to see that the latter had just conducted the Ensemble l'Itinéraire 's 50th anniversary concert at IRCAM. In 2019, we have organized a series of concerts with the Zafraan ensemble, entitled "Rencontres", with the Parisian ensembles Court-circuit and l'Itinéraire. As you can see, it's all about encounters.

What's the music scene like in Berlin? Is the label benefiting? How's it going?
Well, it's impressive. The range of concerts of all kinds and shows in general is incredibly diverse these days. So it's a real challenge to deal with the constant fear of missing out. Of course, such an environment is the ideal playground for launching a music label. That's why there are hundreds of major labels here (and I'm not talking about oligopolies).

Tell us about your penultimate record, the n°25released in September 2023, featuring works by Rebecca Saunders, André Boucourechliev, James Clarke and Rolf Riehm. What are the reasons for the association of these artists for the program of the same disc?
Full responsibility must be attributed to the great British pianist Nicolas Hodges, who put together the program for the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2020. When the festival was cancelled at the last minute due to Covid, he had the opportunity to record this special recital, and then he suggested these recordings to me. I was thrilled from the first listen, and we decided to make an album of them on bastille musique.         

Trio Catch is another example of mixed programs. They proposed me their program for the album As if, which was released in 2019 and includes works by Gérard Pesson and Johannes Borowski, among others. With Trio Catch, I've been presenting a concert series entitled "Ohrknacker" ("ear-cracker") in Berlin and Hamburg since 2018. Last year, Swiss cellist Eva Boesch and Korean pianist Sun-Young Nam were joined by Slovak clarinetist Martin Adámek (who is also a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain) - successor to Hungarian clarinetist Boglárka Pecze, founding member of Trio Catch -, and in December, Trio Catch will perform Christophe Bertrand's Sanh (2006) as part of this "Ohrknacker" series in Berlin and Hamburg. Once again, all this is linked to international encounters.

And what about the n°26released on November 24, with works by Franco Alfano, known for having completed the last two scenes of Puccini's Turandot?
Like the complete Lieder byErwin Schulhoff released in 2020, here's another release under the impetus of Freiburg pianist Klaus Simon, who is one of the most original defenders of the neglected or forgotten repertoire of the early twentieth century, in addition to his penchant for chamber arrangements of Mahler's works. I've been working with him for ten years, supporting his concert projects and producing or releasing some of his most interesting recordings. This collection of Franco Alfano 's complete "liriche" (art songs) will come as a surprise to many music lovers, most of them world premiere recordings. Everyone knows Alfano for having completed "Turandot" (some may even know his operas), but hardly anyone knows his chamber works and symphonies, or the "liriche". Thanks to the three fantastic singers Alexandra Flood (soprano), Nina Tarandek (mezzo-soprano) and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner (mezzo-soprano), you'll have the chance to discover this unique repertoire of lieder, somewhere between late Romanticism, late Impressionism, Verismo and Modernism.

Interview by Guillaume Kosmicki

Photos © Bettina Schimmer