As we head in for the performance of Silencio, my friend jokes that we are about to witness an hour of silence. He could not be more wrong.

Saturday night’s performance of the composition by Berlin-based percussionist and record producer Moritz von Oswald is a sonic wonder. Traversing between electronics and the human voice at its most ethereal, the music is captivating and singular, underlining von Oswald’s iconic status in electronic music.

Judging by the conversation around us, many in the audience seem to be enthusiastic devotees of experimental electronic music. Yet it quickly becomes clear that one need not belong to this subculture to recognise that we are in the presence of one of its most accomplished practitioners.

The show begins in darkness with the entrance of von Oswald, five male singers and a conductor. With a pink handkerchief flouncing from the upper right pocket of his dapper suit, von Oswald quietly conveys his aristocratic roots. The son of a German countess and “a Hamburg merchant”, seated centrestage and surrounded by synthesisers, he looks strikingly like “God” as played by Willem Dafoe in Poor Things.

The stern aesthetics...