5 against 4

Unsuk Chin - Violin Concerto (Total Immersion)

2012-02-01T21:30:00.002Z

Last year, in my article about the Total Immersion day devoted to the music of Unsuk Chin, i didn't say much about the Violin Concerto, which was omitted from the BBC's broadcast • However, in November they finally got round to broadcasting it, so here it is • The performance, at the Barbican in London, was given by Jennifer Koh with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ivan Volkov • In the concert hall, Koh's violin often struggled to be heard above the considerable orchestral forces pitted against it, so it's good to hear the balance so nicely restored in the broadcast •

Despite being composed in a familiar, four-movement plan, it's a piece rather difficult to unpick • In some ways, the textures are simpler & more defined than usual, but this is countered by material that is highly organic • It opens in a dense place, lower notes moving vaguely while the soloist draws a high line filled with open strings & natural harmonics • The brass are the first to become apparent, chords shifting in the background, their movement causing everything momentarily to swell, & then halt • The soloist's first cadenza is wiry & (in the best sense) aimless, its twists & swoops more a result of fun than purpose • But Chin is just as concerned with momentum as with reverie, & she soon pushes the violin back into a pace that becomes ever more swift, culminating in a moto perpetuo that's urged on by orchestral stomps • Another cadenza ensues, more rapid than before, & a sustained brass chord ushers in the movement's climax, which sends the frantic soloist plummeting • The slow second movement places heavy emphasis on Chin's trademark use of percussion • The soft opening is exquisite, a harp gently accompanying the violin, while the strings occasionally coalesce around them both • The warm consonance heard here, together with its brightly glittering surface (expanded downwards by gongs) bring to mind the soundworld of Takemitsu, although only in a superficial sense &, indeed, only briefly, as Chin soon moves everyone on in an altogether more tense direction • The violins shiver & buzz around the soloist, & there's an abrupt shift to lower trills, whereupon a series of harsh but undeniably radiant eruptions begins in the woodwind • As before, slow brass chords cause things to change, this time having a calming effect, reducing both orchestra & soloist to silence •

The Violin Concerto was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 2004, & while Chin is undoubtedly worthy of the award, this, of all her pieces, is arguably not the one that should have been singled out for such praise, as it's let down by the last two movements • While it would be pushing it to describe the previous movements as romantic, there's nonetheless a rather breathless, heady lushness to the music which serves to support the diverse assortment of melodic strands that continually occupy the soloist • But the third & fourth movements more or less dispense entirely with lyricism, opting instead for emphatically gestural material; this, together with their relative brevity (barely half the duration of the first two movements) makes for an unexpectedly disappointing denouement that somewhat undermines the work as a whole •

The blink-&-you'll-miss-it third movement emerges as hopping fragments from some initial heavy thuds • The violin affects a stab at a melodic line, but—surrounded by wild bangs & crashes on all sides—it's easily overwhelmed, opting instead simply to ascend to stratospheric heights while the orchestra, rather bizarrely, sounds like it wants to tune up • The final movement is no less troubled, lurching along through its opening minutes, preoccupied with high registers • Chin does then spend some time rekindling the warmth heard earlier, but it's swiftly dissipated as the orchestra grows restless & starts chattering over the soloist, breaking its line • The conclusion, though, is excellent; another sustained brass chord causes a similar effect to that in the first movement, agitating the soloist to a fever pitch while the woodwinds chirrup & flourish like crazy—this time, in sympathy with the violin rather than in spite of it • After the final climax all fades to a shimmer, & the violin briefly touches on its open string idea from the start •

Unsuk Chin - Violin Concerto [29:05]
FLAC [128Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 45Mb]

Steve Reich - Triple Quartet (UK Première) & Different Trains; Conlon Nancarrow - String Quartet

2012-01-07T17:23:00.001Z

Back in October, i marked George Crumb's birthday with a recording of his seminal work Black Angels, given by The Smith Quartet • That performance was part of a concert devoted to American music, & it makes sense to explore the remaining pieces • The concert, which took place at the Cheltenham Music Festival on 11 July 2001, opened with the UK première of Steve Reich's Triple Quartet • Even relatively blunt-eyed readers of 5:4 may have noticed the paucity of discussion about minimalism on these pages, & that's no accident; it's a generalisation, to be sure, & there are many exceptions, but for the most part minimalism leaves me very cold indeed • Yet despite his more recent compositional catastrophes—the less said about WTC 9/11 the better—Reich's kind of minimalism impresses more than most •

His Triple Quartet is so named for the way two prerecorded string quartets are superposed upon a live quartet (alternatively, it can be performed by 12 live musicians) • The triple idea extends to the work's structure, being in three movements that adhere to the age-old convention fast-slow-fast • The outer movements are essentially the same idea explored in a slightly different way; a harmonic progression of four minor chords (Bm, Dm, Fm & G♯m — Reich calls them "dominant" chords but without conventional tonality that term is meaningless) that underpin rapid rhythmic material • In the first movement, there's much overlapping of these chords, but the changes become increasingly abrupt, & by the last movement, driven on by the rhythmic writing, these chords fly past very quickly indeed • The slow central movement is much more static, both rhythmically & harmonically, focussed on & around the B minor chord alone • Both of the faster movements feature material of a more lyrical nature, with a kind of folk-like plangency, & this comes to the fore in the middle movement, made both more poignant & potent by the abrupt halt in the tempo & the stronger sense of counterpoint • This is what makes the Triple Quartet worth hearing; despite the intensity of this slow episode making the outer movements seem even more ephemeral & arbitrary—a kind of empty energy—the music's sudden switch to oscillations around a fixed point is rather mesmerising • But make no mistake, the slow movement is most definitely the meat in this sandwich •

The performance of Black Angels came next in the concert, & i should point out that since writing the Crumb article i noticed some problems with the audio; they've now been corrected, & fresh links for Black Angels have been added to that article •

The second half of the concert began by turning to one of America's great mavericks, Conlon Nancarrow • Best known for his radical series of studies for the player-piano, Nancarrow's String Quartet, completed in 1945, draws on similar techniques to those pieces, despite inhabiting a markedly different soundworld • Also cast in three movements, the first—a mere 2½ minutes long—is almost entirely made up of a mixture of canonic & isorhythmic devices; the harmony is akin to the kind of oblique tonality of Bartók, while the rhythmic writing occasionally brings Tippett to mind • These frantic textures find a total contrast in the second movement (Andante moderato); it's no less canonic (if anything, it's more), but the music is lazy & languid, coloured by vague allusions to the blues • It, too, is gone almost as soon as it's got going, & Nancarrow concludes the piece with another movement absolutely festooned with contrapuntal invention, including double & inversion canons, climaxing with a rather fantastical 8-part canon, two voices given to each instrument • Aside from maths, though, this finale is most striking through the diversity of methods by which the material is expressed, with pizzicato & harmonic passages nicely juxtaposed amongst dense counterpoint •

The Smith Quartet ended their concert with one of Steve Reich's most justly-celebrated works, Different Trains • Composed in 1988, the work is in essence a culmination of the various ideas & techniques Reich had been using since his very earliest compositions • Prior to this piece, Reich had composed three works exploring the contrapuntal possibilities of live performers playing with recorded versions of themselves—Vermont Counterpoint, New York Counterpoint & Electric Counterpoint—& this idea is greatly expanded in Different Trains, the string quartet playing alongside a tape with an additional three quartets, giving the aural impression of 16 players (an approach used in slightly reduced form in the Triple Quartet) • In addition, the inherent melodiousness of speech, the focus of Reich's early tape works It's Gonna Rain & Come Out (composed in the mid-1960s), is the source of all the melodic content in Different Trains; Reich recorded various people talking & incorporates short snippets of their speech into the tape part (which can all be read here), repeated so as to accentuate the pitch content, which is both taken up & anticipated by all four quartets, & in turn harmonised & coloured by them (in many ways, these speech melodies dictate the harmonic direction of the work) •

The background to Different Trains is by now well-established; it alludes to & evokes train journeys made by Reich during his formative years, journeys necessitated by the separation of his parents, who lived in New York & Los Angeles respectively • This evocation begins in medias res, however, the earliest snippets of speech referring to travel "from Chicago to New York"; the piece begins, it seems, not necessarily at the start • The first movement, titled 'America - Before the War' is beautifully onomatopoeic, its repetitions highly suggestive of the lilting undulations of train travel (with occasional horn blasts strikingly imitated by perfect fourths & fifths), emphasising how mellow & pleasant these experiences were for Reich; tempo changes are frequent & abrupt but slightly overlapping, rather like quick cinematic dissolves • As the movement approaches its conclusion, the simple descriptions in the speech switch to references to years, gradually moving from 1939 to 1941, the period of time when Reich's journeys were taking place • However, the turning point is a second reference to 1941, the interviewee adding "—I guess it must have been"; Reich's idyllic travelogue is becoming something else, & his real motivation for writing the piece now becomes explicit: being a Jew, had Reich lived in Europe at this time the journeys he would have been forced to undertake would have been, as the title says, on very different trains indeed, with an infinitely more dreadful destination • As the second movement begins (titled 'Europe - During the War') everything changes, contorts, corrupts; the horn blasts become sirens, & the speech now recounts a sequence of fleeting glimpses into a dark world of invasion, persecution &, ultimately, the Final Solution • The sirens now suddenly turn into shrieks—a devastatingly ghastly, soul-destroying moment—& the sharp regularity of the music moves from the simple mechanics of trains to the infernal machinations of Holocaust • "Flames going up to the sky - it was smoking" are the final words, the rhythms come to a halt & fading • After a brief but necessary pause, new material strikes up & in a new direction: "and the war was over" • The last movement, 'After the War', includes elements of recapitulation, but allusions to train noises are now absent, the narrative more intimate, bringing the musical focus entirely on the spoken words • There's an audible sense of relief in the music (or perhaps one projects that onto it, in light of the middle movement), although the spoken line "but today, they're all gone" is intriguingly ambiguous, referring either to people—those who died in the death camps, or maybe the Nazis—or, considering the speaker of this specific line is a retired Pullman operator, simply referring to trains • But there's nothing ambiguous about the ending; Reich creates a lengthy coda where the quartets dance around reminiscences that are, on the one hand, slightly unsettling—the Germans listening to & enjoying the singing of Jews; but what it emphasises most is both the indefatigability of song as well as its power of reconciliation, becoming a bridge that can reconnect & heal even the most destroyed relationships •

Steve Reich - Triple Quartet (UK Première) [19:11]
FLAC [92Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 30Mb]

Conlon Nancarrow - String Quartet [14:46]
FLAC [63Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 23Mb]

Steve Reich - Different Trains [31:34]
FLAC [150Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 50Mb]

Mix Tape #22 (Best Albums of 2011)

2012-01-01T15:37:00.003Z

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! • 5:4 is four years old today, & as in previous years, here's a new mix tape showcasing the music from my best albums of 2011 • One track from each of them—in total, 3½ hours of eclectica to start the new year in real sonic style • Do, please, support all the artists if you like what you hear (& you will!); links to buy their excellent music are included on the previous few days' posts •

Here's the full tracklisting (click the image for high-res artwork):

• Uh Huh Her - Wake To Sleep (from Nocturnes)
• This Will Destroy You - Black Dunes (from Tunnel Blanket)
• Philippe Petit - 03 nyctalopia (from Nyctalopia)
• Kate Havnevik - Mouth 2 Mouth (from You)
• Aleks Kolkowski & Ute Wassermann - nor'easter (from Squall Line)
• Kate Wax - Maze Rider (Live From The Cave) (from Dust Collision)
• Arlene Sierra - Surrounded Ground - III. Egress (from Arlene Sierra Vol. 1)
• John Cage - 109 [One⁸ and 108] [excerpt] (from 108/109/110)
• Autechre & The Hafler Trio - ha3oe [excerpt] (from ae3o3)
• David Lynch - Bass D Dark Stairway (from INLAND EMPIRE (Original Motion Picture Score))
• Patrick Wolf - House (from Lupercalia)
• Roly Porter - Al Dhanab (from Aftertime)
• Braids - Plath Heart (from Native Speaker)
• Deerhoof - Super Duper Rescue Heads! (from Deerhoof vs. Evil)
• Talvihorros - Beta (from Descent Into Delta)
• Christopher William Anderson - An End To Calm (from Moskenstraumen)
• Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place Ia [excerpt] (from A Static Place)
• Frank Zappa - Worms From Hell (from Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison)
• Leyland Kirby - Eventually, it eats your lungs [excerpt] (from Intrigue & Stuff Volume 2)
• Celer - Part II [excerpt] (from Noctilucent Clouds)
• Merzbow - Kamadhenu (Part 1) [excerpt] (from Kamadhenu)
• Ulver - Providence (from Wars of the Roses)
• Chubby Wolf - Deeper and the Damage From (from Los que No Son Gentos)
• aTelecine - The Smuggler (Draft One) (from A Cassette Tape Culture Phase Two)
• Akita / Gustafsson / O'Rourke - Two Bird [excerpt] (from One Bird Two Bird)
• Tartar Lamb II - Polyimage of Known Exits: 3rd Movement [excerpt] (from Polyimage of Known Exits)
• Hecq - With Angels (from Avenger)
• Jenny Hval - Engines in the City (from Viscera)
• Björk - Hollow (from Biophilia)
• Ektoise - There and Here (from Kiyomizu)
• Svarte Greiner - Twin [excerpt] (from Twin)
• Access to Arasaka - Ixion (from Geosynchron)
• Grutronic And Evan Parker - Mesomerism In Rhythm [excerpt] (from Together In Zero Space)
• Xela - Charm [excerpt] (from Exorcism)
• Black Swan - White Mourning (from The Quiet Divide)
• Fovea Hex - Falling Things (Where Does A Girl Begin?) (from Here Is Where We Used To Sing)
• Indignant Senility - Side B [excerpt] (from Blemished Breasts)
• Monty Adkins - Memory Box (from Fragile.Flicker.Fragment)
• Three Trapped Tigers - Magne (from Route One Or Die)
• The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation - Function (from Anthropomorphic)

[3:29:33 | mp3 | v0 vbr | 347Mb]
part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Best Albums of 2011 (Part 2)

2011-12-31T10:47:00.002Z

“A list gives us the surface of something, & that leads to another list, which contains more surface, & from there, more lists, & more surface. The lists make up the surface of the universe, & the fact that the lists lead to other lists, [...] list upon list leading to list upon list, it all helps supply the hidden depth in the universe. The depth where things start to get really interesting.” (Paul Morley, Words and Music)

Here's the conclusion of my own list, with my favourite 20 albums of 2011:

20 | Merzbow - Kamadhenu
The more Merzbow i listen to (& i've listened to a lot), the more amazed i am at the seemingly endless extent to his creativity • It can seem as though his continual outpourings of new material connote a kind of arbitrariness, as though Masami Akita was simply picking random quantities of effluvia & allowing audiences to make of them what they will • But the standard of his music suggests otherwise, & from the very first moments of this album one's forcibly yanked into Akita's soundworld, which is so varied & compelling that it seems rather crass to describe Akita simply as a "noise artist" • Kamadhenu is an uncommonly inventive & subtle album that ruthlessly explores its subject matter with the focus of a laser; & there's nothing arbitrary about that • [Norman Records]

19 | Ulver - Wars of the Roses
For the last ten years, Ulver have increasingly found themselves bereft of a suitable genre • In their hands, black metal has gradually been turned inside out, & an assortment of diverse elements including jazz, dark ambient, film soundtrack, neoclassical & the indescribable have gradually become incorporated into their soundworld • Wars of the Roses is the strongest & most mature example yet of the group's stylistic no man's land, in which nothing remotely conventional takes place • Even a song like "Providence", which begins familiarly enough with the trappings of a mild rock ballad, quickly dissolves into a downright weird space filled with drones, shivering violins & croaking voices • Songs have never sounded anything like this before • [Amazon | iTunes]

18 | Chubby Wolf - Los que No Son Gentos
The strong legacy of Danielle Baquet-Long continues in this fine album that i reviewed back in August • Each new Chubby Wolf release reveals ever more clearly how distinct her solo work is from that created as half of Celer • It's the concentration of the music—the way that ideas feel compressed into tight time-spaces—that's particularly engaging here, & while it lacks the full-on beauty of last year's Ornitheology (although, pretty much all albums lack that kind of beauty), this remains—of what we've heard so far—some of her very finest music • [Dragon's Eye Recordings | Boomkat]

17 | aTelecine - A Cassette Tape Culture Phase Two
aTelecine have released quite a lot in the last couple of years, but the great thing is that it remains pretty unclear where they're coming from • Sasha Gray & Pablo St. Francis clearly love darker shades of experimentalism, yet they're unafraid to call upon the traits of all kinds of music, so askance beats, contorted vocals & analogue electronics jostle strangely beside crude cut-ups & collage-like textures • Keeping it all coherent requires skill, & this album displays it in every track; considering that many of them are outtakes & demos, their achievement is all the more impressive • Expect even bigger & better things from aTelecine in 2012 • [Boomkat]

16 | Akita / Gustafsson / O'Rourke - One Bird Two Bird
Bringing together Masami Akita, Mats Gustafsson & Jim O'Rourke sounds like a recipe for the world's most out-of-control sonic firework display • That wouldn't be a wildly inaccurate assessment either, yet it's the way the three of them combine both their talents & their discrete musical contributions in these two 20-minute improvisations that's most striking • Gustafsson often aligns himself with Akita's squealing squalls (both imitating & being imitated by them); meanwhile Akita & O'Rourke hurl their electronics at each other & find, somehow, that they mesh perfectly • Even in the brief moments of respite, these three are white hot together • [Discogs | Boomkat]

15 | Tartar Lamb II - Polyimage of Known Exits
Financed via Kickstarter, Toby Driver's latest project finds him returning to—& reinventing—Tartar Lamb, the entity by which he released Sixty Metonymies back in 2007 • Polyimage of Known Exits originates in a live performance from 2010, which Driver et al have subsequently worked on & honed • The result is four movements in which jazz-inflected noodlings coexist with dreamy, quasi-psychedelic episodes, the surfaces of both worried by electroacoustic scrapes • There's a kind of majesty in Driver's carefully-negotiated improvisations, & even at the times when one feels perhaps a little lost in the proceedings, the sense of a greater mind overseeing things never goes away • [KayoDot.net]

14 | Hecq - Avenger
Ben Lukas Boysen does like to tease; most of his albums start with a soft, gentle introduction before the real business—pummelling the listener to bits—gets started • True to form, Avenger starts in this way, but he's upping the ante these days, with bass & beats that are bigger & dirtier than ever before • Dubstep is a concept that sits exceptionally well in Boysen's rhythmic vocabulary, although what he's doing with it is a far cry from most • Wisely, he's pared back the range of invention from that heard on Steeltongued, as well as most of the lush harmonies, thereby enabling the tracks to hit even harder; "Bane" is a case in point, its shuffling tempo occasionally lurching forward at double speed, while "Nihilum" positively bruises the ears with its heavy off-beat drums • The raw nature of the music won't please all Hecq fans, but if you can take it, it's breathtaking • [Grooves-Inc | Amazon]

13 | Jenny Hval - Viscera
2011 has been such a good year for song, & few have been more exploratory than Jenny Hval on this 9-track wonder • Let's face it, anyone who begins their debut album with the words "I arrived in town/with an electric toothbrush/pressed against my clitoris" has something pretty forthright & personal to say • The title says it all; Hval's narrative is body-centred, almost uncomfortably so • But Viscera feels less like a preordained journey than an exploration of self-discovery & -expression, & a profoundly intimate one at that • Hval's notions of what a song can be are excitingly radical, radiating out from her prose poems (which you can read here), using whatever means seem necessary to aid that process • A genuinely ground-breaking debut • [Amazon | iTunes]

12 | Björk - Biophilia
Not much music these days is worthy of its own hype, but Biophilia is an exception • Irrespective of that hype, though, i think what connects people most instinctively to Björk's music is the ingenuous relationship she has with her subject matter • Regardless whether it's human relationships or the interactions of nature & the universe, Björk's awe & wonder of them is the same, viewed with a child-like, wide-eyed fascination & innocence that too many adults have lost • Of course, such sincerity would count for little if her music was ordinary, but 'ordinary' is probably a word missing from Björk's vocabulary • Forget the hype & all the hullabaloo about quirky new instruments & so on; like Jenny Hval, all Björk cares about are the songs; focussing on them is time seriously well spent • [Bjork.com]

11 | Ektoise - Kiyomizu
Ektoise are a new discovery for me this year, & i've been listening to this second album of theirs a lot • Their music is a highly complex synthesis derived from, amongst other things, rock, ambient, jazz, metal & electronica, extremely diverse elements that are handled with an aplomb & transparency of touch that's truly remarkable • The album's central track, "There and Here" is a model example, layering jazz piano above grimy electronic beats on a bed of shoegaze bass, interpolated by some weirdly experimental episodes • It's abundantly clear that Ektoise are a bunch of musicians who not only know exactly what they want to do, they know how to do it, with a minimum of fuss • As such, there's no filler or padding on Kiyomizu; every note counts, every sound matters—which is not something you can say about a lot of music • [Bandcamp]

10 | Svarte Greiner - Twin
In the realm of ambient, Erik K. Slodkin (=Svarte Greiner) is, for me, the current master of the dark arts • So it's pretty disgraceful that this impeccable release was only made available with the vinyl edition of Owl Splinters' Deaf Center; Twin is way too good to be discreetly tucked away like that (especially as, in truth, it's far superior to Deaf Center) • The first third of its 45-minute duration is built on an oscillation between two deep notes, that swiftly get laden with a hundredweight of grinding, writhing layers of noise that spark out harmonics as though produced by its own sonic friction • A quailing, drone-like interlude leads to the decidedly enigmatic denouement, seeming to build massively but then abruptly quietening itself, only to grow again, hovering like a cadence that can't quite commit, & ultimately shivering out of existence • [Not presently available]

9 | Access to Arasaka - Geosynchron
Not many artists can successfully create a dish of glitched beats with ambient dressing; once upon a time, Hecq was the master, but these days Access to Arasaka has taken the mantle • Taking his name from the game "Cyberpunk 2020" hints at what to expect; the glitchtronic soundworld Geosynchron inhabits—fashioned in roughly equal parts from IDM & ambient electronic with a dash of drum & bass—is evocative & delivered with a flourish • What's so interesting about the textures in this music is the way the beats—conventionally an underpinning background element—are perpetually on the surface, dancing & skitting around like the focal element in Autechre's Gantz Graf video • Often, a collection of seemingly asynchronous beat elements are brought abruptly into focus, providing episodes of genuinely danceable music, but that's beside the point really; it's form & æsthetic that are important here, dazzling the senses • [TympanikAudio]

8 | Grutronic And Evan Parker - Together In Zero Space
i still don't really know what to make of this release—i just know that, whatever it is, i absolutely love it • Grutronic is a new name to me (when time allows, i'll be checking out this free download), but judging from this recording, made at the 2009 Next Festival of Advanced Music in Bratislava, their mission is to put Parker's already frantic playing through a myriad electronic processes, while striving to minimise the distance between theirs & Parker's distinct sounds • Somehow, they succeed, & the two lengthy pieces included here demonstrate superlative skill at melding acoustic & electronic sources • [Psi]

7 | Xela - Exorcism
Just four weeks ago, John Twells—the guiding force behind the Type label—released as a free download his latest album, announcing it would be his last; & as valedictions go, Exorcism is exceptional • Lo-fi & darkly psychedelic, laden with bells & gongs, it begins heavily redolent of ritual (one can imagine it accompanying a 1970s Hammer film), made more unnerving by the music's immovable focus • Exorcism is a triptych, & the middle section yields to warmth, the gongs fading within a rich ambient soundspace; here, things move, & even before it makes an appearance the bass causes ripples on the surface • It eventually overshadows everything, continuing into the final section as a drone onto which layers of melodic detritus are piled high • At the last, they're all ejected, leaving just the drone & the gongs resounding • Twells certainly knows how to go out in style • [Free download]

6 | Black Swan - The Quiet Divide
Having grappled with it repeatedly throughout the year, it only struck me a few days ago that what this album really sounds like is a palimpsest • As though it's been stitched together from nearly a dozen half-erased tapes, the music falls somewhere between hauntology, ambient & silence • It's one of the few albums i imagine would sound amazing on vinyl, where surface noise would really add to the scale of its ruin • In fact, silence never happens, but there are long stretches where what we imagine to be 'the music' has been removed, leaving the grain of the what we also imagine to be 'the medium' exposed; i've never heard anything quite like this before (even from Leyland Kirby), & the way it confounds one's notions of what constitutes material—&, for that matter, what's meant to be heard as a reference to past material & what's to be heard as a comment about that reference—is deeply thought-provoking • [Bandcamp]

5 | Fovea Hex - Here Is Where We Used To Sing
i said a lot about this album in my review back in May, so there's little more i can add • i'll admit it still makes me boggle a bit at the beauty of its songs; it's difficult to discern whether they're the product of an extremely clear set of intentions, or whether they arise from slow experiments with an open objective • But regardless of the compositional backstory, the result is so polished & so completely different from any other songwriter that the only response is simply to yield & be taken up into something rare & marvellous • [Janet Records | Bandcamp]

4 | Indignant Senility - Blemished Breasts
When i wrote about this release in October, i was focussing on its nature as a 'contemporary epic' • Durationally speaking, it's not the longest of these 40 albums, but it is, i think, the one that sustains itself most consistently & immersively over an extended period of time (in this case, around 100 minutes) • It lacks the frivolity & downright irreverence that some may feel to be sine quibus non in Pat Maherr's output; but as i've pointed out before, as Indignant Senility he taps into a more serious & thoughtful vein, one that demonstrates above all his keen handling of diverse sound materials • Blemished Breasts just wouldn't work as effectively as it does without an innate sense of large-scale control, an ability Maherr clearly has in spades • [Free download]

3 | Monty Adkins - Fragile.Flicker.Fragment
This is a release i really didn't see coming • In 2008, as Mathew Adkins, he created a work for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival titled [60]Project, commemorating 60 years of musique concrète; Adkins took short bits of material from 60 composers & created the most wonderful electronic soundscape (available on CD from empreintes DIGITALes) • Fragile.Flicker.Fragment, released in April this year, is no less impressive, but is music of a very different kind • If anything, it's ambient by accident—but it just so happens to be one of the best ambient albums ever made • What sets it apart from pretty much all other ambient music is the depth of compositional understanding & level of technical excellence that Adkins brings to all his projects • But the beauty of it all—!—i can honestly say i really haven't heard an album as incredibly beautiful as this in years—its intricately-made soft structures are stunning to behold • [Audiobulb | Boomkat]

2 | Three Trapped Tigers - Route One Or Die
OMG : i think that's probably the most succinct & accurate way of describing both my initial & my ongoing reaction to pretty much everything Three Trapped Tigers have released • This is their first album, but the three EPs that have preceded it through the last couple of years have made it absolutely clear what was coming • Quite frankly, it's difficult to comprehend the magnitude of what happens when Tom Rogerson, Adam Betts & Matt Calvert pit their wits against each other • Great arching melodies litter the music, somehow sitting entirely at ease amidst the plethora of convoluted rhythmic paroxysms that propel each track on • Conceptually, that's redolent of Aphex Twin, but while TTT's sound almost always projects the effects of electronica, their palette is rock-based, guitars & drums savagely ordered into metres that defy one's ability to discern or calculate • It's simply amazing that an album like Route One Or Die can exist; the unchecked fury of their music is unparalleled in its complexity & incandescence • [Amazon | iTunes]

1 | The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation - Anthropomorphic
“It is, if i may be so bold, flawless; if anything better than this is released in 2011, it will be miraculous”—so i wrote in my extensive review back in May, & while some fantastical things have happened in 2011, they haven't included miracles • Anthropomorphic is a colossus, an hour-long improvisatory symphony the depths of which provide more details & intricacies on each new listen (only this morning i noticed it ends as it begins; played on repeat it continues seamlessly) • TMFDC have somehow managed to fuse remote music tenets—jazz, doom, avant-garde, drone, electronic—into a unified act of contemporary composition that beggers belief • It isn't just the success of this fusion that impresses, though, it's the sophistication the group has in working with all those elements; none of them feels borrowed, or grafted on; each & every component of Anthropomorphic is there because TMFDC know it's precisely what's needed at that moment in the work's slowly-unfolding narrative •

i'm conscious that, though it wasn't deliberate, both the EP & the album that i've deemed the best of 2011 are a pair of dark & deeply disquieting works • But despite the fact i described Anthropomorphic before as "a dystopian masterpiece, a reverie for the end of the world", i feel the work acquits itself as an overtly positive act in the face of disaster • There's no doubt that it occupies a blasted musical landscape, but TMFDC don't just sit around fashioning dour textures from its debris—no, they sing, constantly they sing • Much of it is lamenting, keening, ululating a fraught response to its sonic environment, but regardless, they fill the charred aftermath of catastrophe with the most heartfelt song • “where everything's nothing—arise,my soul;& sing” wrote E. E. Cummings once, & that's precisely what this album does; i, for one, find that to be a supremely positive & inspiring act • Anthropomorphic sets an example, perhaps even teaches us something—& how much music can do that? • [Bandcamp]

Best Albums of 2011 (Part 1)

2011-12-30T09:11:00.006Z

“The list exists as a way of celebrating the known things which we all share that make us part of the same adventure, but the list also exists as a way of referring to the less-known things, which can remind us that the adventure does not have to be the same for everyone. [...] The unfamiliar lists are routes at the edges of the city, in the shadows [...] that make us feel a different kind of excitement, the excitement of discovery, the excitement of change. The change that makes the adventure constantly surprising.” (Paul Morley, Words and Music)

Here's the first part of my list of the best albums released this year; i hope in some small part it lives up to what Paul Morley is talking about •

40 | Uh Huh Her - Nocturnes
Uh Huh Her's EP Black and Blue, released in the spring (& included on yesterday's Best EPs list), hinted at what was coming, & that promise has been abundantly fulfilled on this album, the duo's first in three years • Their edgy rock sound, propelled by synths, makes for a fascinating combination with the girls' trademark lyrical vocal style, resulting in a rare kind of electropop that packs a surprisingly emotional punch • Occasional influences reveal themselves (Björk, Elizabeth Fraser) but Uh Huh Her have finally developed a sound all to themselves • It's a shame the album is yet another victim of the loudness war, but the songs manage to rise above it • [UhHuhHer.com | iTunes]

39 | This Will Destroy You - Tunnel Blanket
You can't mess around if you're going to call yourselves This Will Destroy You, & there's absolutely no messing on the group's second album • The eight tracks progress at a sedate pace, made highly dramatic through the strategic use of lengthy quiet episodes • Subsequent loud eruptions solemnly plough noisy doomgaze territory, but TWDY's interests extend beyond the confines of conventional post-rock; "Glass Realms", in particular, inhabits a place of radiant ambient calm, & while the overarching theme is clearly a dark one, there's so much beauty in evidence that it's all too easy to forget that • [Amazon | iTunes]

38 | Philippe Petit - Nyctalopia
No-one destroys sound like Philippe Petit, & on this album there are more grit-scarred layers than ever • The distinction between treated recordings & live sounds created in the studio is similarly broken down, each track embodying both a ruthless sense of method & an aggressive spontaneity • Petit's method, though, isn't too far removed from madness, layer heaped upon layer until the ear can barely make sense of the complex textures that result • The power & intensity of this music mean that Nyctalopia is not a particularly easy listen, but it's an undeniably rewarding one • [Free download]

37 | Kate Havnevik - You
Continuing the trend of outstanding Scandinavian pop, Kate Havnevik has clearly put the five years since her debut album to good use, as You—financed via PledgeMusic—is a huge leap forward • There are still occasions when she strays a little too closely to the sound of Imogen Heap (perhaps due to Guy Sigsworth's involvement), but many of the songs are now nicely distinctive; the shuffling "Castaway" shows off the power of Havnevik's voice, while "Soon" & "Tears in Rain" surround her with scintillating analogue electronics • [KateHavnevik.com]

36 | Aleks Kolkowski & Ute Wassermann - Squall Line
Ute Wassermann's collaborations with Aleks Kolkowski go back a number of years (a pair of recordings from the 2007 Interlace concerts can be downloaded here), but this is the first time their bewildering music has been officially released • Anyone familiar with Wassermann's incredible feats of vocal gymnastics will, at least in part, know what to expect—&, in fact, a few of the pieces (each inspired by weather systems) feel a little too gesturally familiar; but for the most part, it's impossible to know who's doing what or indeed how, & their combined music is a delirious triumph of improvisation •

35 | Kate Wax - Dust Collision
Kate Wax is the pseudonym of Aisha Devi Enz, who describes herself as "Swiss-born, half-Tibetan" • Hardly surprising, then, that's she's prone to do things a little differently, & while her songs have a recognisable dance aspect, this is always at the mercy of a determined urge to experiment • Take "Maze Rider (Live From The Cave)", for instance, where a cold sawtooth bass underpins Wax's twisting vocal line; later episodes with beats seem almost a concession in such a context as this • Elsewhere—as in the title track & "Holy Beast"—she's more recognisably conventional, but this is the exception rather than the rule, & as a whole this is one of the year's most interesting & successful albums of truly experimental songs •

34 | Arlene Sierra - Arlene Sierra Vol. 1
Just when you start wondering whether contemporary instrumental music doesn't have anything new left to explore, along comes this, the first compilation of Arlene Sierra's music • The earliest included work (Ballistae) is a decade old, but the rest of the pieces date from within the last five years • Sierra's music is fresh & unpredictable, & the works connected with creatures—the chamber piece Cicada Shell & Birds and Insects for solo piano—make a particularly strong impression • A vocal work, Two Neruda Odes, indicates a lyrical streak to her work, but this appears to be of only secondary interest; Sierra is most in her element exploring rather hectic, scurrying textures • Superb performances throughout; the "Vol. 1" in the CD title is nicely optimistic—one hopes it's not too long before there's a Vol. 2 • [Amazon]

33 | John Cage - 108/109/110
John Cage's number pieces, composed late in his life, are among the most enigmatic of his entire output • They break down all kinds of conventions, adopting a form of notation known as the "time bracket technique", constructing works from fragments of material with indications as to when they take place • The titles derive from the number of players involved, & frequently Cage stipulated that one piece could be performed simulataneously with others to form new compositional entities • This album focuses on Cage's largest number work, 108, performed by itself & in conjunction with One⁸ & Two³ • The performances (by the wonderfully-named "Chance Philharmonic") are magnificent & the soundworld is riveting throughout, demonstrating anew how our understanding of Cage's music is still a work-in-progress • [CDBaby | Amazon]

32 | Autechre & The Hafler Trio - ae3o3
i dare say this release, quite apart from the intentions of its creators, got hyped up way more than it should have, being announced & postponed repeatedly for about three years • When it finally emerged, back in the summer, the resulting music probably thwarted more than a few expectations—but taken on its own terms, this is a fine addition to the previous collaborations between these artists • Quite what Autechre's involvement consists of remains unclear; once again, in both style & duration (lasting 3¾ hours), ae3o3 comes across entirely as a Hafler Trio work, forming large-scale sound sculptures from slow-moving, granite-like slabs of noise • The first of the two tracks, 'ah3eo', is a little bland & goes over ground pretty much covered before, but the second track, 'ha3oe' is very exciting indeed, one of the finest electronic compositions i've heard this year • [Norman Records]

31 | David Lynch - INLAND EMPIRE (Original Motion Picture Score)
Since relaunching his website, David Lynch has been primarily concerned with releasing supplementary material connected with Twin Peaks • But this year he also released a new version of the soundtrack to his last film INLAND EMPIRE, doing away with the songs & incidental music, replacing them with an additional 25 minutes of the score Lynch himself composed for the film (in a break with tradition, Angelo Badalamenti wasn't involved this time) • As such, the album is now far more consistent & genuinely representative of INLAND EMPIRE, a sound tapestry that's as dark & intractible as the film itself • Lynch has clearly enjoyed experimenting with pop this year, but it's in territory like this that he's clearly most adept & at home, creating some of the best & most telling dark ambient ever made • [DavidLynch.com]

30 | Patrick Wolf - Lupercalia
Finding love has clearly had a wonderful creative impact on Patrick Wolf • There's an audible spring-in-the-step on many of the songs, such as "Time of my Life" (with some stylistic echoes of Florence), "Together" & "The Falcons", intermingled with elements of electropop, a broad palette of experimental sounds, & assorted mannerisms—both synth & vocal—that evoke the 1980s • The standout track, though, is "House", a song celebrating that most prosaic & profound of things, setting up home with a loved one: "I love that here you live with me/Gives me the greatest peace I've ever known"—in both style & sentiment, this song is all glory • [Amazon | iTunes]

29 | Roly Porter - Aftertime
i've been little interested in Roly Porter's work as one half of Vex'd, but this, his first solo album, is something else • Porter revels in his own aspirations; ejecting beats, but without betraying his bass-fuelled history, he's drawn on a welter of hitherto untapped resources to forge Aftertime • The spectrum of music it covers is courageously broad, encompassing harsh noise, lush chords & intimate melodies (featuring the wonderful ondes Martenot) • Despite its novelty in Porter's output, there's nothing about this album that feels experimental; there's a confidence throughout that makes each track utterly compelling • [Amazon | iTunes]

28 | Braids - Native Speaker
i'm regularly impressed by music from Canada, & Braids are the latest • Their first album came out at the start of the year, & i've been returning to it constantly; their spritely brand of art rock is imaginative & uplifting, aided in no small part by Raphaelle Standell-Preston's ever-dominant vocals • The songs are rich & substantial (most are 7-8 minutes' duration), characterised by colourful & unexpected arrangements that serve only to propel the narrative • Standout tracks are "Plath Heart" , which both lyrically & vocally bears strong similarities to Joanna Newsom, & "Lammicken", a brooding number fixed above a softly pounding beat; its final explosion is fantastic • [Amazon | iTunes]

27 | Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil
How on earth do Deerhoof do it? • The similarities from album to album seem to grow ever more tenuous yet Deerhoof's music is recognisable in a heartbeat • This short album is as quirky as ever; it gets off to a slow start, but many of the songs are among their best • "Super Duper Rescue Heads!" unites playful verses with an overdrive chorus (practically destroying Satomi Matsuzaki's vocals), "Must Fight Current" is delightfully skew-whiff lazy lounge music, while "I Did Crimes For You" effects the guise of relatively straightforward indie rock, but keeps getting pulled off course • It's all beautifully leftfield • [Norman Records | iTunes]

26 | Talvihorros - Descent Into Delta
Ben Chatwin's music has been growing in maturity for the last few years (his 2010 album Music in Four Movements featured in my best album list last year), & Descent Into Delta is his finest creation • The guitar remains his primary sound source but it becomes highly plastic, transformed into new forms that lose sight of their origin • Supplemented here by (in Chatwin's words) "organ, harmonium, mandolin, bells, synthesizer & waves of electronic static", the five tracks show some influence of Aidan Baker in their structure & focus, but Chatwin's sound is entirely his own • Descent Into Delta inhabits a somewhat amphibious & claustrophobic soundworld, but Chatwin fills it with wonders • [Bandcamp]

25 | Christopher William Anderson - Moskenstraumen
Having abandoned his previous moniker Operations, Chris Anderson has struck out in 2011 under his own name • Moskenstraumen is his first release, & the physical edition demonstrates Anderson's deep love of design, coming in an intricately hand-made case with off-kilter concentric circles • They're an abstract depiction of the whirlpools in the title & Anderson's music explores them further, opening with "An End to Calm", a track that gradually draws in & envelops the listener at its centre • The notion of maelstrom continues throughout, & while that inevitably leads to music with a noisy demeanour, it also encounters some lovely softer episodes • [Bandcamp]

24 | Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place
While the majority of ambient music has sacrificed the creative spark in favour of dry repetition or hollow paralysis, Mathieu's music continues to demonstrate it's a genre with prospects • Despite the title, there's little actual stasis in Mathieu's textures, which move & evolve with glacial speed & grace • It lacks pretention too, Mathieu deliberately accentuating the artifice of creation by making all but one of the track durations exactly 10 minutes long (the other is 20) • The territory is pretty warm & familiar, but the slow, constant flux of its combination of ambient, drone & noise elements is fascinating • [Norman Records | iTunes]

23 | Frank Zappa - Feeding The Monkies At Ma Maison
For nearly two decades i've been in awe of the final album Frank Zappa released prior to his death, Civilization Phaze III; this release of five synclavier pieces augments that experience, containing nascent versions of some of that material • "Buffalo Voice" is effectively a stripped-down version of the one on CPIII, & what it lacks in immersiveness it gains in the clarity it affords to the inner workings of Zappa's counterpoint; it's a beautiful track anyway, & being heard like this does it no harm at all • As for the rest, "Secular Humanism" isn't quite so effective as its later incarnation, but the remaining three pieces—which effectively fall between CPIII & the earlier Jazz from Hell—are splendid; despite its brevity, "Worms from Hell" is perhaps the most effective, its semi-chaotic material sounding all the more wild compacted into just 5½ minutes • [Barfko-Swill]

22 | Leyland Kirby - Intrigue & Stuff Volume 2
Intrigue & Stuff is an ongoing series begun in 2011, which to date has three volumes • Volume 2 features just four tracks, but they draw heavily on Kirby's formidably-refined technique of grinding down to the essence of a sound • The title of "Eventually, it eats your lungs" bespeaks disease, & everything about its music is encrusted & weighed down with sonic infection, out of which a voice struggles to sing—it's definitely one of Kirby's strongest & most moving pieces • But even this is superceded by the final track "Complex expedition", & 20-minute foray into entirely new hauntological waters, the omnipresent hiss & slithering bass providing the framework for a procession of analogue synth ideas • Kirby practically invented hauntology, & to hear him re-inventing it in such dazzling fashion is exhilarating • [JunoRecords | Digital download only available to subscribers]

21 | Celer - Noctilucent Clouds
Reviewed in August, this is Celer at their best, creating the most subtle of ambient soundworlds • Back then, i alluded to the music of Feldman, & that still seems the most appropriate analogy; barely audible a lot of the time, barely moving the rest of it, music rarely gets as intense or focussed as this • To an extent, it suffers being broken into three arbitrary tracks, but at the same time duration becomes practically meaningless in music of this kind—one could almost listen forever • As the number of Celer releases asymptotically approaches absurdity, distinctions between many of the albums become harder to find; all the more reason then to celebrate Noctilucent Clouds which, both within Celer's output & in ambient music generally, is unique • [Bandcamp]

Best EPs of 2011

2011-12-29T09:44:00.008Z

“Lists help you believe that there will be a future - by reminding you that the things you are listing have happened, in a time that was once a future, & that therefore there will be a future where things will happen that can then be listed & taken forward to remind us of a past where stuff was generated that made us believe there is a present & so, ultimately, a future.” (Paul Morley, Words and Music)

Here we go again, then, with my own series of lists summarising what i believe to be the best music of the last 12 months • As usual, i'm going to strew caveats all over them—these lists are only what i presently believe to be the best & if i made them again in a few months' time things would likely have changed, & in any case i haven't heard every release this year, & while we're on the subject there are still three days of the year left & we all know how much can happen in just three days—but regardless, these lists, in all their provisional tentativity, are, right here right now, definitive • Okay, so bearing all that in mind, let's get the ball rolling with the ten EPs that have stood out most through the last 12 months •

10 | Hecq & Exillon - Spheres of Fury
It's hardly worth repeating Ben Lukas Boysen's 2009 claim that "beat-science can't go any further with me"—his unique take on the world of grime & dubstep through the last couple of years has been blisteringly exciting • Spheres of Fury lives up to its title, a sleazy track with indelicate beats & bass—the accompanying video, featuring a wonderfully over-dramatised waterfight is hilarious—but it's the last of the four tracks that's even better • The "Stochastic Process remix By Techdiff" goes way beyond the scope of regular remixes, turning Hecq's masterly original into a flawlessly-executed glitch-fest that ends with a twist, the sedate pace abruptly doubled, ending up as a frenzied dance track • [Juno Download]

9 | Fovea Hex - Three Beams
Clodagh Simonds doesn't mess around when she gives her music to other musicians to play with • Her 2007 release Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent ended up in the hands of no less than The Hafler Trio, & this time around her latest songs have been given to Michael Begg, Colin Potter & William Basinski • With its detail & surface filigree, it must be hard to know where to start reworking Fovea Hex material, but this fine little EP (available only as a bonus CD with her new album) proves what's possible • Predictably, Basinski's is the least inventive, but the other two "beams" are outstanding, Begg & Potter refashioning the material into soft, surrounding ambient soundscapes, reverently celebrating those aspects that make the music of Fovea Hex as unique as it is • [Janet Records]

8 | Pablo - In Hurricanes
i know precisely nothing about Pablo, & only discovered this EP by accident when roaming the iTunes store some time back • There's something of the retro quality that pervades so much synthpop at the moment, but it's not a throwback; analogue synths are only one colour in Pablo's palette • Each of the three songs has a lightly cheeky quality that's most endearing; second track "Rock Bottom" is a delightful encouragement to those facing hard times: "son, you have to fall face first, hit rock bottom, to learn in life" • Pablo's voice is splendid, & his heartfelt lyrics never feel trite, the music keeping things light & airy • [iTunes]

7 | Yugen - Ae'shT'aT'aQ
David Sani's Yugen project is hard to define or even to describe • To some he's better known through the lowercase music he's released as Shinkei, but i find this new departure of his to be far more impressive • He brings to mind the soundworld of The Hafler Trio in Ae'shT'aT'aQ, an episodic work that explores some utterly captivating & immersive textures • The title is Aramaic for "he stood in silence", & Sani has used (in his words) "some old middle east archival recordings" as source material, but they have been so extensively worked on & processed that there's barely any clear trace of them • Yet, while the origins are indistinct, the grain of the music is tangibly evocative, which together with the fascinating techniques used throughout, sets this album apart from the majority of experimental electronics • [Free download]

6 | Ex Confusion - Too Late, They Are Gone
Ambient music can't always withstand being presented in smaller, shorter formats, but this is where Atsuhito Omori's music is most at home • & it's the miniature size of these tracks (reviewed back in March) that makes them as powerful as they are; while lesser minds endlessly play with loops dully repeated ad nauseam, Omori condenses his ideas into pieces barely three or four minutes long • Their short span blurs the nature of their content (is it a looping fragment? or is it a part of something much larger?) thus freeing one to focus entirely on the resulting music, which—in part, again, due to the duration—is imbued with real fragility, enhanced by such titles as "Too Late, They Are Gone" & "It Doesn't Last Forever" (one of my favourite tracks of the year) • The five amuse-bouches on this EP are like the last streaks of colour in fading photographs—beautiful & very moving—& i love how Omori leaves the start & end of each track rough & unfinished, which only adds to its authenticity • [Bandcamp]

5 | Uh Huh Her - Black and Blue
Uh Huh Her have been around since 2007, but don't seem to have found their sound until this year • Their particular marriage of synthpop & rock is finally given perfect expression on this EP, almost every track of which is a winner • Leisha Hailey & Camila Grey bring a delicate lyricism to their music that's very impressive, & songs like "Never the Same" (with its simply gorgeous chorus) & "I've Had Enough" somehow navigate through the tropes of ballad & light rock, emerging with real emotional power • The more electronic tracks are certainly infectious, but despite their pace are kept relatively low-key (Hailey & Grey often singing low in their registers) & always at the service of the words; definitely some of the best songs released this year • [UhHuhHer.com]

4 | Clem Leek - Home Outside
i must admit to having mixed feelings about Clem Leek's music, which has had as many (if not more) misses than hits • But when he gets it right, as he does on this 17-minute, single-track EP, the results are breathtaking • There's a lovely balance between the deep, omnipresent richness of the underlying drone & the mournful, string-inflected wailing above (redolent of Richard Skelton) • There are all kinds of sound sources involved in the piece's dense texture, but their details are kept hazy & they thereby become more able to hint & evoke, without the need to be specific • Leek judges the duration perfectly, & insodoing has crafted his best work to date • [Bandcamp]

3 | Tetra - Live at Gallery of Modern Art
Tetra is an offshoot from the Australian group Ektoise (comprising Greg Reason & Jim Grundy), focussing primarily on ambient atmospherics • This 27-minute live improvisation is the second of just two releases the duo has created so far, both of which are available free • Guitars are at the epicentre of the piece, but they're suffused & surrounded with shifting layers & clouds of sound, creating a huge sonic space • Apart from the oblique beauty of the music, what stands out most for me in this recording is the restraint, Reason & Grundy keeping things moving but never pushing them along, drifting but always with a discreet guiding sense of purpose • [Bandcamp]

2 | irr. app. (ext.) - The Famine Road/Celestial Laminate
After a number of years seemingly in the wilderness, Matt Waldron's irr. app. (ext.) project has gloriously returned in 2011 • The focus this year has been digital, Waldron releasing a slew of new & remastered material via his Bandcamp site • i've been unable to choose between these two; The Famine Road, a collaboration with Diana Rogerson & her noise duo Fistfuck, originally appeared in 2008 in an edition of just one copy (auctioned on eBay) • Waldron has now made it available to everyone, together with two revised versions; all three are devastating in their abrasive impact, pushing Waldron's extreme & surreal experimentalism to its limits • Celestial Laminate is no less dense, but begins with a superb drone-based piece, around which large quantities of sound have accreted • [Bandcamp]

1 | Christopher McFall & David Velez - Credence
When it comes to working with field recordings, few demonstrate more innate understanding & technical control than Christopher McFall • In this remarkable collaboration with David Velez, McFall's tendency to focus on the dark, amorphous nature of sound is coloured by overtly melodic material, seamlessly integrated into the sonic fabric • "Seamless" doesn't really do it justice, though; Credence is, no doubt, a collage of elements, but the skill with which they are brought together, juxtaposed & intertwined is truly astonishing • Nothing ever feels remotely out of place; on the contrary, the way in which the piece comes across—as is usual for anything McFall is involved with—is like an unadorned field recording in its own right, such is the naturality of the result •

i dare say Credence won't be for everyone; it's gentle, yes—but equally it's perhaps the most pitch black music i've ever heard • Like a cross between Twin Peaks & Lustmord, vast, yawning noises ponderously arise from unfathomable depths, emerging into an ominous nocturnal landscape • Evoking foghorns & organ pedals, deep melodic fragments circle like a funereal ground bass, at times made arboreal through the noises of birds & other creatures, othertimes aquatic with creaking boat wood • Although it projects an acute, vivid sense of isolation & even desolation, there's much, much beauty to it all, which only makes it more moving • As only the best music can, Credence ultimately transcends words & communicates the immensity of its vision at an instinctual level • An absolute masterpiece • [Free download]

Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols (King's College, Cambridge)

2011-12-26T13:35:00.001Z

It's Boxing Day, so as usual on 5:4 here's yesterday's complete broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols from King's College, Cambridge •

There's the expected mix of ancient & modern; of the former, the Spanish villancico Ríu, ríu, chíu is always good to hear, given a dramatic performance on this occasion (although the version with tambourine accompaniment is even more exciting) & Thomas Ravencroft's Remember, O thou man is a splendid but challenging inclusion, the music projecting a surprisingly solemn exhortation • Best of all the early pieces, though, is the mediæval delight Nowell sing we now all and some (one of my personal favourites), which Stephen Cleobury treats to a lovely, unhurried performance, instantly transporting one back to the 15th century •

As to the modern, this year's service featured an impressive number of contemporary pieces • There's an inevitable bout of Rutter to get through, & David Willcocks' usually harmless arrangement of the Sussex Carol sounded a touch saccharine this time (probably because it came immediately after Nowell sing we) • But much of the rest was excellent, including the jaunty syncopations of Carl Rütti's I wonder as I wander, Bob Chilcott's rich but pretty The Shepherd's Carol , & Philip Ledger's sensitive setting of A spotless rose, with its nice interaction between upper & lower voices • It's a relief to hear something by Arvo Pärt that doesn't resort to 'tintinnabuli' (although one could argue Bogoróditse Dyévo, lacking Pärt's distinctive style, sounds rather generically Orthodox), & hearing John Tavener's The Lamb again—a work that's benefitted from dropping off the radar of late—it still sounds utterly sublime; composed in 1982, it's a rare example of a piece that's rightly famous • Having written about Judith Weir's Illuminare, Jerusalem just a few days ago, it was interesting to hear it again, although on this occasion the trebles struggled & the organ sounded too distant •

But the highlight was this year's commissioned carol, composed by Tansy Davies, setting Christina Rossetti's poem Christmas Eve • Considering Tansy's previous output, which consists largely of hard-edged, punchy instrumental works, it was hard to know quite what to expect • On the one hand, Christmas Eve is a definite stylistic departure, but on the other, it's a seriously beguiling one • In parallel with the text, the piece blows hot & cold through the opening stanza, exploring some intriguing & paradoxical contrasts: "Christmas hath a darkness/Brighter than the blazing noon" • In the first line of each phrase, Tansy establishes a series of winding, independent strands, lingering over the words (finally - a composer unafraid to repeat whole lines of text!); these strands are then pulled together, creating some marvellous chords, before the choir erupts with the answering line • It's a masterly approach, one that bears repetition, but thankfully is modified in the second verse, where the text veers off into a more celebratory tone • Both verses conclude with an exciting fanfare-like response to the line "Christmas bringeth Jesus", followed by a strange & faintly tragic ending—"brought for us so low"—where trailing lines slowly drag downward (a moment that bears some stylistic comparison to Thomas Adès) • Overall, it's an imaginative & thoughtful response to Rossetti's text (at last providing choirs with an alternative to In the Bleak Midwinter), one that places the entire focus on the words & forces the listener—as the best choral pieces do—to reflect hard on them •

Below is a summary of all the music—& let me wish you all again a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! •

• Once in royal David's city (descant Cleobury)
• I wonder as I wander (Rütti)
• Remember, O thou man (Ravenscroft)
• Adam lay ybounden (Ord)
• Angels from the realms of glory (arr Jacques)
• Riu, riu, chiu (Flecha)
• Nowell sing we now all and some (medieval)
• Sussex Carol (arr Willcocks)
• It came upon the midnight clear (descant Cleobury)
• A spotless rose (arr Ledger)
• The Lamb (Tavener)
• Blessed be that maid Mary (arr Cleobury)
• Bogoróditse Dyévo (Pärt)
• Christmas Eve (World Première) (Tansy Davies)
• Sans Day Carol (arr Rutter)
• The Shepherd's Carol (Chilcott)
• While shepherds watched (descant Cleobury)
• The Three Kings (Cornelius arr Atkins)
• Illuminare, Jerusalem (Weir)
• O come, all ye faithful (arr Willcocks)
• Hark! the herald angels sing (descant Willcocks)
• In dulci jubilo BWV 729 (Bach)
• Toccata, Op 104 (Jongen)

[93:21]
FLAC [341Mb] part 1 | part 2 | part 3
MP3 [v0 vbr | 150Mb]
Order of Service [PDF]

Messiaen on Speed (or Dieu parmi nous - what not to do)

2011-12-25T09:31:00.006Z

Being Christmas Day, organists up & down the land will be putting Messiaen's Dieu parmi nous through its paces • In the UK, it's become practically as ubiquitous as Handel's Messiah, so with the wonderful & timeless "Messiah on Crack" in mind, i offer you what we might perhaps call "Messiaen on Speed" •

At the 2001 Proms, Wayne Marshall gave an organ recital that included the last two movements of La Nativité • Whether Marshall was drunk, over-excited, showing off, taking the piss, eager to get home early, or some wild combination of all the above i have no idea, but the result rather boggles the mind • Marshall takes most of the music at a tempo so fast as to be way beyond ridiculous, his fingers literally spilling over the keys—wrong notes a go-go—sounding like an organ transcription of one of Conlon Nancarrow's more frantic studies • Inevitably, all the detail of Messiaen's material is completely lost, & the closing toccata simply has to be heard to be believed • Marshall turns Messiaen's coruscating hymn of joy into a excruciating but hilarious exercise in meaningless velocity • Oh, & the organ's out of tune too •

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Messiaen on Speed (Wayne Marshall plays Dieu parmi nous)

Seasonal favourites: Morten Lauridsen - O magnum mysterium

2011-12-24T11:16:00.002Z

The last of my seasonal favourites uses one of the oldest texts heard at Christmas • 'O magnum mysterium' has been used as a chant on Christmas morning for well over a millennium, & may date from as far back as the 6th century • As so many Christmas-related texts do, it explores the immense contrast of sacred & secular, here between the great mystery of God born as a human being & the fact that He lies in a manger, watched around by animals—the profound & the prosaic, cheek by jowl • Throughout the last 500 years, many composers have been drawn to this text—the settings by Palestrina, Victoria & Poulenc are among the most well-known—but the setting by Morten Lauridsen, composed in 1994, has become not only the most celebrated in recent times, but also one of the most-performed contemporary Christmas pieces of the last two decades • One doesn't need to listen to much of Lauridsen's music to realise that he has a decidedly single-minded approach to composition • Lauridsen has, it seems, little time or interest in the drama & dissonance of life, opting instead for untroubled subject matter & an indefatigably tonal palette • Heard in large quantities, i find Lauridsen's music to be both stifling & disingenuous; but taken in small doses, as in O magnum mysterium, there's much that rings true, much to celebrate •

Despite the obvious differences, the composer who comes most readily to mind when listening to this piece is Maurice Duruflé • Like Duruflé, Lauridsen is deeply interested in chant, but instead of taking existing chants & harmonising them (as Duruflé did, most famously in his Requiem), Lauridsen's O magnum mysterium is, fundamentally, a piece of contemporary plainchant • Its melody comprises the very same kind of short & long durations one finds in that music, & its contour matches closely the emotional undulations of the text, sounding both natural & comfortable • Furthermore, the element of repetition—so prevalent in chant—is of singular importance here too; Lauridsen's main melody occurs no fewer than three times (the overall structure is AABA), ensuring it's well-retained in the memory • 'Tonality', as used in contemporary music, needs to be defined afresh for each composer who employs it, & for Lauridsen it consists of extremely simple triadic relationships that are enriched through additional diatonic notes • The result is a lush, humid brand of tonality that is undeniably inviting, but as i said before, becomes both dull & rather cloying when heard for long periods • In this context, it wins unconditionally, becoming one of the most ethereal paeans to the Nativity ever composed •

A dry acoustic will absolutely massacre this piece, as its chant-like rhythms will become dessicated & dead; hence why pretty much every recording of it (& by now there must be easily over a hundred), has been made in large, resonant spaces • The best i've heard—& it's the best by a very large margin—is by the choir of Canterbury Cathedral on their 1998 album A Canterbury Christmas (CD) • Directed by David Flood, the choir achieves a simultaneous lightness of touch & richness of texture that is breathtaking; recorded in the cavernous space of Canterbury Cathedral gives Lauridsen's music the room it needs to become a vast, unbroken line • Of course, the dense diatonic clusters depend on the lower parts, but it's the trebles who are most outstanding, floating through the material & positively soaring at its high points • It's a sumptuous, spine-tingling, utterly transparent performance of a real Christmas masterpiece •

Morten Lauridsen - O magnum mysterium
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Seasonal favourites: Jan Sandström - Det är en ros utsprungen

2011-12-23T10:23:00.000Z

One of the composers most strongly associated with this time of year is Michael Praetorius • His music dates from the early 17th century, & he is particularly well-known for his prolific treatments of Protestant hymns & songs • He harmonised numerous Christmas carols too, & there's a kind of bold swagger to Praetorius' approach that has no doubt helped to keep his music so beloved & oft-performed down the centuries • Composers have frequently arranged Praetorius' music, & my fifth seasonal favourite is an impressive reimagining of one of the carols most associated with Praetorius, Es ist ein Ros entsprungen •

Swedish composer Jan Sandström will perhaps forever be known best for his wild & wonderful Motorbike Concerto, but his reworking of Praetorius' material, known by its Swedish name Det är en ros utsprungen, is no less impressive • Composed in 1990, Sandström divides the singers into two choirs & then sets to work, seemingly stretching the original to infinity • Surrounded by voices that are static, Praetorius' chords steadily make progress through what quickly becomes a vast ambient soup, a mystical cloud of notes hovering at the boundary between familiarity & strangeness • i wonder whether Sandström was influenced by the resurgence of ambient music that began in 1990, but regardless, the soundworld of his setting remains current, even prescient (today, bedroom composers would simply put Praetorius' original through sound-stretching software for not dissimilar results) • In such a highly immersive & intense atmosphere as this, the temptation is to linger, but Sandström bravely restricts himself to just one of the carol's three verses; admittedly, its four-minute duration never feels enough, but each one of those minutes restores a badly-needed sense of wonder back to Christmas choral music •

Numerous attempts have been made to record this piece—& i say 'attempts', because, listening to some of them it's clear the engineers really weren't sure what to focus on, due to the nebulous nature of Sandström's setting • Details appear to be relatively scarce, but they are there, & the best recordings tease them out without undermining the integrity of the whole • The chamber choir Mikrokosmos does this superbly well on their 2003 album of 20th century choral music, Villarosa (CD/download), despite a relatively dry acoustic • Even richer is the recording by the Amadeus Choir on Weihnachtliche Chormusik: Unto Us a Child Is Born, released last year (CD/download); under Nicol Matt's direction, they really tap into the density of Sandström's material, lingering over it & thereby adding a whole extra minute to the usual duration (but who can blame them?); the result is absolutely gorgeous • Recordings of live performances are dangerous, as just the slightest bit of audience noise—&, goodness knows, nothing audiences do is slight—will instantly rupture such fragile music • But here's an example of one that succeeds marvellously, & it's my favourite performance of the work, by the choir of King's College, Cambridge; they've sung it for the last two years at their service of Nine Lessons & Carols, & while last year's was rather too quiet for its own good, the account they gave in 2009 was outstanding, benefitting massively from the large chapel acoustic • It's a shade less detailed than the two fine recordings i've mentioned, but everything about the atmosphere of this performance is just perfect •

Jan Sandström - Det är en ros utsprungen
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Seasonal favourites: Kenneth Leighton - Lully, lulla, Thou little tiny child

2011-12-22T09:40:00.001Z

As the text in Paul Edwards' No Small Wonder intimates, there's more to the Christmas story than just stables, angels & presents, & perhaps the best-known carol to tap into the dark side of the narrative is "Lully, lulla, Thou little tiny child", often referred to by its nickname, the Coventry Carol • It originates in the city's renowned mystery plays, from the section that would have been performed on the feast of Corpus Christi by its sartorial tradespeople • The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors focused on one of the New Testament's blackest episodes, the so-called Massacre of the Innocents, when the ruler of Judea, Herod, ordered the execution of all male infants in Bethlehem, with the aim of killing the child claimed by the Magi to be the prophesied 'King of the Jews' • This is the ghastly subject of my fourth seasonal favourite •

While the mystery play dates back to the fourteenth century at least, this sombre carol was added to the pageant in the late 1500s • Its slow & rather stately melody, shifting between minor & major, has been held in such regard that almost no other settings of this carol exist; certainly the only well-known example is by Kenneth Leighton, whose setting was composed in 1948 when he was a 19-year old Oxford student • There's nothing remotely immature about the music, though; on the contrary, Leighton taps into a deeply mournful but eloquent vein, crowned by a searching soprano line that, depending how you listen to it, is either wildly lyrical or a hair's-breadth away from keening • There's a subtle connection to the original version too, Leighton keeping the tonality fluid between minor & major • While the soprano dominates, the first verse establishes the choir as an extension of the soloist, echoing her sentiments with equal lyricism • The second verse (in which the soloist is absent) could not be more contrasting; the choir unite for an aggressive account of Herod's actions, repeatedly accenting the word "slay" to ominous effect • At the return of the soprano ("but woe is me"), the choir's softer attitude returns, &, in fact, their recapitulation of earlier material is so rich that Leighton runs the risk of undoing the disquieting mood he's established • A bit like the Paul Edwards piece, one's left feeling rather ambivalent, the music existing in a strange middleground between truth & beauty; it isn't exactly music "beside itself" with grief, but its beauty is certainly stained by grief • For many, Lully, lulla, Thou little tiny child is Kenneth Leighton's most famous composition, & rightly so, as it's one of the very finest choral works in the Anglican tradition •

There are, unsurprisingly, a multitude of recordings of this piece, but the majority of them do little more than prove how taxing Leighton's writing actually is, & unfortunately many of the better performances are marred by poor recording quality • Marlborough College Chapel Choir give a strong rendition of it on their 2001 album Carols from Advent to Christmas (CD/download/iTunes), especially the soprano line, & there's a nice sense of interrelationship between the soloist & the choir • But the one & only outstanding recording is by the vocal group Polyphony, on the same CD that includes the Peter Warlock piece discussed a few days ago, A Christmas Present (CD/iTunes) • Directed by Stephen Layton, it is, dare i say it, a flawless performance: measured, highly emotive, the solo soprano utterly sublime; & the middle verse is bravely hard-edged, even bullish, emphasising the harsh contrast with the outer verses •

Kenneth Leighton - Lully, lulla, Thou little tiny child
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Seasonal favourites: Paul Edwards - No Small Wonder

2011-12-21T07:16:00.001Z

It's a curious & rather sad phenomenon that the majority of carols being composed in recent times don't really have much to do with congregations • For the most part, composers these days write for the choir rather than the flock, but i'm sure that many of the most popular new carols attain their popularity in part due to how 'singable' they seem to listeners • That can't always be true, of course; Judith Weir's piece needs a choir (& a good one), but Peter Warlock's exquisite melody would be perfectly singable by the average singer, & that's also the case in my third seasonal favourite •

Composed in 1983, Paul Edwards' carol No Small Wonder has become well-known over the years, & is heard regularly today in more forward-thinking Christmas services & concerts • Like the Peter Warlock i wrote about yesterday, Edwards' setting is focussed on its melody, which is both restrained & straightforward, using simple repetitions through its first four bars, not doing anything dramatic • But again like the Warlock, it's in the conclusion of the melody that Edwards allows himself to be more adventurous • Beginning low, an ascending sequence leads to the titular refrain, the simplicity of the tune countered by highly chromatic harmonies in the organ • The opening verse is given just to the sopranos, but the second is for the full choir unaccompanied, & Edwards cranks the chromaticism of this closing chord sequence a notch further; as the text (by Paul Wigmore) has at this point veered into darker territory—"but God gives his life on a cross"—it's both effective & very striking • The mood brightens in the final verse, the choir beginning in unison, the organ building to a forte climax, but the text casts another shadow on the light; "and all to redeem my poor heart" sings the choir, & Edwards in response pushes this chord progression further, made more poignant by the organ once again dropping out • Despite starting relatively brightly, the sudden major key of the coda quickly solemnifies to a minor shade, providing a fittingly haunting end to what is a beautiful but bittersweet carol •

There are numerous recordings of No Small Wonder, & the one by Consortium (on the CD i mentioned yesterday) is one of the best; it's taken at their distinctive sedate pace, & stands out from most performances due to the clarity of the inner parts, & the climactic third verse is very exciting • But better still, i think, is the recording made by The Saint Cecilia Singers on their nicely varied 2001 album Comfort and Joy (available on CD & download here) • Directed by Ian Ball & recorded in the warm, soupy acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral (the choir's home), it's a splendid example of the skill & subtlety of this group of singers • The sopranos, in particular, are a joy to behold, & it also serves to demonstrate how gorgeously mellifluous the cathedral's organ sounds • But they don't milk it for a second, & despite the beauty of their performance, it never wavers from the delicate ambivalence of Edwards' music •

Paul Edwards - No Small Wonder
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Seasonal favourites: Peter Warlock (arr. Andrew Carter) - Lullaby my Jesus

2011-12-20T07:13:00.002Z

The second of my seasonal favourites is an arrangement • Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite is a somewhat humdrum affair, but the fifth movement, 'Pieds-en-l'air' (the melody of which began life in a 16th-century book of Renaissance dances), stands out for the quality of its high lyricism • Some years ago, composer Andrew Carter made this music the vehicle for a delicate Christmas text of his own devising:

Lullaby my Jesus, lullaby my king,
Lullaby my lording whom I sweetly sing.
Slumber softly, slumber on your mother's arm;
She will rock you, she will keep you safe from harm.

Lullaby my Jesus, lullaby my son.
Lullaby my child in whom God's will is done.
Be at peace, soft dreams beguile you as you lie;
I will rock you, I will sing a lullaby.

Warlock's original is practically a vocalise anyway, but in this new context loses its faintly bucolic air & becomes something genuinely magical, a smooth, unhurried lullaby beautifully coloured by his piquant harmonies (which Carter has left untouched) • The two verses are harmonised differently, the first relatively static, the second much more adventurous; their undeniable sweetness is tempered by some tart twists here & there, especially in the latter verse, & unlike much Christmas music, never becomes saccharine •

There are several recordings of this fine arrangement but, at present, only two are worth serious consideration • The first is on the disc What Sweeter Music by Consortium, released in 2004; a curious album to say the least—some of the tracks sound as though they were recorded from a distance in some vast cave—& the rendition of this piece (directed by Edward Barbieri) is slow bordering on ponderous, but they get away with it; it certainly allows one to revel in the gorgeous chord progressions, & the intonation throughout is superb • It's available both on CD & as a lossless download direct from the label, as well as on iTunes • Best of all, though, is the recording by Polyphony on their album A Christmas Present, also released in 2004, & easily one of the most outstanding CDs of Christmas choral music ever released (available on iTunes or, for next to nothing, from Amazon) • Conducted by Stephen Layton, their performance could not be more perfect; captured in an acoustic resonant enough to give the singers space but without muddying the harmony, the singers positively float through their respective lines—particularly the sopranos, whose high final note is just effortless •

Peter Warlock (arr. Andrew Carter) - Lullaby, My Jesus
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Seasonal favourites: Judith Weir - Illuminare, Jerusalem

2011-12-19T07:14:00.001Z

Despite being a time of year deeply entrenched in tradition (& not necessarily the worse for it), composers do from time to time bring a flash of innovation to Christmas • So, in the week leading up to the day itself, i'm going to explore a few of my seasonal favourites •

The first is Judith Weir's short carol Illuminare, Jerusalem, which dates from 1985 • It was commissioned by King's College, Cambridge, for their annual service of Nine Lessons & Carols, & has remained a regular item in their repertoire • The work combines two of Weir's strongest qualities, simplicity & succinctness, taking as its subject a joyous mediæval Scottish text exhorting Jerusalem to be—in every sense—illuminated by what is taking place above & around it • Anyone familiar with the language of mystery plays will recognise something similar here, & Weir emphasises the quirky contours of the text in her music • The three verses are distributed to different sections of the choir; the opening verse, announcing both star & angels, is given to the trebles; the closing verse, detailing the supplanting of Herod by the more "richtous king" falls to the men alone • They're combined in the central verse that delightfully describes the Magi as "Thre kingis of strenge regionis to thee ar cumin with lusty rout"—i doubt Caspar, Melchior & Balthasar have ever been depicted quite like that before • Each of these verses follows a similar pattern, a triplet-laden melody that begins low & gradually rises to a climax; but what follows is a stroke of genius • The refrain "Illuminare Jerusalem" is sung softly but pointedly, the second word drawn out, but the first delivered staccato & momentarily underpinned by deep organ pedal notes • It's a totally unexpected way to set such a word, but it's a compositional triumph, lending a weird & unsettling numinosity to the refrain, perfectly capturing the sentiments its ancient words are seeking to convey •

The piece is currently available on CD in two performances, one of which is on the recently-released Choral Music by the choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, an album devoted entirely to Weir's music for choir • It's also included on the excellent On Christmas Day, a double album by the choir of neighbouring King's College, lavishly surveying the contemporary carols they've commissioned over the last twenty-or-so years • The King's College disc arguably displays greater authority & experience, while the Gonville & Caius performance (aided by some seriously enthusiastic female sopranos) is somewhat clearer, so take your pick where those are concerned •

Better than both, though, in my view, is the performance given by the King's College choir at their service of Nine Lessons & Carols in 2009 • The choir brings out some rather amusing emphases on the text's more overtly Scottish phrases, & the organ pedal notes have a juddering bass that makes those moments even more powerful •

Judith Weir - Illuminare, Jerusalem
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Advent Carol Service (St John's College, Cambridge)

2011-11-27T21:17:00.006Z

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, & with it comes the first carol service of the new Church year, once again from St John's College, Cambridge •

Having been impressed by these services in previous years, i was disappointed to find this occasion to be surprisingly bland, particularly the selection of carols which was, in my view, neither impressive nor imaginative • They began with a version of Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen that i've not heard before, by David Nield • The tune is the familiar German original, but one's immediately struck by both the slow tempo as well as the presence of a saxophone—& if that suggests the populist horrors of Officium, it's not actually as bad as that • Nonetheless, as the work progresses, the sax part feels increasingly redundant, particularly in the final verse where it's entirely outclassed by the richness of the choir • Another new addition to the programme was an arrangement of The Cherry Tree Carol that finds Stephen Cleobury in John Rutter mode, although it refrains from full-on tweeness (the excessive final rallentando didn't help, however), whereas Otto Goldschmidt's lovely A Tender Shoot, last heard in 2009's service, was very welcome; the performance this time wasn't exactly delicate, but the choir was beautifully restrained, nicely accenting the harmonic twist towards the end of each verse • Anthony Milner's Out of your sleep was also last heard two years ago; loud & jolly, not subtle nor terribly uplifting, it really is frightfully English • Yet another repeat from 2009 was Anthony Swayne's setting of Adam lay ibounden, & while it's so, so good not be to hearing Boris Ord's version (which really could do with being put away for 50 years to give us all a break from it), the piece still seems as flawed as it did last time around; the choir's performance was undeniably superior on this occasion, but the work still feels compositionally half-hearted & mechanical, with only the opening & conclusion live up to its lyrical aspirations • Christopher Robinson's subtle reworking of Vaughan Williams' The Truth from Above was highly effective (although the final verse was somewhat overcooked), as was Francisco Guerrero's motet Rorate cœli, given a bold performance • It was at first a little hard to listen to Mendelssohn's How lovely are the messengers with a straight face—at the start, the male altos were ridiculous, sounding like a clutch of over-camp squawkers—but the rest of this dance-like piece was an absolute delight •

This year's newly-commissioned carol came from Jonathan Harvey, who explored the Annunciation through words by the Orcadian poet Edwin Muir • It's a stunning text, & Harvey clothes it in an emphatically melodic music, passing it between solo voices, creating an intimate effect • Part of the second stanza ("Immediacy of strangest strangeness...") brings the voices together, & the prosaic third stanza leads to a brief flurry of rhythmic interest, the words curt to the point of being half-spoken • But overwhelming calm prevails, Harvey ramping up the intensity as the dynamics fall to almost nothing, the "deepening trance" of the closing stanza brought entirely alive in a simple but gorgeous series of closing chords • In the wake of such cool focus, Johannes Eccard's motet Übers Gebirg Maria geht seemed to have even more swagger than usual, the choir clearly enjoying themselves • The choice of Magnificat this year was from Stanford's B-flat Service; as one would expect, it's hardly an inventive setting, the music predictable & having more-or-less nothing to do with the text, but all the same it is one of Stanford's better settings, its shortcomings easily ignored due to the work's bullish temperament • The final carol, John Gardner's Tomorrow shall be my dancing day is another piece that one could stand not hearing again for no little time; a poor piece, it was this year given a ponderous performance due to sluggish playing from the organist •

The hymns comprised the usual suspects &, once again, were almost all blighted at the last by descants that systematically fail in their simple duty to crown their melodies & provide a rousing conclusion • Once again, David Hill's for O come, O come, Emmanuel was the worst—& wasn't helped this time by the trebles being inaudible at first & raucous at the end; the only success among the descants was Christopher Robinson's for Come, thou long-expected Jesus, which genuinely enhances its music •

Despite such qualitatively mixed fare, one can always depend on the Great Advent Antiphons, which last year were practically the highlight of the evening • They weren't quite that this time (they occasionally sounded rather generic; make your own mind up whether that's a pro or con), but the mens' delivery of this profound ancient music was suave & quite moving • Yet again, J. S. Bach's notoriously wet Wachet auf brought the service to a flaccid conclusion, but the real shame is that the broadcast didn't continue for longer, as it was being followed by Messiaen's Dieu parmi nous; alas, the BBC saw fit to end the transmission before it began •

A PDF of the complete order of service, with full texts & translations, can be downloaded with the recording below; here's a summary of the music:

• Plainsong: The Great Advent Antiphons
• Carols: Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen (arr. Nield), The Cherry Tree Carol (arr. Cleobury), A Tender Shoot (Goldschmidt), Out of your Sleep (Milner), The Truth from Above (arr. Vaughan Williams/ Robinson), The Annunciation (World Première) (Harvey), Tomorrow shall be my dancing day (Gardner)
• Hymns: O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel) (descant: Hill), Come, thou long-expected Jesus (Cross of Jesus) (descant: Robinson), On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry (Winchester New) (descant: Robinson), Lo! He comes with clouds descending (Helmsley) (descant: Robinson)
• Anthems: Adam lay ibounden (Swayne), How lovely are the messengers (Mendelssohn), Magnificat (Stanford in B flat)
• Motets: Rorate coeli (Guerrero), Übers Gebirg Maria geht (Eccard)
• Organ Voluntary: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 645 (J. S. Bach)

[86:30]
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PDF Order of Service

Reviews/recordings of previous years' Advent Carol Services can be found here: 2010 | 2009 | 2008

A daring vision of reality: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

2011-11-25T21:56:00.002Z

SPOILER ALERT: The following article discusses details of the plot of Lars von Trier's Melancholia; anyone intending to see the film may wish to postpone reading further until after the event •

Early in 2010, i devoted the first of my very occasional podcasts to the soundtrack of Lars von Trier's film Antichrist • Von Trier is an artist whose work deeply fascinates me, & his latest film, Melancholia—which i saw for the second time last night—has made an even deeper impression than its predecessor; in fact, i struggle to think of a film that's left me in such a profoundly moved state • Having read a number of reviews, it's been interesting & surprising to see such widespread agreement as to the merits & achievement of Melancholia • Antichrist, with its body-clenching, excruciatingly graphic brutality, sharply polarised audiences; by contrast, Melancholia is calm & understated—but nonetheless, i believe it to be an even more challenging & potentially alienating work • The title says it all & says it plain: this movie is an unabashed exploration of depression as experienced, & as such first impressions might suggest that, for anyone unacquainted with that predicament, finding a way into the film could be difficult •

Yet this stark empathetic bifurcation is the fundamental component of von Trier's narrative; indeed, anyone finding themselves unable to grasp why on earth the film's antagonist, Justine (Kirsten Dunst, in a career-redefining role), should be so insufferably down-in-the-dumps all the time will immediately find company in almost every other on-screen character • In all senses of the word, the rest of the ensemble are earthy individuals; Justine's new husband Michael acknowledges her depression but looks for simplistic, cosmetic solutions to it; brother-in-law John abounds in wealth but fusses constantly about the cost of the wedding for which he's paying; even Claire, Justine's sister, despite displaying impressively tenacious sympathy & patience cannot, ultimately, understand in the least why Justine thinks & feels the way she does • This communal earthiness extends even to their dialogue; notably, in the film's first half, Claire—who with husband John organised the wedding—complains at having spent a week "with the dullest man on earth" & John immediately echoes this, describing him as "the most expensive wedding planner on the planet"; even Michael, in his clumsy but heartfelt groom's speech declares himself "the luckiest man on earth" • Theirs is an earth-focussed outlook, an earth-bound vision; John's enthusiasm for astronomy is merely recreational, & limited to the confines of scientific consensus • Furthermore, despite his telescopes & technology, it falls to Justine who, with her naked eye, spies the most significant thing in the sky, the benign, distant red glow of the planet Melancholia (of which, at this point, John is completely unaware; the suggestion is that Justine is literally the first person on earth to notice it) •

Which brings us to the film's parallel antagonist & its chief allegory, Melancholia, the heavenly body that, in one of the film's most telling lines, is twice described as having been "hiding behind our sun" • A great force, hidden amidst the source of light & warmth, emerging when we least expect it & unstoppable in its destructive power—von Trier's symbolism is disarmingly simple, his metaphors writ large • Those for whom melancholia is an intimate acquaintance (& i must include myself) are all too familiar with the cheerful rebuke, "it's not the end of the world"; von Trier demonstrates on a cosmic scale just how hollow those words really are • Superficially, he could be seen to want everyone to know, right from the outset, where we're headed; the exquisite prologue (which, filmed in ultra-slow motion, makes an instant connection back to Antichrist) features a collection of tableaux alluding to scenes that will transpire throughout the film, culminating in Melancholia's graceful annihilation of the Earth • & yet, not one of these appears here as it does later; some are heavily stylised, while a few—Justine, evoking John Everett Millais' Ophelia, floating downstream as a soon-to-die bride; her struggling to walk against unidentifiable grey tendrils—go beyond reality into the realm of imagination (the latter being a way Justine describes how she feels in an early scene) • For all its apparent finality, there's a distinct lack of certainty in the film's prologue, despite one reviewer's woefully oversimplified take on this as "the ultimate in spoileresque prologues" •

The doomed relationship of Melancholia & our world is played out between Justine & everyone around her, destroying each relationship • Michael withdraws, giving up (at least, for now); her boss is discarded in a cool torrent of vitriol; her father—with whom Justine pleads to talk—avoids engaging with her by hiding in a world of intoxicated merriment; Claire seems to need to shut down almost all emotion simply to be able to cope with Justine, yet in both parts of the film eventually finds herself at the same emotional point: "sometimes I hate you so much" • Only Justine's mother seems to show any connection, their behaviours often mirroring one another; yet the mother is no less distant, for whom reality is not merely coloured but defined by jaded & cowardly cynicism •

Twice now i've used the word 'reality', & it's precisely this that Lars von Trier wants most to examine at Melancholia's core • Cast as a diptych, the film's first part, "Justine", centres on the wedding reception & examines Justine's increasingly desperate conflict with the growing weight of perceived triviality around her • John & Claire are concerned with empty ritual & deportment, with "what's expected"; John, in particular, is impatient & incredulous—behaviour he cannot understand is frequently dismissed as "unbelievable" • In response, Justine constantly removes herself from the scene, retreating to various rooms but finding greatest comfort outside, roaming the grounds in isolation (squatting to urinate on one of the golf greens, the look on Justine's face is perhaps the only moment of release & freedom seen in the entire film) • But it's indoors that the conflict of realities is most sharply revealed; having charged into John's library, she angrily removes a collection of books with pages open on images of abstract art, replacing them with representational images (including Breugel's Hunters in the Snow & the Millais painting evoked earlier) that each encapsulate an aspect of her feelings, together forming a silent scream at the world to stop hiding & address directly Justine's massive, frightening reality •

In the second part, "Claire", von Trier turns the tables, examining Claire's own fraught conflict against the gradual realisation that the end of the world really is nigh • It begins with Claire demonstrating superlative strength, supporting Justine, whose own conflict has ultimately proved debilitating to the point of collapse (the scene in the bathroom, where a naked Justine cannot even raise her leg to enter the bath, is heartbreaking; Dunst's acting here is astonishing) • Claire has misgivings about Melancholia, but John's reassurances more-or-less allay her fears, & she comes to enjoy its proximity; regarding it at close quarters through a telescope, she even deems it "friendly" • But events soon turn ominous, beginning with the butler failing to show up for work, wanting to be with his family • After this, in one of the film's most pivotal scenes, Justine reasserts to Claire her innate & inscrutable deeper understanding of reality, at first concerning something ostensibly frivolous, knowing how many beans were in a jar during a competition at the wedding, but swiftly moving beyond to facts more dire in their implications: "I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on Earth—& not for long" • This is the crossing point for the sisters' opposite trajectories: Claire's gradual disintegration as her sister's prescience is proved true; Justine's restoration as Melancholia draws inexorably closer • The connection between Justine & her planet familiar is finally exemplified in another scene where she is naked, only this time finding strength & (for want of a better word) tranquillity by basking in Melancholia's light • Michael deserted in part 1, & John does the same in part two, committing suicide at the prospect of what is coming (both here & in Antichrist, men are shown to be incredibly weak when confronted by extreme stress), leaving the sisters alone with Claire's son Leo, a rather baffling character who seems somehow immune both to the disturbing undulations of Justine's mental state as well as to his own imminently approaching doom • The film's conclusion is a mathematical, artistic & narrative certainty: Melancholia's final course brings it rushing towards Earth, crashing into & subsuming it • Twenty seconds of black allow one to reflect that Justine was right, & potentially there is now no life left anywhere in the entirety of creation •

So what of the music? • One might imagine a film focussing on such an overwhelming subject would be fitted perfectly with the kind of black soundscape heard to such stunning effect in Antichrist • Instead, however, von Trier has turned to Wagner, & music from his opera Tristan & Isolde, drawing chiefly on the Prelude to Act 1 (the dark Prelude to Act 3 is heard during the credits) • Von Trier establishes the Prelude as a kind of leitmotif for Justine—or, as i read it, as an allusion to both the connection between Justine & the planet Melancholia as well as to the deeper reality they share, which everyone else either ignores or denies • For Justine, that reality never goes away, never changes, & von Trier mirrors that by, at each occurence, beginning the Prelude again; heard in this way, it becomes a kind of consolation, or comfort—the repetitious familiarity of depression, after all, despite its obvious difficulties, can also be paradoxically comforting • i was saddened to read Alex Ross's harsh assessment of Melancholia, which—perhaps forgiveably, given Ross's love of the composer—both seems to give Wagner too much credence within this new cinematic context & also doesn't address the more immediate question of why von Trier would do something like that • Ross strangely believes von Trier has bought "into a cheap conception of Wagner as a bombastic nihilist", but i find not a trace of bombast or nihilism in Melancholia •

Von Trier's depiction of melancholia is horrifyingly accurate; it is also eloquent & beautiful, but above all it is daring • The film dares us to confront the reality to which we give the name 'melancholia' or 'depression', & challenges us not to simply reject that reality as just another example of 'distorted thinking', one with little or no relation to what's really going on—on the contrary, von Trier dares us to consider the possibility of truth within what appears to be mania, & beyond that, the possibility of something truly visionary • For Justine is indeed a visionary, a seer, even a prophet • At the start of the film, when Justine first glimpses Melancholia & asks John what star it is, he replies, "I'm amazed you can see that"; far from being some kind of bleak justification of fatalism, Melancholia forces us to consider that maybe melancholiacs, unaffected by life's empty, trivial superficiality & blind optimism, not only see things we cannot, but see things as they really are •

Mix Tape #21 (Noise)

2011-11-19T15:28:00.001Z

With noise is born disorder [...] In noise can be read the codes of life, the relations among men. Clamor, Melody, Dissonance, Harmony [...] when it becomes sound, noise is the source of purpose and power, of the dream—Music.

Stirring words from the opening chapter of Jacques Attali's marvellous book Noise: The Political Economy of Music (buy/snag), & noise is the focus of the new 5:4 Mix Tape • As such, i suppose it could be deemed the least accessible of these mixes, although my interpretation of noise here extends beyond fortissimo walls of abrasion; there's a lot more to noise than just that •

Three of Alva Noto's miniature renderings of computer files pepper the mix, blurring the distinction between active & passive compositional intent • To some extent, the same could be said of Richard James' AFX track 'Ktpa2', one of a pair of ferocious static blasts that remain his most brutal music to date • Most of the tracks included here, though, are less single-minded than these, & drag a variety of æsthetic manners into their obstreperous orbits • Three Trapped Tigers (whose first album is one of this year's most outstanding releases) explore a complex amalgam of math rock & glitch, while Ukranian soundscapists First Human Ferro put noise at the core of their paradoxically radiant dark ambient • Japanese experimentalist Lethe takes hard metallic field recordings in abandoned resonant spaces as his starting point, while Nine Inch Nails do what they do best tucked away deep in the bowels of a studio • Noise is a sine qua non of all music with a hauntological aspect, heard here in the hissy nostalgia of Black Swan & the searing, gritty glitter of The Stranger (in my view, Leyland Kirby's most riveting persona) • My own work the Ceiling stared at me but i beheld only the Stars is a large-scale conflict between noise & pitched material; the excerpt included here is from the centre of the piece, where bell-like pitches first emerge • One could hardly have a noise mix tape without Merzbow; i've included part of the opening track from one of his latest albums, a typically kaleidoscopic feast of electronic mayhem • At the end comes a fittingly curt signing-off by Thomas Bangalter, from his soundtrack to Gaspar Noé's film Irréversible •

Noise doesn't need to be loud, of course, & numerous tracks explore its quieter side • At Jennie Richie & John Zorn's Naked City barely rise out of a subsonic miasma, while for his film INLAND EMPIRE, David Lynch uses noise as a rumbling foundation for an assortment of allusive sounds • From a different Lynch film, Mulholland Drive, Angelo Badalamenti creates a horribly unsettling piece for the typically weird diner scene, all the more troubling for its restraint •

But the most impressive & rewarding pieces here are those that embrace noise head-on, subjecting the listener to a no-holds barred act of sonic iconoclasm • Andrew McKenzie's Hafler Trio work scissors cut arrow is an exhilarating demonstration of sculpted noise, clouds of billowing infrasonics crested by harsh protruding whistles • Mika Vainio initiates his remarkable latest album (which i reviewed on Fluid Radio a while back) with a roiling opening track of white-hot drones, while the great Roland Kayn both encompasses & eclipses pretty much everything else in this mix, in one of his most mesmerising electronic symphonies • Many of the longer tracks have been excerpted, but two i felt unable to tamper with • The 13-minute opening part of Kenji Siratori's EP Dead Device may be a devastation too far for some listeners, but i'd encourage tenacity here, as deep in the heart of its effluvial bedlam is a fascinating & sometimes very beautiful electroacoustic anarchy • & at the epicentre of this mix is a track from the collaboration between Bass Communion (Steven Wilson) & Pig, performed live in Mexico City • Its 17-minute span looms very large indeed over the listener, particularly its frankly amazing latter half which—thrown pell-mell into a crucible with ambient & drone elements—comprises some of the most awe-inspiring use of noise you'll ever hear •

Exactly two hours of pandemonium; here's the tracklisting in full:

• Alva Noto - entourage (from Unitxt)
• Merzbow - Churning Of The Cosmic Milk Ocean [excerpt] (from Kamadhenu)
• The Hafler Trio - figure [excerpt] (from scissors cut arrow)
• At Jennie Richie - Cold Earth (from Six)
• David Lynch - Metal Bow Suite (from INLAND EMPIRE (Original Motion Picture Score))
• Naked City - Fleurs du Mal (from Absinthe)
• AFX - Ktpa2 (from Smojphace EP)
• Three Trapped Tigers - Creepies (from Route One Or Die)
• Simon Cummings - the Ceiling stared at me but i beheld only the Stars [excerpt] (from the Ceiling stared at me but i beheld only the Stars - free download)
• First Human Ferro - Seek Our Souls/Per Astra (from Stardust)
• Mika Vainio - In Silence a Scream Takes a Heart [excerpt] (from Life (... It Eats You Up))
• Bass Communion / Pig - Live In Mexico City (track 2) (from Live in Mexico City)
• Angelo Badalamenti - Diner (from David Lynch's Mulholland Drive)
• Lethe - Catastrophe Point #7, Track 2 [excerpt] (from Catastrophe Point #7 & #8)
• Alva Noto - powerpoint (from Unitxt)
• Nine Inch Nails - 23 Ghosts III (from Ghosts I-IV - free download)
• Black Swan - DxSxDxH (from The Quiet Divide)
• Roland Kayn - Electronic Symphony I [excerpt] (from Electronic Symphony I - III)
• The Stranger - Exhumation (from Bleaklow)
• Kenji Siratori - Part 1 (from Dead Device - free download)
• Alva Noto - excel (from Unitxt)
• Thomas Bangalter - The End (from Irréversible - Original Soundtrack From The Motion Picture)

[2:00:00 | v0 vbr MP3 | 210Mb]
part 1 | part 2

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 9. Oceanos

2011-11-06T13:17:00.008Z

If I want a water of Europe, it is the black
Cold puddle where in the sweet-smelling twilight
A squatting child full of sadness releases
A boat as fragile as a May butterfly.

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

The penultimate stanza from Rimbaud's La Bateau ivre, one of the inspirations behind James Dillon's Oceanos, the climactic work that brings his Nine Rivers epic to an end • Having explored eight different kinds of ensemble, Dillon finally unites them; it's not explicitly described as such, but with nine woodwind, seven brass, six percussion, piano, harp & 11 strings, plus live electronics & a choir of 16 voices, Oceanos is undeniably a work for choir & orchestra—not a large one, to be sure, but an orchestra nonetheless • As such, captured in that evocative title, it has a breadth of scope far beyond that of its predecessors, a broadness that also results in some of the slowest, most weighty material in the entire cycle •

But that's not how things begin, with an initial rush of energy from voices & percussion, the latter dominating in a splashy metallic display involving triangles, cymbals, metal sheets, gongs & tam-tams • These gradually become gentler, allowing the voices to be heard more clearly, although the specifics of the text (about which i've been unable to find any information; the score clearly shows phrases in Latin, French & Scots Gaelic) remain indistinct • After a few minutes both the percussion & the voices (having turned to hushed whispers) stop, exposing the underlying electronics which—enhanced by a static string chord— sound like an wall of electricity, crackling with energy, wind billowing around it • Then comes something remarkable & unexpected: a slow, heavy, ominously intoned brass melody (strongly redolent of the opening movement from Messiaen's Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum); the strings continue & the winds get involved but the brass overshadow them all, in what is surely one of the most memorable & striking episodes in all of Nine Rivers • They quieten slightly—the electronics have now become a quiet chugging which barely changes for the remainder of the piece—before a bald major third on the horns ushers in a wildly dissonant conclusion, brought to a close by regular repeating notes on the anvil • Dillon then explores a modified repeat of these materials; the voices return, once again drenched by the percussion (marked "EXPLOSIVE! Attack suddenly and with great violence" in the score) • Now, the periodic splashes of percussion are almost like flashes of blinding light, obscuring details in other parts, particularly the voices; only glimpses of an occasionally distinct line or phrase come through, rendering the voices as impenetrable as before • The solemn brass line returns, similar to earlier, while the electronics continually chug away, ticking over beneath; this time, the winds conclude the melody but as they do, splinter into a spritely collection of staccato repeating notes •

When the voices return again, they're now focussed on a single unison pitch (rhythms & text remain individual), at the heart of what is the first real tutti passage; the winds form shifting chords, the brass present menacingly drawn out crescendi, the strings engage in some detailed slips, slides & stammers, while the percussion persist in soaking everyone nearby with more metallic splashes • Despite the relative distinctiveness of the instrumental groups, this is by far the most dense texture heard in Nine Rivers, a vast sonic miasma in which the only clear object is a loud strike from the suspended bell (once again, C♯), initiating a third appearance of the intoned brass melody • An overwhelming percussive outburst then reduces winds, brass & voices to short, halting, rhythmically united utterances, & one by one they disappear from sight • Only the strings remain (aside from the omnipresent electronics, which by now sound utterly benign), & eventually they too slide down to a point of repose • The work's—& the cycle's—conclusion brings all the forces together in a final tutti that, while seemingly as dense as ever, is actually more rhythmically clarified • It's begun by the brass with the winds & strings in tow, whereupon, after a momentary pause, the voices wade in; finally, the percussion switch to dry instruments in a maelstrom of thundering toms, congas & drums (snare, wood & bass) • Having brought the cycle into being three hours earlier (in East 11th St), they now herald its end, accompanying the voices' & strings' closing remarks with isolated thwacks &, at the last, distant bells •

Oceanos received its world première at the 1996 Proms, performed by Polyphony & Music Projects/London, conducted by Richard Bernas • In last year's world première of Nine Rivers it was performed by the combined forces of the BBC Singers, Les Percussions de Strasbourg & members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Steven Schick (who must have wished he was playing too) •

Few composers even come close to this level of ambition, & even those that do often fall foul of their own aspirations • Nine Rivers, then, isn't just a herculean act of compositional endeavour, it's a tour de force of compositional achievement • As with all epics, its size & scale are only a part of its triumph; for me, the really immersive aspect is the plethora of ideas & concepts that swim about in Nine Rivers' waters, some much more deeply submerged than others • Earlier this year, Nine Rivers was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society's prize for Large-Scale Composition, citing "its sheer ambition and the consistency of creative thought sustaining it" • Having been neglected for so long, this award (which makes Dillon the most celebrated composer in the RPS's history) together with last year's stunning world première of the complete cycle—an incredible act of dedication & faith, recently repeated in the US—perhaps affords room for a little optimism, that James Dillon is finally beginning to be recognised for what he is, a composer of the most dense, evocative, intricate, taxing & brilliant music of our time •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part III (Melanosis)

9. Oceanos [25:39]
FLAC [117Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 41Mb]

Applause & afterword
FLAC [12Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 4Mb]
NB. Anyone who downloaded these audio files before today unfortunately got an early edit that was uploaded by mistake - Oceanos was missing its first 10 minutes & there's a clunky transition to the applause (that'll teach you to jump the gun!); the above links are for the final, correct versions •

interactive score (complete)

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 8. Introitus

2011-11-05T10:31:00.006Z

As éileadh sguaibe reaches its conclusion, the electronics seem to catch hold of the percussion; however, a glance at the score of Nine Rivers' eighth piece, Introitus, reveals that it is, in fact, its own tape part overlapping the final minute of éileadh • Having been more-or-less dormant for the last 20 minutes of the cycle, electronics now start to return to the importance they had in La coupure • At this stage, the penultimate work brings with it a palpable sense of the end being in sight, although i suspect this is a natural concomitant of Nine Rivers' epic scale rather than anything (yet) in the music explicitly heralding or even implicitly hinting at its conclusion • Introitus is scored for 12 strings (to some extent timbrally mirroring the second work, L'ECRAN parfum) plus both live electronics & also tape • In his very lengthy programme note, Dillon characterises the relationship of those components as "a palimpsest of three superposed layers [...] interdependent strata [that] function not simply to perform a coherent unity [or] a symbiosis but cite their own deconstruction. Introitus within the context of Nine Rivers may be viewed as an estuary (L. æstuare, to surge, foam as the tide), a tidal delirium opened up by the employment of computer technology" • Completed in 1990, Introitus was composed for the 65th birthday of Pierre Boulez, & was premièred in May of that year by the Ensemble Intercontemperain conducted by Peter Eötvös, at the Pompidou Centre in Paris • The tape & electronic parts were realised next door at IRCAM, who also commissioned the work • This time, the relevant stanza from Rimbaud's La Bateau ivre is this one:

I have seen sidereal archipelagos! and islands
Whose delirious skies are open to the sea-wanderer:
--Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep and exile yourself,
Million golden birds, O future Vigor?

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

The opening sound of reverb becomes wind-like, & it's within this that one catches first sight of the strings, almost static, one by one becoming tremolandi • Another symmetrical hint of L'ECRAN, perhaps, although these strings are more spritely & gymnastic; after just a dozen bars, a violin & cello break free & launch into dual soliloquys, their fiercely demanding material quickly melding into a duet • It's not immediately obvious aurally, but Dillon has divided the 12 strings into three groups: the first comprising four violins, the last one each of viola & cello plus two double basses, with a string quartet in the middle • At this early stage of the piece, the three groups, although materially distinct, work together towards a larger tutti texture; already the music contains such fine complexity of tracery that the ear becomes caught between delight & abject disorientation; Dillon wasn't kidding when he likened it to a "tidal delirium" • Without destroying its detail, the tape & electronics nonetheless cast something of a veil over this tracery, obfuscating points where phrases begin & end; beyond this, the electronics act as a boundary, encompassing the strings & defining their horizon • Pauses in the score allow the electronic layers to expand further, becoming timbrally akin to a vast mechanism that passes quickly by, steamrollering the strings • They're left barely moving, but in their behaviour lies a ferocity that's only starting to make itself felt • Another even more lengthy tape episode follows, resembling a richly multifaceted drone (the string texture seemingly continuing in the tape part), before the wind becomes audible again & the strings find their feet • At first blurting, they create a large, hectic network of lines, existing as a single entity but again thoroughly individual in their discrete lines • There's a momentary hint of something pulse-like, & again shortly after, but regularity is about as far from Introitus as could possibly be imagined (Arnold Whittall once likened the work's style to "clouds without clocks") •

Determination seems to be the order of the day, all the strings impelling their material along through dense cascades of demisemiquavers & soaring glissandi • The electronics often seem to cause subsidence in the strings, ostensibly sapping their energy, but a new kind of equilibrium is found by the central quartet breaking free from the group & becoming the focus of attention, modestly supported below & above by the remaining strings • Meanwhile, in a dramatic shift, the electronics rekindle the 'mechanism' from earlier, capturing the strings in its rotation & becoming an epicenter about which they congregate, no longer surrounding but now enclosed within them • As it vanishes from sight, there's less sense of the strings needing to be forceful, tempting them to occupy higher (less stable & coherent) registers, & back to the kind of powerful tremolandi heard in L'ECRAN • While the electronics remain at bay, the string texture both thins & thickens, flashes of harmonic references glistening past so fast they seem barely credible, & after a final sonic glade, the strings ebb away over trills & a firm final pizzicato note • This is not quite the end though; in the closing moments, the electronics—large yet distant—move very much closer, fascinating new details emerging within as the work ends (the score indicates several minutes of tape solo at the end, but in the context of Nine Rivers it appears to overlap into the final work, Oceanos) •

The overall interaction between the instrumental & synthetic aspects of Introitus is strikingly effective • But most impressive is Dillon's string writing, the sheer inventive range of which is exhaustive, & the interrelationship of the three groupings, particularly the long episode where the quartet is in the foreground, is thrilling despite the quietening taking place • An unavoidable caveat is that one can't help feeling the overabundance of elements & ideas that went into the composition of Introitus (discussed in full in the programme note) are impossible to grasp, & perhaps don't even lend the work any greater depth from a listening perspective • i'd single out the 444 "periodicity rates" that Dillon procured from astrophysical data concerning pulsars; Dillon's account of how "these periodic signals were then assigned to a [...] an isolated set of 444 ‘cicada’ pulses" derived from a computer-assisted dissection of "a single sound sample of a Mediterranean cicada song" is simply absurd information for the listener; not one iota of that admittedly fascinating compositional process is audible in the resulting composition • This is hardly a complaint, though, as Introitus is too bewilderingly exhilarating for any of that to matter; in any case, such writing as this is to a large extent a product of both its time &, dare i say it (pace Dillon, Dench, Ferneyhough), its compositional subculture • In the Nine Rivers world première, the piece was given a dazzling performance by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (they really ought to form their own contemporary music group), directed by Steven Schick •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part III (Melanosis)

8. Introitus [20:54]
FLAC [95Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 32Mb]
NB. Anyone who downloaded these audio files before today unfortunately got an early edit that was uploaded by mistake - it's too long & includes a large portion of Oceanos; the above links are for the final, correct length version •

programme note (PDF)
full score (PDF)

interactive score

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 7. éileadh sguaibe

2011-11-04T07:20:00.003Z

Having kept the electronics on a very tight leash in L'œuvre au noir, James Dillon reins them in almost completely in the seventh work of the Nine Rivers cycle, éileadh sguaibe • Like its predecessor, the work was also commissioned for the Paragon Ensemble, who gave the first performance in January 1991 • The title, in Scots Gaelic, approximates to "gathered up in pleated folds", referencing the kilt & serving as a descriptor for Dillon's manipulation of material, which he has described as "folding sound" • The electronics, as i've said, are negligible, so the piece is simply heard as one for brass septet & percussion • Despite éileadh sguaibe's brief duration (about which more later), Dillon establishes a fascinating relationship between these two groups, which in many ways feels like a continuation from L'œuvre au noir (& almost sounds like a larger incarnation of Richard Barrett's superb piece for trombone & percussion, EARTH); in part, it's inspired by this stanza from Rimbaud's La Bateau ivre:

I, who trembled, hearing at fifty leagues off
The moaning of the Behemoths in heat and the thick Maelstroms,
I, eternal spinner of the blue immobility,
Miss Europe with its ancient parapets!

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

In short, the percussion dominates, despite an aspirational opening chord from the brass, building to a huge fortissimo • It's quickly forgotten in an episode of initially subdued drum patterns (2:3:5), gently accented by the tam-tam, like a sombre introduction to an arcane rite • When the brass finally enter, their constricted figurations are unable to break through the web created by the drums, & they're quickly overwhelmed • A second attempt proves more long-lasting, but the material—muted, constrantly trilling—is insubstantial, & a percussive shift to emphatic snare crescendi renders them even more small & impotent • In a move that sounds almost conciliatory (opting for pitched instruments, handled gently), the percussion finally yield to the brass, which having spent the first few minutes in the middle distance, finally become foregrounded • The mutes remain, but the manners are far more demonstrative, clearly in search of a distinct melodic voice; increasingly threatened by loud drum punctuations, their material has a nascent quality, audibly impatient in its intent to evolve • At a cue from the mark tree, Dillon separates the forces, allowing the brass a chance finally to speak softly, without having to force their way through • While the percussion lurk in the distance, the brass steadily grow in stature, culminating in a stark series of dyads & an optimistic but rather haphazard surge • Yet for all the bolstered assertion, dry woodblock tremolandi—practically dancing around the brass—swiftly reduce them to an anæmic, lumbering shadow; they remain only as a remarkable heavily-muted duet, practically quacking at each other while the last shards of percussion are captured by the electronics, a sustained reverb hovering ominously over some far off, final questions from the trumpets • It's easy to hear in

Theoretically lasting 12 minutes, éileadh sguaibe is not the shortest work in Nine Rivers (that should be L'ECRAN parfum, with a listed duration of 10'); however, in the first performance of the complete cycle, it clocked in at barely nine minutes, so either in practice it really is the shortest in the cycle, or Steven Schick was taking the piece somewhat faster than intended • Either way, the drama Dillon creates in such a small durational space is seriously impressive—the brevity perhaps heightens the dramatic sense—& the brass players of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are clearly relishing the strictures imposed by the percussionists •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part III (Melanosis)

7. éileadh sguaibe [9:18]
FLAC [37Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 14Mb]

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 6. L’œuvre au noir

2011-11-03T06:56:00.000Z

The third & final part of James Dillon's Nine Rivers bears the subtitle 'Melanosis', another reference to alchemy, this time 'blackening' • This is, in fact, the first of the three stages of the alchemical process; Dillon began with the middle stage (leukosis), followed by the final stage (iosis), so the connection he's making is not a straightforward one • The connotations of 'melanosis' (also known as nigredo) are rich & thought-provoking, implying a cleansing kind of disintegration which has a psychological/spiritual parallel in the 'dark night of the soul' • This is overwhelmingly emphasised in the sixth work of Nine Rivers, L'œuvre au noir • That title—usually translated as 'The abyss'—comes from a 1968 novel by the Belgian writer Marguerite Yourcenar, in which she sought to allude to "what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance" (from the book's introduction) • This is intense, rather daunting stuff, & a quick glance at the instrumentation of Dillon's piece makes it clear that this abyss is one into which he intends to dive headlong • L'œuvre au noir is scored for bass flute, bassoon/contrabassoon, tenor-bass & bass trombones, harp, 2 cellos & a double bass—notwithstanding some higher pitched doublings & percussion (plus a live electronic component), this is an utmost dark, bass-heavy ensemble; 'noir' is right •

Despite being heard in the wake of almost two hours of incredibly intense & intricate music, L'œuvre au noir comes as a genuine shock; Dillon's piercing gaze into the abyss, & the sheer scale of its blackness is breathtaking • The opening is merely murky, a thin texture from which the flute swiftly establishes itself as a lyrical protagonist • But suddenly it's flanked by bass drum thuds & a loud tubular bell—C♯ again!—heralding the rest of the ensemble, together creating a grey, tenebral polyphony entirely lacking in surface detail • The harp makes a stab at importance, instigating a series of wild fortissimo tutti outbursts that cause a piccolo briefly to freak out • Everything almost pauses, but instead descends into a dense, compacted texture, the instruments moving as though held in a confined space • The muted brass are particularly potent here, their muzzled cries & murmurs lending a disturbing edge to what is already a decidedly unsettling soundscape • A sudden eruption of ghastly, ratchet-like percussive noises—a rare intrusion of the electronics, which are otherwise practically inaudible throughout—unleashes the trombones who now become muscular & violent, bombastically overpowering the rest of the ensemble; even when the atmosphere thins again, shortly after, & they become muted once more, their posturing continues from a distance • Towards the end, both harp & bass drum grow restless, but yet again it falls to the trombones to predominate, in an extraordinary series of downward glissandi • The closing minutes introduce crotales, which in terms of both register & timbre dissipate the gloom, culminating in soft percussive tremolandi •

It's difficult to articulate just how draining L'œuvre au noir is to experience—& disorienting too; the lack of almost anything beyond obscure, fleeting gestures to grab onto makes its black depths the kind in which one could sonically drown • But therein lies the power of its achievement which, i feel, has more to do with stark asceticism than emptiness • Steven Weigt, writing in Notes in 1998, felt that the lack of harmonic motion in the piece was "disastrous" (he expressed similar concerns about the insistent C♯ in La femme) but that seems to me a desultory observation, fixating on theory to the exclusion of the visceral, bottomless wrangling that makes L'œuvre au noir such an astonishing sonic feat • The accompanying stanza from Rimbaud's La Bateau ivre says it all:

I have seen the low sun spotted with mystic horrors,
Lighting up, with long violet clots,
Resembling actors of very ancient dramas,
The waves rolling far off their quivering of shutters!

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

L'œuvre au noir was commissioned by the Paragon Ensemble, who premièred the work in Glasgow in 1991, directed by David Davies • At last year's Nine Rivers world première, also in Glasgow, it was performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Steven Schick • Beforehand, the broadcast included another lengthy interview with Dillon, discussing the four remaining pieces •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part III (Melanosis)

Interview
FLAC [32Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 12Mb]

6. L'œuvre au noir [11:00]
FLAC [43Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 17Mb]

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 5. La coupure

2011-11-02T07:32:00.004Z

To describe the fifth work in James Dillon's Nine Rivers, La coupure, as being 'pivotal' perhaps seems like a truism; it sits, after all, at the epicentre of the cycle • Yet it marks a timbral transition that will be felt on all the remaining pieces, namely the inclusion of electronics • Dillon's relationship with electronics is not new (he attended IRCAM in the mid-1980s) but is evidently problematic, insofar as his feelings about the general state of electronic music are concerned • In an interview prior to last year's world première, Dillon summarised that "...the problem with electronics is that it sounds like shit", which is a refreshingly candid reaction to the bland, generic fare churned out by too many for too long • It's also a useful caveat when approaching La coupure, a 50-minute work for percussion & electronics, suggesting we're going to hear something a little different from the norm • The title means 'the cut', a reference to, among other things, the way rivers divide, & aspects of division preoccupy the piece throughout • The relevant stanza from Rimbaud's Le Bateau ivre is particularly vivid:

I know the skies bursting with lighting, and the waterspouts
And the surf and the currents; I know the evening,
And dawn as exhalted as a flock of doves,
And at times I have seen what man thought he saw!

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

Almost immediately, La coupure establishes itself as collage-like composition, & as such seeks to align itself less with contemporary electroacoustica than with examples from an earlier age • This makes sense given Dillon's qualifying remarks that "analogue sound is so much better than digital. I've tried to work as much with analogue as possible but it's very difficult these days. People don't maintain the equipment" • As hinted by the title, there's more than a little sense of the cut-&-splice roughness from the pre-digital age in La coupure; although described as a work for "percussion & live electronics", the soundworld of the piece would be better described as "percussion & tape" • There's actually not that much in the piece that sounds overtly electronic; for much of the time, what i feel compelled to call the 'tape part' comprises a variety of percussive material (enabling it to blend seamlessly with the soloist) in addition to voices &, towards the start, the sound of water • A recurring motif is clearly electronic: a loud bass strike that subsides to a drone, & moments like this declare the work's contemporaneity, but are nonetheless some way removed from the prevailing tendencies of mainstream electroacoustic music • Indeed, many of the electronic sounds throughout La coupure—such as the hollow wind at the start, & the pointillistic sounds that follow (~3'), plus the faint, metallic noises a while later (~13'), in addition to the drones already mentioned—suggest the kind of soundscapes created by such heterodox figures as Andrew McKenzie & Roland Kayn • & this goes for the collage techniques too, a good example being the episode a little over four minutes in—Dillon's own voice intercut with loud piano, metal & ratchet noises—which has infinitely more in common with the surreal & absurdist music of Andrew Liles & Matt Waldron than anything else • Simultaneously redolent of its heritage & unmistakeably of its time, La coupure is nonetheless decidedly left-field •

In terms of effectiveness, the collage approach could be heard to weaken the work's overall focus & flow, although conversely it projects an earnestness in the juxtaposition of material that is intense & engaging • There's always the sense that everything matters immensely, even though at times one can only imagine precisely what Dillon is striving to convey • Despite the alternations between the odd- & even-numbered pieces in Nine Rivers—Richard Bernas, in the brief notes accompanying the NMC CD, opines that "the even-numbered works [are] more disruptive, the odd-numbered based on principles of continuous ebb & flow" (although, considering this was written before all nine works were completed, it should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt)—La coupure has more than a little in common with the preceding work La femme invisible • Indeed, Bernas writes of La femme being "a single thread of phrases [...] disrupted by unexpected juxtaposition & setting. This is a deliberately cinematic technique, the cutting up of a line of film (or of sound)..." • In this respect, La coupure is strikingly similar, its continuity characterised by jump cuts & fades •

La coupure is the sole work in Part II of Nine Rivers, which is subtitled 'Iosis', a reference to the reddening of material as part of the alchemical process (also known as rubedo) • Percussionist Steven Schick, who's lived with La coupure for over a decade now—he gave the première in Paris in 2000—once again took the solo role for the performance in last year's Nine Rivers world première • In the broadcast, La coupure was preceded by an interview with Schick, where he elaborates his perspective of the piece in the context of the cycle • Despite the music's liminal quality—frequently blurring where the electronics end & the live percussion begins—Schick's mastery of Dillon's intricate textures is outstanding •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part II (Iosis)

Interview with Stephen Schick
FLAC [21Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 8Mb]

5. La coupure [50:06]
FLAC [178Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 79Mb]

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 4. La femme invisible

2011-11-01T08:51:00.003Z

The opening three works in the Nine Rivers cycle alternate between homogenous & variegated timbral groupings; the fourth piece La femme invisible continues this, using a mixed ensemble comprising the three percussionists from L'ECRAN joined by a piano & wind octet (two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets & saxophones, with assorted doublings) • Dillon completed the work in 1989, & it was first performed in June of that year by Music Projects/London under Richard Bernas' direction, & they subsequently recorded the piece for inclusion on the same CD as East 11th St; to date, they're the only works from Nine Rivers to have been commercially recorded •

While not wishing to get too analytical, one unavoidable aspect is the audibly clear way that Dillon has constructed La femme invisible • There are 10 sections, each of which is initiated in the same way, with a loud strike on a suspended C♯ bell • The sections are organised with equal clarity, from a small number of basic structural components, which i would characterise as follows:

• cadenzas - which always follow the bell strike, a highly florid, rhythmically diverse tutti occupying a single bar of around 10-13 quavers (♪=66)
• tuttis - of varying length, usually relatively short & always rapid, in which rhythmic similarities are commonplace (♪=168)
• trios - slow, lengthy episodes involving smaller chamber groupings, containing some of the work's most lyrical material; percussion is always involved (♪=40)
• 'stases' - brief moments when the music slows almost to a stop, during which sustained notes (sometimes ornamented) are played (♪=26)

Not all the sections in La femme invisible make use of all these components—the sixth section consists of just the cadenzas—but most use at least two • Such overt construction as this is interesting in light of the first line of the relevant stanza from Rimbaud's Le Bateau ivre:

At times a martyr weary of poles and zones,
The sea, whose sob created my gentle roll,
Brought up to me her dark flowers with yellow suckers
And I remained like a woman on her knees...

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

"Poles & zones" would be a rather fitting description of La femme invisible, & i wonder whether the eponymous boat's weariness is reflected in the somewhat repetitive manner with which the piece unfolds • The unrelenting bell notes, always C♯, certainly become wearying—or, at least, feel increasingly oppressive—although the content of the work's modules continues to change & vary throughout • But it would be difficult to describe this as 'progress' or 'development'; perhaps the strongest analogy would be variations, not so much on a theme as on a variety of behaviours, which are subsequently revisited, reimagined & reordered (one thinks of Birtwistle's Endless Parade, examining a common idea from a number of discrete vantage points) • In its own way, this too could be heard to contribute to the aforementioned 'weariness', but if that sounds slightly defeatist, it's simply due to the fact that La femme invisible is a decidedly difficult work to get a grip on; despite the clarity of its structure, & indeed its familiarity (the CD has been available for almost 20 years), the work still seems as impenetrable as ever—fascinating but enigmatic, allusive yet elusive •

La femme invisible brings the first part of Nine Rivers, 'Leukosis', to an end • In last year's world première it was performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (supplemented by a number of 'guest' players), conducted by Jessica Cottis •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part I (Leukosis)

4. La femme invisible [16:26]
FLAC [63Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 26Mb]

interactive score (complete)

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 3. Viriditas

2011-10-31T09:12:00.003Z

Having moved seamlessly between its first two components, Nine Rivers enters an entirely new area with its third piece, Viriditas • A work for 16 voices, it was commissioned for the BBC Singers, who gave the first performance in Brussels in early 1994 • The word 'viriditas'—Latin for 'greenness'—has an interesting provenance, its strongest association being with Hildegard of Bingen, for whom it was a deeply inspiring concept, ubiquitous in her writings • Fragments of Hildegard's poetry are one of four textual sources used in the piece, together with an "early 16th century alchemical paraphrase of the Latin mass by the German alchemist-astrologer-priest Nicholas Melchior of Hermannstadt" (better known today as Melchior Cibinensis), an extract from a Marian hymn attributed to Albertus Magnus & an "anonymous Hebridean 'weaving' song or incantation", this last being in Scots Gaelic, & as such the only non-Latin text Dillon has used • Inspirationally speaking (Dillon doesn't set it to music), the relevant stanza from Rimbaud's Le Bateau ivre is this one:

I have dreamed of the green night with dazzled snows,
A kiss slowly rising to the eyes of the sea,
The circulation of unknown saps,
And the yellow and blue awakening of singing phosphorous!

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

Timbrally disjunct from its predecessors, Viriditas also stands apart from them in the complexity of its material • The opening moments are relatively straightforward, but they're immediately answered by a taut passage in which individual voices already start to grow indistinct • There's the sense of a fundamental layer moving slowly, far below, while the upper voices skitter & slide over a more mobile surface • Slowly, the texture clarifies, & strands & fragments of quasi-tonal (even pastiche) material protrude through; in tandem with this, the voices become united, the sopranos & altos continuing to chant & glissando over the slower underpinning • After a time they all fragment again, reciting their own concerns intently, repeating words & phrases (there's an almost ritualistic quality to the choir's demeanour), voices occasionally grouping together • The upper voices then fall silent, the men coalescing onto the bare interval of a 5th, both notes undulating, overlapping each other; the women return, singing similarly to before, & there's a brief sense of 4-part polyphony before the lower voices now briefly depart • At their return—tenors first then basses—the simple melodic movement with no large leaps gives the music a chant-like quality •

Having reached the middle of the piece, there's a short pause (momentary silences of this kind are becoming regular & significant in Nine Rivers), whereupon Dillon embarks on a latter half much more convoluted than all that's gone before • The choir resumes loudly following the hiatus, with lyrical lines spiralling out from the close-knit group texture • The voices thin & quieten, dwindling to just a few slowly-moving lines, before erupting again in wild ululations • There now follows a lengthy episode formed around a rich, tightly-packed cluster, individual parts very hard to discern, & as it develops, repeated pitches become audibly important, at first with the men, who grow fiery on their single note • Dillon once again breaks things up, switching to a gorgeous soprano duet that starts to trill & twitter as a tutti swiftly expands beneath them • This leads to the second highly dense episode, again hard to unpick; only now there's a sense of culmination, multiple texts uttered simultaneously in a kind of verbal stretto • One last time, Dillon breaks the surface tension, dissolving the choir to leave just a few voices on a spare chord • Growing into a final chorus, the music concludes over a long pedal note, the final chord deliciously inscrutable •

The performance of Viriditas at last year's world première of Nine Rivers was given by the work's dedicatees, the BBC Singers, conducted by Simon Joly • i've heard it said many times—by both composers & singers alike—that the homogeneity of the BBC Singers is both a blessing & a curse, capable of subverting a composer's voice & replacing it with a more generic sonic identity • However, in a work of such uncommon invention as Viriditas, Dillon's unique voice is unmistakable, & the BBC Singers' performance is superbly immersive •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part I (Leukosis)

3. Viriditas [19:54]
FLAC [75Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 32Mb]

interactive score (excerpt)

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 2. L’ECRAN parfum

2011-10-30T08:46:00.004Z

Following the large-scale "triumphant hubbub" that is East 11th St NY 10003, the second work in James Dillon's Nine Rivers halves the number of percussionists & adds six violins • L'ECRAN Parfum ('SCREEN perfume') was composed in 1988, & received its first performance the following spring by the Oslo Sinfonietta • At 10 minutes' duration, it's the shortest piece in the cycle, but there's absolutely nothing slight about it; on the contrary, L'ECRAN Parfum is a searing demonstration of Dillon the dramaturgist, cramming into its brief span a bewildering & almost infeasibly intense dramatic outpouring • In his programme note, Dillon demarcates the piece in two parts, one "constructed around the continuous iteration of three superposed prototypical forms of pattern — spirals, meanders and branching", the other "constructed upon the iteration of a single texture, gradually altered by a continuous ‘rallentando’" • He also quotes another stanza from Rimbaud's Le Bateau ivre, continuing from the previous one:

The storm blessed my sea vigils.
Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves
That are called eternal rollers of victims,
Ten nights, without missing the stupid eye of the lighthouses!

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

Following seamlessly from East 11th St, L'ECRAN Parfum is thrust into being via a mark tree swish, the strings instantly emerging like a clutch of angry hornets, articulating themselves through unceasing, highly demonstrative tremolandi, riding effortlessly ("Lighter than a cork…") over the bass drum's broad & turbulent opening swells • Dillon immediately establishes the strings as a united entity, firmly in the spotlight; the percussion—apart from occasional mark tree rips—promptly retreat to the sidelines • This sense of unity, together with the constant state of high drama, reveals retrospectively how emotionally 'aloof' East 11th St is by contrast; this is a very different kind of polyphony from that, its underlying processes working as a means to an end rather than being an end in themselves (that's not meant as a negative comment about East 11th St) • Over the first few minutes, the tremolandi evolve somewhat, becoming rapid trills, shifting in pace, even affecting a momentary sense of line • But as soon as this development becomes obvious, there's a pause, after which the tremolandi return with gusto • As do the percussion, in a series of wild, undulating bass drum & suspended cymbal rolls, bringing the strings to a single note standstill •

This, i suspect, is the moment where the second part begins, as the minutes that follow certainly have a single texture, the violins high in register, accompanied by just a cymbal • There is, too, a sense of slowing, but this is countered by an apparent urge in all six violins to propel the music on & not permit any retardation • So when Dillon then inserts a rude tubular bell gesture, it's with more than a suggestion of admonishment; another silence follows, & the strings play out their remaining material in laboured fashion, almost stumbling over each other in a decidedly clumsy kind of homophony • Despite the strings having ostensibly dominated the piece, the percussion clearly pack the greatest punch; a tam-tam crescendo compels the piece to end •

In this performance from the Nine Rivers world première, L'ECRAN Parfum is performed by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jessica Cottis •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)

Part I (Leukosis)

2. L'ECRAN parfum [9:47]
FLAC [43Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 15Mb]
programme note (PDF)

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première) - 1. East 11th St NY 10003

2011-10-29T09:28:00.008+01:00

Having spent last week in the company of some 'contemporary epics', & with today being the composer's 61st birthday, it seems an appropriate time to explore one of the most ambitious compositional endeavours of the contemporary age: James Dillon's Nine Rivers • i can't be the only person for whom Nine Rivers had almost assumed the status of legend • i first read about it in the mid-1990s, in Richard Toop's article "Four Facets of the 'New Complexity' ", published in Contact way back in 1988 • The first work in the cycle was completed as long ago as 1982; over the years i often wondered if Dillon would ever complete the cycle, & one can only imagine there may well have been times when the composer himself wondered the same • Then again, in conversation with Toop Dillon admitted to "a personal problem I have about being incredibly lazy", going on to explain his method for kick-starting the creative process, beginning with technical considerations, calculations, instrument ranges & characters & so on • "Lazy" hardly seems the right epithet for the composer of a 3-hour cycle of music, although perhaps one shouldn't be too surprised that it took until the year 2000—a period of 18 years—for all nine compositions to be completed • The fact that it then took a further decade for the first complete performance of Nine Rivers is less understandable, & betrays the fact that, despite being one the UK's most innovative & thought-provoking composers, Dillon continues to receive a feeble amount of respect & recognition on his native shores • Cries of "'twas ever thus" are simply not good enough, & only highlight even more brightly the cultural myopia & intellectual moribundity that has dogged the UK (by which i mean England (by which i mean London)) for as long as i can remember • Nonetheless, apathy towards Dillon has extended north of the border, the most notoriously toxic example being that of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, who failed so utterly in their shoddy, philistinic butchering of Dillon's Via Sacra in 2005 that the BBC refused to allow the recording to be broadcast • Dillon was quoted as being "left with an overwhelming feeling of sadness"; it was surprising he didn't just punch conductor Alexander Lazarev's lights out • Thankfully, last year's world première of Nine Rivers—which took place in Scotland, in Dillon's home city, at the Glasgow City Halls—fell to performers of infinitely superior ability & outlook: members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, & the one-man percussive marvel that is Steven Schick, who shared conducting duties with Jessica Cottis • All told, Nine Rivers lasts just a smidge over three hours, & while many of the constituent pieces follow each other without a pause, i hope i'll be forgiven for breaking that continuity & exploring the cycle over the next nine days •

Inspiration for Nine Rivers came from a myriad sources, the most fundamental of which being "the ancient idea of river as a metaphor for time. Perhaps the most famous use of the metaphor appears in the Heraclitus epigram “no man steps into the same river twice”, which encapsulates what has been called his philosophy of flux or change. Lesser known is another of his epigrams on time where he curiously describes time as “like a child playing chequers” and invokes the role of chance in the universe. These two epigrams play both a conceptual and concrete role in the way I approach the cycle. The idea of flux or change captures the very fleeting essence of sound itself, musical form of course engages with memory and renders meaning to a set of emerging or fleeting properties" (from Dillon's programme note) • That starts to explain the rivers; what of the nine? • i mentioned above Dillon's approach to composition—calculations first, getting the ball rolling, significance & subtext later—& it was this way that the cycle obtained numerical meaning: "The number ‘nine’ is seen in most cultures as a mystical number and in classical mythology it was said there were nine rivers of hell. However the number nine in fact emerged organically as I began to make calculations (for a synopsis of the cycle) around the notion of a journey through timbral rivers" • As so many epics do, Nine Rivers falls into three parts, each lasting about an hour; the "timbral rivers" develop through these parts according to Dillon's interpretation of the principles of alchemical transformation laid out by Heraclitus •

Part 1 is subtitled 'Leukosis', meaning "whitening" (also known as albedo) & comprises four pieces, the first of which is arguably the most well-known of all the works in the Nine Rivers cycle • East 11th St NY 10003 was composed in 1982 for the group Lontano, & became widely known following its CD release in 1992 (even back then, such things took a decade to happen) • A piece for six percussionists, many discussions of the work reference seemingly comparable works by Varèse & Cage, although the resemblances are more slight & superficial than first impressions might suggest • East 11th St's rigorous grid-based foundation perhaps brings the calculated structures of the Constructions in Metal to mind, & the interrelationship of indeterminate & pitched instruments isn't dissimilar to that of Ionisation, but as Dillon's preceding comments make clear, the compositional aspect that's projected with greatest force is timbre • At the risk of making a redundant statement, East 11th St is simply full of timbre; not quite in the sense of texture music—at least, not until the last section of the piece—but as a locus of intense compositional attention, through & by which its processes are worked through • All the same, it wouldn't be inaccurate to think of East 11th St as a 'textural' piece, the intricacy of its processes acting as undercurrents from which the surface filigree emerges •

The work is structured in three sections, the first of which (described by Dillon as 'numerical') is dominated by unpitched instruments, particularly the splash of cymbals • Tubular bells & gongs are involved too, at first almost losing their pitched nature, although this becomes more assertive as the section continues • The clearly homogeneous texture, timbrally static, throws attention onto the process, which is here concerned with the gradual extension of repeated rhythmic patterns • Personally, i find listening in a slightly 'defocussed' way—with an ear more to how the music is broadly evolving rather than what's happening moment by moment—to be the clearest way to detect this gradual process • After a few minutes, following a temporary hiatus, the second section begins with a radical shift in timbre, opting now for 'granular' sounds: sleighbells, shaker, ratchet, tambourine rolls & dry drum tremolandi, punctuated by the unnerving pair of whip & lion's roar • This sudden change neatly disguises what will emerge as the most significant material, a timpani duet beginning far off • This second section (which Dillon calls 'analogic') involves "a complex retrograde" of the previous one, & this can be clearly heard in the very obvious growing in intensity, as well as the movement from what at first sound like individualistic lines to a powerful tutti, fronted by the two timps fiercely pounding as though at the head of some wild procession •

The third & last section is also the longest, occupying a little over half the piece • It begins with the timpani yielding to a drum kit, & thence to the sound of snares & toms in the foreground • Defined as being "relational", this section is distinct from the preceding but in a paradoxical way; on the one hand, there's a less overt sense of process (texture thereby becoming more aurally significant then timbre), yet equally giving the impression that this is precisely the place where processes are being most rigorously pursued • At first, the toms & snares are concerned with alternations between rolls & rhythms, but before long the texture starts to separate, accentuated by occasional loud crescendi • Metallic sounds—sleighbells, cymbals, hard but distant tam-tam strikes— slowly encroach on them, leading to a sudden hushed episode of rolls executed with brushes (a remarkable moment) • After a while, rototoms join in, culminating in boisterous rolling crescendi • In the final moments, a glockenspiel incongruously appears in the distance, soon accompanied by bells, disarming the drums—which respond with increasingly sparse fortissimo punctuations—& concluding the piece •

Dillon quotes a stanza from Rimbaud's renowned 1871 poem Le Bateau ivre ('The Drunken Boat') in his programme note; the words give a wonderfully vivid summary of East 11th St's soundworld:

Into the furious lashing of the tides,
More heedless than children's brains, the other winter
I ran! And loosened peninsulas
Have not undergone a more triumphant hubbub.

(translation by Wallace Fowlie)

The performance of East 11th St NY 10003 was given by Les Percussions de Strasbourg • Beforehand, there's a lengthy introduction from the BBC's Tom Service (who's clearly ravaged his thesaurus for as many aquatic terms as possible), but more interesting is the interview with the composer; aside from the fact that it's rather satisfying to hear Service's jaunty enthusiasm being confronted by Dillon's firm, implacable (& at times barely tolerant) responses, when Dillon talks about his music he communicates with a clarity that is much more immediate than in his programme notes & essays •

James Dillon - Nine Rivers (World Première)
Nine Rivers world première programme book (PDF)

Part I (Leukosis)

Introduction & interview [8:30]
FLAC [35Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 13Mb]

1. East 11th St NY 10003 [20:13]
FLAC [85Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 32Mb]
programme note (PDF)

For more information about Dillon & his music, it's best to go to the German Peters Edition website, which has an English text option; Dillon's biography & links to his works can be found here (steer clear of the English/US Peters site, which is æsthetically-challenged & plagued with textual issues) • The justly famous NMC recording of East 11th St NY 10003 is still widely available, & also includes La femme invisible, the fourth work in the Nine Rivers cycle; it can be ordered direct from NMC, but is much cheaper from Amazon •

George Crumb - Black Angels

2011-10-24T09:26:00.004+01:00

Today is the 82nd birthday of one of my favourite composers, George Crumb • To mark the occasion, here's a recording of a performance of one of his most well-known & loved pieces, the great & formidable string quartet Black Angels, which received its first performance 41 years ago yesterday (hmm, 82 & 41; Crumb would no doubt approve of the numeric connection) • Completed in 1970, Crumb subtitled the work "Thirteen Images from the Dark Land", & the tone throughout is a profoundly troubled one; Crumb hints at an explanation in an inscription in the score—"in tempore belli" ("in time of war")—referencing the Vietnam War, & it's that subject matter, together with allusions to Penderecki's seminal Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima that form the core of the work • The bedrock is structured with Crumb's trademark fastidiousness & rigour, in which the numbers 7 & 13 are fundamental • Black Angels comprises 13 short sections, grouped into three parts that parallel the Christian notions of falling from grace (Departure), concomitant spiritual poverty (Absence) & subsequent redemption (Return) • Throughout, the quartet is amplified, & are required to do very much more than merely play their string instruments • Alongside extended techniques—many of which are commonplace today but were novel at the time—Crumb employs the most imaginative methods to obtain specific timbral colours & effects •

Part I falls into five sections, opening with "THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects", a rapid, dissonant-strewn (almost unison) episode with startling glissando 'calls' • This is followed by a pair of highly contrasting, delicate movements, "Sounds of Bones and Flutes" & "Lost Bells", the quartet tapping uncannily while a strange melody emerges & then falls into distant fragments • Things then liven up, first with rude tritone interjections & scraping bows in "Devil Music", tam-tam strikes creating an air of religiosity or ceremony, & then in a "Danse Macabre", the first time a pulse has been heard, underpinning an unsettling dance accompanied by maracas & tunes whistled by the players •

The second & third parts have four sections each • Part II begins with "Pavana Lachrymæ", a bizarre skeletal rendition of tudor melancholy, the players bowing their strings above their fingers, an extreme kind of sul tasto that saps all life & warmth from the timbre • This is sharply interrupted by a sudden return of the insect music from at first, the second threnody—bearing the title of the work—inducing the players to wild shouts & rapid descending glissandi, culminating in a massive tam-tam strike • The wan tone of the tudor music returns in "Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura" (Sarabande of the Dark Death), fizzling into an icy melody on harmonics, echoing the "Lost Bells" movement from earlier •

The final part begins with glacial stillness in "God-music", the quartet re-creating a glass harmonica by bowing on wine glasses; this continues into "Ancient Voices", the cello emerging to articulate an evocative, wistful melody, growing in passion & intensity • Another "Echo" movement follows it, the cello now barely tracing a line in the air, blending with the glasses • & so to the 13th & last section, "THRENODY III: Night of the Electric Insects", no mere recapitulation but a largely subdued memory of the insect music, tainted by a momentary appearance of the maracas; the players descend into ever softer percussive noises, concluding with tapped wine glasses & whispers •

It's often struck me that Black Angels really ought not to work; the brevity of the sections, & their diverse character, plus the kaleidoscopic way in which the players flit between a plethora of performing techniques could easily render the piece a spectacle of disjointed incoherence • But it's Crumb's keen sense of narrative—a feature of all his work—that saves the day, enabling what might be discontinuity in lesser hands to become tense, immersive, edge-of-your-seat listening, seemingly much longer than its 25-minute duration • This performance of Black Angels was given by the excellent Smith Quartet on 11 July 2001 as part of that year's Cheltenham Music Festival, & was broadcast live by BBC Radio 3 (the rest of the concert featured quartets by Steve Reich & Conlon Nancarrow; i'll aim to feature those on here in due course) • More details about Black Angels & a helpful summary of the movements can be found on the Wiki page; further info can be found on Crumb's own website, here • Happy Birthday, George! •

George Crumb - Black Angels [28:36]
FLAC [115Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 48Mb]

Semiconductor - 20 Hz

2011-10-21T19:14:00.002+01:00

This has to be the most fascinating & beautiful audio-visual extravaganza since Gantz Graf:

According to the artists, Semiconductor, "20 Hz observes a geo-magnetic storm occurring in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Working with data collected from the CARISMA radio array and interpreted as audio, we hear tweeting and rumbles caused by incoming solar wind, captured at the frequency of 20 Hertz. Generated directly by the sound, tangible and sculptural forms emerge suggestive of scientific visualisations. As different frequencies interact both visually and aurally, complex patterns emerge to create interference phenomena that probe the limits of our perception."

More info & images here •

Contemporary Epics: V/Vm - The Death of Rave

2011-10-21T06:53:00.001+01:00

In the last few days i've highlighted some impressive examples of music composed on an 'epic' scale • i've saved the biggest until last, but even by saying that, i've touched on an inherent danger lurking in a discussion of this kind • When any musical parameter is taken to a compositional extreme, the mere act of doing that starts to rupture a work's integrity, as much æsthetically as practically • Let's put it another way; what interests me so much in a work like Robert Rich's Somnium is both what he's striving to do & the way in which he's trying to do it • It's a piece that requires its duration to be extreme, but it's not a piece about duration; the danger is to put undue—or, worse, all—emphasis on that one aspect, & thereby fracture one's holistic appreciation of the piece • One might argue, reasonably, that it's difficult to ignore the durational aspect of a work lasting seven hours; but that's not, hopefully, what one's thinking about as each minute passes in Somnium—or, indeed, in the Trilogy in Three Parts, Blemished Breasts, or July 17, 2010 • When setting out to explore these five 'contemporary epics', extended duration was my common thread, but i hope it's been clear that that aspect is ultimately an integral component in a much larger & richer whole; in a nutshell, what these pieces share is that their extensive durations fully support & are at the service of the music •

There are musicians who've misjudged duration, & in their quest for something 'epic' have ended up with something rather different; the most conspicuous of late has been The Flaming Lips, who earlier this year unleashed a six-hour song, "I Found A Star On The Ground", as part of their album Strobo Trip • Prior to its release, the group were interviewed relentlessly about this massive task, & it became immediately apparent that the duration was no unavoidable by-product of the song's necessity, but rather was itself the focus of the endeavour; the challenge for the group was to find a way satisfactorily to fill that amount of time • Of course, from The Flaming Lips one expects a tongue-in-cheek approach to music-making, & in any case, the recording was made for charity, for which a marathon act of endurance seems appropriate & even admirable • But listening to the song, it takes almost no time at all to appreciate how awkward they found the task of filling six hours • In some ways, it reminded me of Natural Snow Buildings' Daughter of Darkness (which also lasts six hours, although not continuously): ideas are either stretched way beyond what they can tolerate or passed by too quickly to register adequately • Thus, one becomes acutely aware of the duration, & that's hardly the point of an 'epic' • Apparently, The Flaming Lips will be releasing a 24-hour song in due course; my expectations are pretty low for that one • Beyond this, in creatively immature hands, things can really get out of control • Consider Bull of Heaven, for whom duration really has become a substitute for content • Their earliest experiments occupied durations of around 30-40 minutes, & there is the occasional nugget of interest in some of them; but before long they were making pieces 4 hours long, 8 hours, 12 hours... • Today, they're creating pieces that supposedly last months & even years in duration (which, for obvious reasons, thwart pretty much all audio players, let alone hard drives) • Trust me: don't bother wasting your bandwidth, disk space or indeed your precious time with their thankfully unique kind of vapid gigantism, unless you really do fancy the prospect of a single idea repeating with minimal variation for the rest of the week; if you're not in an asylum before you start listening, you may well be in one when you finish •

Anyway, so much for the caveats, none of which apply to the fifth & last 'contemporary epic' i'd like to examine • Leyland James Kirby has long been associated with—& has perhaps justifiably come to represent—the hauntological movement, his albums (usually under the pseudonym The Caretaker) bearing titles that imply an intense but unavoidably marred attempt to recapture the past, such as Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom (1999), Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia (2005) &, more recently, under his own name, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (2009) • Each album burgeons with substance, & indeed, both in terms of concept as well as duration aspire to precisely the kind of 'epic' scale i've been exploring here (the second of those albums is almost four hours long); they're a testament to a remarkable & unstoppable creative flow • Kirby is, put plainly, prolific almost to the point of absurdity; in fact, being absurd was once an essential part of Kirby's mode of expression under a different moniker, V/Vm • V/Vm was, i believe, Kirby's first nom de guerre, & over a period of 13 years, he discharged a colossal rage of music by that name, an unceasing torrent of occasionally effluvial works that repulsed & enchanted in equal measure • In 2006, Kirby made this statement, which neatly encapsulated his outlook, & laid out ambitious plans for a year-long project entitled V/Vm 365:

"Over the last ten years the music industry has changed beyond recognition from the one in which V/Vm started back in 1996. With V/Vm 365 I have taken into account all of these changes and am providing a direct link between creation and your own personal consumption of the audio I create. Each day I will be aiming to complete audio which will then be uploaded. I will do as much as my time allows me to do as I try to survive and work around this project. The aim is to provide a direct link removing the need to promote and distribute the audio I produce for one year. You will get the lot from the shit to the sublime. It's a big challenge both mentally and financially and one for the last six months I have worked towards by learning enough things to make what is here as varied as i can. V/Vm 365 is not sponsored by any Arts waffling grants board of cunts."

Kirby achieved his aim, & between July & September of that year gradually unveiled an album that is one of the most spellbinding epics of all: The Death of Rave • What makes it so special, so entirely captivating, is its synthesis of the compelling hauntology of The Caretaker with the relentless acidic energy of V/Vm • Actually 'acidic' is right—or, at least, acid; Kirby's intention with The Death of Rave was to create "an audio soup of half remembered rave anthems featuring all of the hits and many misses from the golden age of the Northern U.K. rave scene. From the run down Blackburn warehouses through to the M6 service stations enroute to Shelly's in Stoke the people came. The rave legacy no longer lives on, the corpse of rave bares no resemblance to those heady days in the late eighties and early nineties. The full experience, one-hundred-and-eleven-facsimiles."

These 111 "facsimiles" are like a series of resurrected recollections, dream-like & caked in detritus • Some last barely two minutes, others persist for nearly a quarter of an hour, but as one passes to the next, to the next, to the next, there's absolutely no attenuation or disruption of the ongoing argument; if anything, the focus becomes intensified • When i speak of an 'argument', i mean that loosely; these are the kind of pieces that can be listened to in any order, without harming the cogency of Kirby's intentions • He's seeking to garner memories, & such things do not come neatly packaged in a polite, preordained fashion • The pieces act as memento mori, capturing the essence of their deceased idiom with startling fidelity, wild energy & exhilaration cutting through the funereal context • They presumably communicate most to those, like i, who lived through the UK rave scene & can connect instantly to the vestiges of its legacy that resonate within; but they're inspiring pieces in any case, & Kirby clearly found the experience so ripe with possibilities that, following the original 111, he created no fewer than 93 additional pieces, bringing the total to 204 • The Death of Rave lasts 19 hours • It is a majestic, aching, quizzical, gruelling, delirious & affecting album—for me, it's the ultimate 'epic' •

Originally released in 20 parts, The Death of Rave was available until last year from Kirby's extensive V/Vm archive website • It's since been taken offline, but below are my own links to the complete album • You don't need to download all the parts in order to unzip the files; each part is independent • For more information about The Death of Rave, the two Discogs pages—here & here—are succinct but informative, as is the page about V/Vm 365 •

The Death of Rave (The Source)
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10

The Death of Rave (Additional)
part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18 | part 19 | part 20

Contemporary Epics: Robert Rich - Somnium

2011-10-20T13:43:00.002+01:00

In the previous few articles, it may seem as though i've been avoiding the very obvious elephant in the room • So let's confront it now: large-scale musical 'epics' of the kind i've been exploring present formidable problems to the listener • Assuming one can find the time to devote to it, there's the issue of focus, of trying to maintain some semblance of concentration for a very much longer-than-usual period of time; furthermore, attempting to hear each passing event within the wider context of the whole (rather than just listening superficially) becomes a strenuous & potentially unwieldy activity • i accept that these are very real challenges with such music, & while i can speak from experience & state that it's something that becomes much less of a problem the more one becomes acquainted with large-scale music, the fourth 'contemporary epic' i'd like to examine is a work that could be said to tackle the reality of this situation head-on—or, at least, take a fundamentally different approach to it •

The composer Robert Rich established his reputation in the early 1980s, as a composer whose live performances took place through the night • In part they were concerts, yet more importantly to Rich they were experiments, investigating the ways in which sound can stimulate periods of REM sleep • At these events, the audience would take its place on the floor, actively encouraged—& this may sound paradoxical—to interact with Rich's performance through the act of sleep, engaging with the music through the gauze of a semi-conscious mind • These "sleep concerts" directly influenced the albums Rich released around this time; his debut album Sunyata (1982) pared down its content to a minimum—echoing the title, which is a Buddhist concept approximating to 'emptiness' or 'void'—while at the same time greatly expanding its duration to better facilitate a meditative listening state (originally released on cassette, the album was unusual at lasting almost 86 minutes) • The titles of his next two albums, Trances & Drones (both 1983), made explicit the kind of deeply subliminal interrelationship Rich wanted his music to have with its audience, whether experienced live or at home •

The most telling example of this is his magnum opus Somnium, released in 2001 • Having alluded to the nature of the "sleep concerts" through a prolific series of albums, on Somnium Rich sought to return to the source & directly replicate that experience • The only way to do that faithfully was for the music to be heard right through the night; hence the reason for Somnium's massive duration, lasting a little over seven hours • So Somnium presents the listener with the ultimate challenge, a work of unprecedented length, but it also presents its own solution, stated clearly in the title, inviting its audience to experience it through sleep • In the accompanying notes, Rich helpfully elucidates on the nature of that interaction:

The term “Sleep Concert” can be a bit misleading, as it implies that this music is intended to help you sleep deeply. On the contrary, when you play Somnium at night, you may find that you sleep less deeply, and wake up more often. The idea is to let the music incorporate itself into your perceptual framework during the night, to create a sonic surround, an environment for unique states of consciousness. The music is aimed at the nebulous territory that exists in your mind when you are hovering between awake and asleep, when you are still aware of your environment, yet detached, when your half-sleeping mind wanders into the realm of hypnogogic images and dreamlike non-linearity. You might find that this music can act as a trigger for these flowing thoughts, and the activation of the environment around you can help you to skate around the edges of sleep, with one foot in the dream world and one foot in the room where you are sleeping.

While Somnium occupies a vast, single durational span, it does pass through three distinct periods: into, during, & out from the period of REM sleep • To that end, the outer parts (which each last 2½ hours) are profoundly gentle, a warm cushion characterised by soft-edged chords slowly drifting in space, shifting from one formation to another • That's not to suggest the music is aimless—on the contrary, despite requiring a different kind of perspective, they are in fact overtly functional, with a clear sense of direction towards & away from the crucial central period • Unsurprisingly, though, speed of movement throughout is infinitessimal; an oriental flute, heard prominently at the beginning of Part 1, takes 20 minutes to be absorbed into a chord that oscillates on its axis, & a further 20 minutes pass while that chord loses its substance, leaving nothing but a deep drone & soft amphibian noises • Deep clusters throb, becoming a solid slab, hovering massively; it drifts further away, yet still sends out a shuddering bass that seems to probe the ears • Water sounds feature both here & throughout Somnium; the work begins with light rain, & assorted trickles & droplets are a recurring idea • Both the conclusion of Part 1 & much of the first half of Part 3 are ostensibly static, the former ebbing away into an indistinct & hollow place, coloured with wind, the latter focussing on chords seemingly reluctant to stir (although their surfaces bristle with life), yet ever feeling as though they might move at any moment • The second half of Part 3, returning gradually to conscious reality, includes a potent sequence of pulses resonating in the depths, & reintroduces the bird & animal calls from earlier; they predominate towards the conclusion, conjuring up (&, if heard through the night, literally accompanying) the sounds of morning •

But i find the more demonstrative 2-hour central period to be even more mesmeric • At first, there's the sensation we're heading into a territory of loops; not so, it develops into a deep, softly shimmering texture, from which a hint of melody yields to distant animal calls • Chords oscillate, feeling vast in a sonic space as infinite as this, taking new forms that bring to mind the consistency of galaxies • Rich doesn't wrap his REM-based listener in aural cotton wool, though; metallic surges assert themselves, & pitches coalesce into a distinct 7th chord about halfway through • When added to by a rich, warm bass, the music becomes boldly substantial, even powerful—Rich may be concerned with sleep interaction, but Somnium is by no means seeking merely to tranquillise its audience with a 7-hour lullaby • The sound of the sea is introduced, matched with gentle dissonances, culminating in isolated metallic strikes—akin to Buddhist monastery bells—that cause deep ripples in the texture, passing into the final period with brief loud roars crashing like waves • It's remarkable just how much Part 2 contrasts with its neighbours; at times—i don't think this is exaggerating—it almost seems to be provocative (at least, to someone half-asleep) •

Beyond this, it makes little or no sense to discuss Somnium's minutiæ; that's not why they're there, & in any case, when listened to as the composer intended, the amount of detail filtering through will vary from person to person & from occasion to occasion • For myself, i've listened to it through the night—glimpsing it as & when my fuzzy attention found something to grasp onto—& can testify to a uniquely fascinating trip (in every sense, that word seems right) • & i've also listened to it 'cold', my attention raptly focussed, & can honestly say i find it just as rewarding in this context too—except, of course, it makes for an entirely different experience • However one hears it, Somnium is a truly unique musical encounter •

When Somnium was first released, the only practicable format was DVD-audio; but even this was problematic, requiring that Part 2 be compressed in order to fit all the audio onto the disc • It's fitting that in this 10th anniversary year Somnium has been reissued as a digital download; the lossless (FLAC) version represents the first time the piece has been heard in its original, uncompressed state—it's thereby the best option, better even than the original DVD release • The download can be bought from Musiczeit here, & as usual there's an MP3 option for those with poor hearing • The DVD can still be bought directly from Robert Rich here, where you can also read Rich's extensive notes about the piece, as well as his advice for how best to listen to it • The DVD can also be bought from CD Baby, but it's worth pointing out that the MP3 download available there is a drastically edited version, lasting a mere 73 minutes, barely a tenth of the original duration, & is therefore to be avoided •

Contemporary Epics: The Hafler Trio - Trilogy in Three Parts

2011-10-19T07:03:00.002+01:00

It's impossible to speak of 'contemporary epics' without given especial mention to The Hafler Trio (the nom de guerre of Andrew McKenzie) • While Kenneth Kirschner & Pat Maherr, discussed previously, usually restrict themselves to relatively modest durations, it's rare for music by The Hafler Trio not to exceed an hour or more • This characteristic dates back as far as 1991, with the release of Kill the King, its single span lasting 73 minutes; the companion albums Mastery of Money (1992) & How to Reform Mankind (1994), ran to 75 & 78 minutes respectively • Those three albums form a trilogy, & large-scale trilogies have continued to be a feature of the Hafler Trio œuvre • Exactly As I Say (2004), Exactly As I Am (2005) & Exactly As I Do (2005), each double albums, together form a trilogy lasting almost 5½ hours • How to Slice a Loaf of Bread (2003) & sister work How to Slice a Loaf of Bread (Lengthwise) (2004) are each trilogies in their own right; together they too last nearly 5½ hours • Most recently, McKenzie's occasional collaboration with Autechre has finally become a trilogy with the release in August of ae3o3 (which on its own has a duration of 3¾ hours); together with æ³o & h³æ (2003) & æo³ & ³hæ (2005), this trilogy is now the longest of all, stretching to a massive 5¾ hours • Even the albums not part of trilogies occupy long durations: Hljóðmynd (2000; 1 hour), Normally (2003; 2 hours), Where Are You? (2004; 1 hour) & Scissors Cut Arrow (2004; 1¾ hours) • On all of these albums, individual tracks occupy a complete CD; faced with music on such a scale, it's understandable why, quite apart from the multitudinous disjecta membra that red herringly encompass each release—not to mention the eternally bellicose attitude of McKenzie himself—The Hafler Trio can seem off-putting, unapproachable & daunting •

However, there's one trilogy conspicuously missing from the above summary, & for me, it's the best as well as being the most immediate: the tautologically-named 'Trilogy in Three Parts' • Comprising Cleave: 9 Great Openings (2002), No Man Put Asunder: 7 Fruitful And Seamless Unions (2003) & No More Twain, Of One Flesh: 11 Unequivocal Obsecrations (2003), the 'Trilogy in Three Parts' lasts a little over three hours, & constitutes one of the most rapturously beautiful drone works ever made • The three titles draw on language from the traditional wedding ceremony, & this reflects the fact that the first of the parts, Cleave, was created as a nuptial celebration • All three are founded upon the same fundamental, a rich, deep bass note C, possessing an inscrutable timbre that's suggestive of both cello & double bass, but clearly has more going on within it • This fundamental is powerfully omnipresent; everything else takes place above it, sometimes below it, always in relation to it • The music comes across as a luxuriant paean to the harmonic series—or, rather (& Messiaen's Technique comes to mind when i say this), a celebration of all the explicit & implicit harmonic richness contained within that single deep fundamental note • Despite their ostensible simplicity, there's a huge amount taking place in these pieces, & over the years, when i've not been basking in their astounding beauty, i've subjected all three parts of this trilogy to considerable scrutiny & analysis • But this isn't the time when i want to embark on a lengthy unpicking of them—& in any case, each part of the trilogy is so utterly fluid that, for those unfamiliar with them (& i'm assuming a fair number of my readers won't have heard these pieces), a first encounter is best approached with a minimum of intellectual baggage •

Cleave: 9 Great Openings begins the trilogy • As the work's subtitle suggests, a series of episodes takes place above the low C, each focussed on one or two pitches drawn from those that are closest to C in the harmonic series (in other words: C♮, D♮, E♮, F♯, G♮, A♮ & B♭) • Each of these episodes emerges smoothly from the fundamental, with a specific, distinguishing timbral quality • Sometimes the timbre is passive, resulting most from the relationship between the notes, such as when an even lower note G causes beats against the low C (~26'); elsewhere, the timbre is actively different, at one point projecting an "ah" vowel sound (~31'), at another resembling a sawtooth wave (~38') • Apart from these episodes, each of which last up to a couple of minutes, there are lengthy passages where only the fundamental drone is heard; but the drone itself is fascinating to listen to, ever in flux, never static, utterly hypnotic •

The central panel of any triptych is often distinct from its neighbours, & the second part of the trilogy, No Man Put Asunder: 7 Fruitful And Seamless Unions is no exception • It's the most harmonically oblique, opting instead for pitches that are not closely related & that cause strong dissonances with the fundamental (D♭, E♭, F♮, A♭ & B♮) • This different outlook is announced in the very first episode, seven minutes in, when a loud semitone clash is underpinned by an astonishingly powerful deep bass pulse (heard on good speakers/headphones the effect is amazing) • The timbres, too, are far removed from that of the low C, exploring a wide range of diverse sounds, shimmering (~25'), stammering (~42'), softly stabbing (~45'), whistling (~52') & glowering (~54'); but the most striking of all is also the most unexpected: a harsh metallic E♮, highly consonant & therefore absent from the rest of the piece, its incongruity causing a kind of 'æsthetic dissonance' despite its strong tonal relationship to the fundamental • The powerful pulse heard at the start returns towards the conclusion, which ultimately brings about the first change to the low C, its stereo field audibly narrowing shortly before it cuts off (both this piece & Cleave end in an abrupt cut-off) •

No More Twain, Of One Flesh: 11 Unequivocal Obsecrations completes the trilogy, & harmonically speaking, is the simplest of the three • Beside C, only two other pitches are used, F♮ & G♮, forming the barest of intervals with the fundamental (the perfect fourth & fifth, respectively) • Frequently in the work, the pitch F occurs beneath the fundamental, causing intense, shuddering beats to ensue • This is the only way that the low C can be undermined, & this is echoed in the nature of the timbres above, which despite being fixed to pitches are sufficiently rich to detract from them & at times give off a distinctly atonal quality • Often the timbres are harsh & grinding (e.g. ~34'), & as the work progresses, there are times when the fundamental starts to become unstable, losing its stereo focus (hinted at in the previous piece) & even, at one shocking moment (~51'), being extinguished completely • Ultimately, the disturbances worrying its surface prove too much, & the fundamental collapses into a muted, mono shadow of its former self, fading into transparency •

As ever, words can't capture the sheer marvel of these three pieces, which i believe to be the absolute zenith of drone music • Effortlessly blending simplicity & complexity, consonance & dissonance, activity & passivity, beauty & ugliness in equal measure, they're quite simply a work of genius, & their combined three hour duration is one of the most sublime & exhilarating musical experiences you could ever have •

Thankfully, copies of all three parts of the Trilogy can be found very cheaply indeed on Discogs, here, here & here • There are no download options available, but you can hear a brief excerpt from No Man Put Asunder: 7 Fruitful And Seamless Unions on my 17th Mix Tape; the excerpt—which includes the deep bass pulse mentioned above—starts 58 minutes into the mix, & lasts around 3½ minutes •

Contemporary Epics: Indignant Senility - Blemished Breasts

2011-10-18T16:22:00.003+01:00

What makes Kenneth Kirschner's "July 17, 2010" so significant—&, in my view, qualifies it as an 'epic'—is the fact that its 2-hour duration is not subdivided into sections, or even particularly episodic (although its timbral qualities could be said to have a periodicity of roughly 20 minutes, but that's just the way i hear it) • This is what separates it from the plethora of large-scale albums that have been around for over 60 years, since the double album first came into existence • The prospect of an album lasting two hours or more is less problematic when its duration is broken down into individual songs of no more than a few minutes apiece; it's still a lot to listen to, granted, but the time is compartmentalised, which does at least make things psychologically simpler • Of course, there will always be the concept album that seeks to be homogeneous, its constituent parts seamlessly working towards the creation of a larger whole, but the qualitative shifts en route—the movement from track to track, with their own internal structures—inevitably mean that the overarching narrative is partitioned, if not entirely broken • At the end of last year, in my summary of the best albums of 2010, one of the key things that impressed me about the winner—Chubby Wolf's Ornitheology—was its large-scale epic structure; despite being merely a double album (& as such, shorter than many other such albums), it articulated itself in just two 40-minute tracks • The second 'contemporary epic' i'd like to highlight is very similar to this, & arguably more impressive •

Pat Maherr is one of the most genuinely discombobulating composers i've ever encountered, whose apparent irreverence to music-making i'll admit took some getting used to when i first encountered it • Nonetheless, under a plethora of pseudonyms, he's responsible for some of the more fascinating music i've heard in the last few years, particularly 2004's Too Mega, released as Moms Who Chop, as well as last year's Plays Wagner, under Maherr's best-known moniker, Indignant Senility • As that release writ suffocatingly large, there's a hauntological aspect to Maherr's work, while Moms Who Chop saw Maherr having a field day electronically annihilating acoustic instruments with a rawness worthy of Pierre Schaeffer himself; in yet another guise, as DJ Yo-Yo Dieting, Maherr explores his mischievous plunderphonic side, redolent of John Oswald • A few months ago saw the latest Indignant Senility album, Blemished Breasts, released on cassette, comprising two tracks each lasting a little under 50 minutes •

Plays Wagner touched on a hitherto underexplored depth & pensivity, & Blemished Breasts takes that very much further, even approaching the realm of ambient music • This is far from being hackneyed easy-listening, though; side A begins with the unsettling juxtaposition of deliciously radiant but distant music with the slowed down mutterings & laughter of a male voice • It's a trait that persists throughout the piece, the most seemingly beautiful material allowed no closer than the periphery, casting an abstract glow on the middle- & foreground • The legacy of Plays Wagner exerts an influence on this first side; while most of the album avoids delineated sections, the music suddenly lurches into a hauntological episode (~8'), echoed in a more lengthy passage that emerges later (~32'), granulated piano chords struggling to be heard through their own ongoing disintegration • But much of the music defies easy description, Maherr constructing a complex sound collage that draws on acousmatic, electroacoustic, drone & noise, never pausing long enough to become clearly defined • That suggests a constant sense of motion, but on the contrary, the overriding mood projected here is one of stillness & beauty—embedded in the heart of something dense, perhaps, but essentially calm all the same • & also quiet; there are periods (e.g. ~20') when Maherr keeps the music courageously soft for minutes on end, encouraging keen listening • The piano is the main foil on Side A, always dessicated as already described; indeed, its final appearance (~41') causes the entire texture instantly to crumble, dissolving into the sounds of water that return at the end •

Side B could almost be said to take place underwater; its intensely muffled quality suggests the music is submerged • Maherr takes a different approach here, establishing a delicate friction between pitched material—granite-like, moving achingly slowly—& the filtered strains of assorted creature calls • The subtlety of this friction is supremely impressive, the co-existence of elements intimate; they swell together, gently pull at each other, yet neither aspires to dominate • This leads to some magical moments (e.g. ~14') where their alignment results in music of remarkable beauty • Maherr maintains this fragile equilibrium for half the piece, until some rumbling bass seems to clear the air, & now the twin materials start to seep into each other • Noise becomes more significant in the latter half, causing the piece sharply to evolve in new ways, as in a striking episode (~35') that eventually introduces percussive & metallic sounds, & an assertive deep pitch that seeks to become a drone • As on Side A, the final 10 minutes are critical to the work's overall structure; here, a sudden band of high noise—the first occasion of higher frequencies in this piece—leads to an intense conclusion, featuring some of the most striking material on the album, including a wall of noise that comes to resemble a male chorus softly roaring (~44½'), followed by some amazing deep bass surges akin to whale calls •

Words don't do justice to the incredible soundworld Maherr creates in these two pieces (which are best heard back to back); it's not only gorgeous—& an infinitely more mature kind of beauty than one tends to encounter these days—but there's also a palpable logic & coherence to the twin pieces' sense of progression • Think of it as a 'sonic bath', perhaps, one that will leave you feeling transformed afterwards •

Blemished Breasts is available on cassette directly from Pat Maherr; details here • Alternatively, Maherr has generously made the album available to download free of charge via his mp3 archive website, here •

Contemporary Epics: Kenneth Kirschner - July 17, 2010

2011-10-17T13:32:00.007+01:00

Imagine yourself in a situation where you've agreed to listen to a piece of music, but have no idea what it is • You get yourself comfortable, & shortly before the music starts, you're informed that the piece will last three minutes • Now imagine that situation again, but this time you're told the duration will be 30 minutes; & now a third time, what if you were told the piece was going to last three hours? • Each of those scenarios elicits an entirely different psychological response, & this unbidden, preemptive reaction to the prospect of increasingly long durations has fascinated me for years • In all probability, three minutes wouldn't make anyone bat an eyelid, whereas 30 minutes might well create a bit of tension, sending less focussed minds swiftly out the door • But three hours, i imagine, would exceed most people's tenacity, resulting in only a small collection of listeners prepared to confront something on such an epic scale • Despite the apparent trend in recent times of attention shifting towards short, individual tracks (an inevitable by-product of download culture), it's encouraging to see composers continuing to allow their creativity to occupy large-scale sonic canvasses • Admittedly, a couple of years ago i pointedly remarked that, durationally speaking, "size isn't everything"; of course it isn't, but nonetheless, works occupying very long periods of time bring about a unique kind of listening experience, one that, at its best, makes the apparent demands on the listener pale beside the rewards it offers • i'm going to explore some of the more interesting recent 'contemporary epics' in the next few articles •

The first is by the enigmatic composer Kenneth Kirschner • For over two decades, Kirschner has created a large & diverse collection of experimental pieces, almost all of which are simply titled after the date of their completion • Most of these pieces are available as free downloads from Kirschner's website • The kind of experimental electronics they manifest is unique, thoroughly grounded in field recordings, yet with an incredibly vivid quality one might call 'super-real' or 'meta-natural' that's nothing short of uncanny • All the same, it's difficult to make definitive remarks about a "Kirschner æsthetic", & it would be risky to attempt to draw substantial connections between too many of the pieces; overall, what's most fascinating is Kirschner's mercurial sense of direction, which almost seems to have as many strands as there are compositions • For much of his output, he has confined himself to works that do their thing over relatively short durations, typically between 4 & twenty minutes • But in 2004, things began to change, as Kirschner began to explore indeterminate structures, resulting in pieces of unfixed length • This occupied him more thoroughly through 2005, & then, in his first work of the following year, came "March 16, 2006", which at almost 75 minutes' duration was twice as long as anything Kirschner had hitherto released • In the years since then, Kirschner has returned to shorter works (the hour-long "November 7, 2008" is a notable exception) • So it came as a very real surprise last year when Kirschner quietly released "July 17, 2010", a piece lasting 2 hours, 5 minutes & 10 seconds • Kirschner's work is always very striking (his triple-CD Twenty Ten, released earlier this year on 12K, surprisingly wasn't quite so impressive), but "July 17, 2010" is an outstanding achievement, & i believe it's his best piece to date •

Music like this, on a more epic scale, often has a sense of momentum & development that borders on the geological, & while that's true of this piece too, Kirschner encrusts his surface with a truly bewildering amount of detail • Clearly emanating from metallic & glass sources, Kirschner reinvents them into a complex network of bells & quasi-insect calls • After a while (~21') they become surrounded by a brightly luminescent cloud; later (~44'), muscular ripples try to break through the surface; & as the first hour comes to an end, faint pitches & even a wafer-thin whistle can be caught briefly in the far distance •

Fifteen minutes into the second hour (the music now conjuring up the sound of the sea over pebbles) comes the point when, for me at least, one of the curious side-effects of large-scale, single-span compositions often becomes apparent • It seems to make itself felt as a slight but tangible sense of mild detachment from the music; one remains engaged & connected, but with a concomitant sense of being deep in the midst of something very large; this can have a hypnotic effect, the music (if it hasn't already) now powerfully enveloping the listener • i don't know whether this sensation is something others experience in a similar way, but i find it adds an extra frisson of exhilaration to the experience •

The pebble-like sounds become harsher, after which suddenly (~1h30') distant, shifting pitches become audible again, momentarily crystallising in an episode where struck glass becomes akin to xylophones & glockenspiels, before ebbing into a second cloud • The conclusion of "July 17, 2010" begins with the texture thinning out, becoming increasingly percussive & granular (~1h45') • Not for long, though; having been absent for a while, the final 10 minutes see pitch material return strongly (sounding similar to earlier, but happily without the cliché notion of 'homecoming'), bringing the piece to a fading, glittering end •

Notwithstanding the curiously oblique 'detachment' i spoke of above, i defy anyone to be bored at any point in the 125 minutes of "July 17, 2010" • On the contrary, it may just be two of the most riveting musical hours you'll ever spend •

"July 17, 2010" can be streamed or downloaded free, here •

Simulated Music featured on Mushroom FM

2011-10-07T17:15:00.003+01:00

A number of tracks from my last album Simulated Music are going to be featured on tonight's edition of "The Blind Flight" on the internet radio station Mushroom FM • Presented by Scott Lawlor (aka The Navigator), the programme starts at 8pm EST (that's 1am in the UK), & can be streamed via the site here; it can also be downloaded after the event from the programme's information page, here •

New digital EP: Simulated Music - postscript

2011-10-01T13:08:00.002+01:00

i've released today a new EP of electronic music, titled Simulated Music - postscript • As that name suggests, the EP contains material related to my album Simulated Music, released a few months ago • Here's an excerpt from the blurb:

Simulated Music, released in June 2011, was a cycle of music created at speed. As i wrote at the time, “critical decisions … were made with a minimum of deliberation. Once they were decided, i worked quickly, not concerning myself much with minutiæ, thinking instead about the broader, gestural shape of the music as a whole”. Nonetheless, the process that led to each ‘Simulation’, while relatively brief, contained a considerable amount of experimentation, as it was worked into its final form. On several occasions, i produced more than one version of a piece, uncertain of which i preferred; only when finally assembling Simulated Music did it become clear which versions of the pieces should be used. This EP contains nearly all of the alternate versions.

As with my earlier EPs, Simulated Music - postscript is only available as a free digital download, via my Bandcamp site •

Also released today is the digital download version of Simulated Music; that too is available from the Bandcamp site, for the bargain price of £3 • There are a few copies remaining from the original edition of 50 CDs; anyone interested in ordering one of those should go here •

Proms 2011: Peter Maxwell Davies - Musica benevolens (World Première)

2011-09-25T19:54:00.003+01:00

The 2011 Proms season began with a première, & the last night began with one too, a concert-raiser from Master of the Queen's Music Peter Maxwell Davies titled Musica benevolens, the title of which tips the hat at the work's commissioners, the Musicians Benevolent Fund • It was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the BBC Symphony Chorus, joined by the Fanfare Trumpeters of the Household Division, all conducted by Edward Gardner • The concert programme indicated Max's piece would last 4 minutes; one can only wish that had been the case •

Despite Max's assertion that the piece constitutes "a very small symphony", it comports itself with all the grace & cohesion of a "cut-&-shut": a cliché opening unison passing to an incongruous (but admittedly more interesting) lengthy episode, modern but not modernistic, & thence to a shudderingly cringeworthy epicentre in which a flat litany of vacuous platitudes is chanted, with all the solemnity of psalms recited by mental patients • The piece then briskly moves on with a counterpart to the earlier episode, culminating in a fanfare & the return of the opening words, set to slightly different music • Quite what Max thought he was doing is anyone's guess, but a meaningful "tribute to soldiers fallen or wounded in present overseas engagement" it certainly ain't • Last year it fell to Jonathan Dove to bring the season's premières to a damp conclusion; this year Max has quite frankly pissed all over the proceedings • It's as ghastly to behold as it is surprising; Max is capable of such telling subtlety, so one's left wondering what on earth came over him •

& there, i'm afraid, we have it, another season over & done with • Overall, i'm minded to think that this year's collection of Proms premières hasn't had the variety or the imagination of last year's; too few of the composers brought anything really demonstrative to the occasion, seeming to prefer their established compositional comfort zone, opting not to inflict anything too—gasp—thought-provoking on the audience • Some might say that's hardly the point of the Proms, but what better opportunity or context is there in the UK to present such a diversity of listeners with music that transforms how they think or feel? • For me, the most striking highlights this year came from Harrison Birtwistle: both Angel Fighter & the Concerto for Violin & Orchestra are profoundly effective, wildly imaginative works • In addition, Joby Talbot's splendid little Purcell arrangement still delights every time i hear it, while Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto is perhaps the most beautiful & thought-provoking piece of all to be premièred in this year's season • Thanks to everyone who's written comments in response to these articles, it's always interesting to hear your thoughts & perspectives on the pieces, & it's certainly good to have company when navigating through so much new music •

Peter Maxwell Davies - Musica benevolens (World Première) [11:32]
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programme note/text/biography

Proms 2011: Harrison Birtwistle - Concerto for Violin & Orchestra (UK Première)

2011-09-24T12:51:00.003+01:00

As already noted, this year's Proms season has seen an abundance of new concertos, the last & most substantial of which was given its UK première on 7 September: the Concerto for Violin & Orchestra by Harrison Birtwistle • Birtwistle wrote the work for soloist Christian Tetzlaff, who gave the first performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra earlier in the year; on this occasion he was joined by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson •

Don't read too much into the wordy title; one might infer that a concerto "for violin & orchestra" puts emphasis as much on the latter as on the former, but that's emphatically not the case: Birtwistle's is a clear-cut Violin Concerto, in which the soloist takes centre stage, instigating, steering & dominating pretty much every minute of the piece • & a slippery piece it is too, difficult adequately to describe; despite Birtwistle's long-standing penchant for slab-like structures, attempting to deconstruct this work is like trying to find a crack in a smooth piece of marble; the ear & the mind glance off the surface • Yet, on the other hand, the concerto is as far from impenetrable as it's possible to get; one might almost call it 'accessible', if such a word, used of Birtwistle, didn't seem so hopelessly incongruous • There's a warmth to the work that seems to arise from a deeply organic sense of direction • In the programme note, Jonathan Cross likens the piece to a journey, but to my mind it comes across more like a pilgrimage; in fact, Chaucer specifically came to mind throughout the piece, perhaps due to the interesting series of duets Birtwistle has incorporated • Like tales within tales, these five duets—the solo violin in dialogue with, respectively, flute, piccolo, cello, oboe & bassoon—telescope the work's perspective, almost like a cinematic zoom into the heart of the musical landscape; in one sense, they're asides, moments away from the broader view of what lies ahead, yet at the same time they're far from incidental, the violin affecting a subtle but perceptibly more intimate manner • Overall, the concerto seems more concerned with gestural identity & juxtaposition than obvious development; as such, it's in keeping with the raw, unaffected tone so synonymous with Birtwistle's compositional outlook, & it's perhaps this quality too that makes it feel as organic as it does • A 30-minute work of such intensity & busyness as this could easily become forebidding, but the structural control (despite defying one's attempts to pick it apart) is simply amazing—it's all so 'believable', it doesn't really feel composed at all • In the sonic realms he conjures up, Birtwistle is as simultaneously unseen yet omnipresent as God himself (or Mother Nature if you prefer) •

i haven't said much about musical details, which is not to suggest that there's nothing of note or that the music is unmemorable • Quite the reverse: there's so much that's interesting, so much that sticks in the mind, it's practically impossible to know where to begin • The violin, as i've said, is clearly the protagonist, but the orchestra is neither pitted against it nor particularly subservient; it's unceasingly in sympathy with the soloist, ruminative, knowing when to be deferential, while ever prepared powerfully to assert their group individuality • There are times when the relationship between the one & the many gets a little frantic; following the oboe duet, the back & forth between them becomes highly argumentative, but, unlike many of his pieces, Birtwistle holds back from a full-on confrontation, whether between bits of material or instruments or indeed between the piece itself & the audience • If anything, the standout moments in the piece are the lighter ones, the occasions when the violin is at its most lyrical, such as the duet with the piccolo (beautifully dusted with metallic percussion), the tantalisingly hushed episode at the centre of the piece, as well as the inscrutable conclusion, where the violin's lines slowly fragment while the orchestra seems to retreat into the far distance, castanets & a recurring tuba motif lingering with intent • There's a pensiveness & a sense of mystery at work here that may prove surprising to those for whom Birtwistle represents a stereotype of rather ill-mannered, staunch modernity • His Concerto for Violin & Orchestra is undeniably modern, but not radically so, certainly not defiantly so; it compromises nothing, but nonetheless radiates its originality in a way that is uncommonly inviting •

Harrison Birtwistle - Concerto for Violin & Orchestra (UK Première) [31:04]
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programme note/biography

Proms 2011: Thierry Escaich - Evocation III (UK Première)

2011-09-23T11:50:00.001+01:00

Thierry Escaich's recital on 4 September brought to a close the contribution of the organ to the new music at this year's Proms (preceded by Michael Berkeley's Organ Concerto & Stephen Farr's recital at the start of the season) • Escaich's programme included much familiar fare—Reger, Franck, Liszt—in addition to an example of the rather tiresome party favourite beloved of so many organists these days, improvisations "in the style of" other composers • Fran(c)kly, this kind of escapade does no-one any favours, & Escaich was on much more certain & meaningful ground in the UK première of his own Evocation III, a short work based on the 16th century Lutheran chorale, 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' ("Now come, Saviour of the Gentiles") •

It may perhaps sound a little casual to describe Escaich's piece as 'predictable', but anyone familiar with the improvisatory high jinks of Naji Hakim will find in Evocation III a familiar soundworld • Like Hakim, Escaich isn't concerned to handle the material on which his music is based with kid gloves, preferring to confront it from an assortment of angles, & subject it to treatment that ranges from tender caresses to the aural equivalent of thwacking it with a blunt instrument • While the work wasn't conceived with the Albert Hall organ in mind, Escaich for the most part makes it sound eminently comfortable, in the process teasing out some truly weird sounds & timbres, such as the alternation between extremely deep & impossibly high notes at the start (the latter almost inaudible at first), the ever-nauseating tremulant, used to queasy effect on some oscillating chords, & the genuinely strange counterpoint towards the end, where it almost sounds as though Escaich was obtaining quartertones from the instrument • These transient moments actually prove more engaging (or, at least, more entertaining) than what Escaich clearly intends to be the 'meat' of this Evocation, the energetic, at times wildly spasmodic tutti that dominates the centre of the work • But this is the most predictable section of all, thrills & spills practically by numbers, & they're not helped by what sounds like a miscalculation of registration, causing the texture to sound stodgy • All the same, there's much to enjoy in the piece, it's just that Escaich's most interesting when we casts off the superficial trappings of the archetypal 'organiste titulaire'; when he does, he entirely distinguishes himself from the likes of Hakim & Latry, & comes up with some of the most fascinatingly strange organ music heard in a long time •

Thierry Escaich - Evocation III (on 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland') (UK Première) [7:47]
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Proms 2011: Michael Berkeley - Organ Concerto

2011-09-21T20:23:00.004+01:00

The Prom concert on the evening of 3 September included a performance of Michael Berkeley's rarely-heard Organ Concerto, performed by David Goode with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales • There are few British composers who seem to be so centrally connected to the world of music than Michael Berkeley • Son of Lennox, godson of Britten, Berkeley is arguably best known to many through his broadcasting work on television & radio, although as a composer he's charted an interesting, if at times, quizzical path • The reason i mention the sense of interconnection projected from Berkeley's cultural persona is because it's often struck me that his compositional voice doesn't so much bubble up from within, but appears to be forged from notions, ideas, mannerisms & traits from a plethora of other composers • That's not intended as a negative criticism at all; on the contrary, in his best music, Berkeley, far from being a 'stylistic magpie', comes across as a sort of æsthetic impresario, in the process generating something quite unique irrespective of the apparently disparate nature of its sources •

The Organ Concerto dates from 1987, a period when Berkeley's harmonic language was moving away from the relative conservatism of his earlier music, introducing more emphatically dissonant material • Unquestionably, there are pieces from this time where the dissonance feels 'forced', as though Berkeley were trying to strike a kind of avant-garde pose, but that's not the case in this piece; if anything, it's the brief glimpses of tonality that seem at odds with everything else • Berkeley's inspiration is the lighting of the New Fire, the first great ritual of the late-night Easter Vigil service, where the Paschal candle is lit, symbolic of Christ's Resurrection • You may want to hold onto that idea, because it's not always terribly apparent in the music, although one might arguably complain more if the piece sounded overtly programmatic •

It falls into two broad sections of roughly the same length, the first of which is dominated by activity • A bell strike cues the opening idea, presented by three distant, intermingling trumpets (which to Berkeley are akin to 'liquid molten metal') • Over several minutes, the trumpets' idea proves infectious, passing delicately to various other members of the orchestra (just as one candle lights another in the Vigil service); the woodwinds are the strongest here—except one eventually realises that the organ is already present among them, softly blending with no hint of having started to play • This is characteristic of the organ throughout the piece, which is entirely misnamed; the organ never really come across as a true soloist (at least, not in the concerto sense), & for much of the time doesn't even seem to be the most significant instrument playing • Rapid figurations dominate the first half of the work, sounding toccata-like when delivered by the organ, but when taken up by the orchestra they hint strongly at the composer Berkeley says he consulted before writing the piece, Witold Lutosławski • Amidst the rapidity, about halfway through this section, there's a curious fleeting glimpse of something tonal, an idea that's no sooner grasped than it's gone, the material moving restlessly on to the first climax, a genuinely exciting episode featuring fortissimo chords on the organ, making their entrance in the wake of a booming bass pedal in the lower strings & brass • For a moment it sounds as though it's going to become militaristic, but Berkeley diverts the music in a more ill-disciplined direction, an organ solo yielding to an irreverently boistrous response from the brass, culminating in a wild, repeated chord idea •

The second part, begun immediately in the wake of the first's final flourish, starts in a determinedly different mode • Alone, in unison, the violins switch to high lyricism, the wide interval leaps in their lengthy melody unavoidably bringing Mahler to mind • After a time, the organ returns, first duetting with the harp, then a horn, then assorted woodwinds; the patience Berkeley wields over the material here works very well, resulting in a palpable sense of tension, as though the music were confined or inhibited • As at first, it falls to the trumpets to get things moving; making a stab at a tattoo, the orchestra responds with excitement, leading to another rapid outburst • But this is almost immediately quelled, leading to a truly enigmatic conclusion, begun by very soft upper strings (again, hints of Mahler), whereupon the tonal idea from earlier returns, weirdly incongruous • If before it seemed like a memory, now it acts as a catalyst, prompting a sudden forceful surge from the organ; but this, too, is silenced, dissolving into a weird retrograde rendition of the trumpets' opening material, now wraithlike & strange, the strings (first meandering, ultimately static) emphasising the decidedly odd atmosphere, snuffed out with another strike from the bell •

It's a curious piece, no doubt, one that seems to be concerned with making a strong first impression, but actually makes a deeper impact—like much of Berkeley's music—after some time & reflection •

Michael Berkeley - Organ Concerto [26:03]
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Proms 2011: John Tavener - Popule meus (UK Première)

2011-09-19T20:06:00.003+01:00

Right, where were we? • Saturday 3 September brought the last of the Proms' Matinee concerts from the Cadogan Hall, each of which has featured contemporary music prominently • This final occasion was no exception, including works by Tippett & Sofia Gubaidulina, & presenting the first UK performance of John Tavener's Popule meus • The work bears a similarity to one of Tavener's most well-known pieces, The Protecting Veil, also scored for solo cello & strings, augmented here by a prominent role for timpani; it was performed by the Britten Sinfonia with the solo part taken by Natalie Clein • Tavener's title, Popule meus ('O my people'), is a reference to the Reproaches, one of the most poignant texts to be sung during Holy Week, in which God puts humanity on the spot about their wholesale rejection of Him • It takes place at a time of great solemnity on Good Friday, & becomes one of the most challenging moments in the Christian year • As such, it is in every way the complete opposite of Tavener's piece, which strives for tragedy, but ends up merely tragic •

What we're presented with is one of the most fantastically horrific demonstrations of pseudo-composition ever to be heard at the Proms, or indeed any concert • Scraping the absolute bottom of the creative barrel, Tavener bowdlerises his potentially deeply inspiring & thought-provoking subject—humanity's struggle against its Creator—boiling down his music into a catalogue of bare, empty, cliché-ridden doggerel, in which dissonance & loud dynamics (given, you guessed it, to the timpani & lower strings) equal 'nasty/scary/evil', while soft neo-romantic pastiche (the cello, of course, & upper strings) naturally equate to 'pleasant/compassionate/sacred' • From the pen of, say, a GCSE student, threadbare claptrap of this order might perhaps be forgiveable; but in a context such as this, served up with such sanctimonious piety, it's hard to know whether to laugh out loud or just vomit •

Let's be very clear about this, there's no way the egregious qualities of this piece can be sublimated; it's simple, yes—but this is absolutely no Christ-like simplicity; it's childish—but absolutely not in the sense of those to whom "the kingdom of heaven belongs"; it's traditional—but bears absolutely no relation or witness to that living, evolving, searching & ultimately radical religious tradition to which Tavener supposedly subscribes • Popule meus would be boring if wasn't so utterly revolting •

John Tavener - Popule meus (UK Première) [18:58]
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programme note

Fermata

2011-09-02T13:41:00.000+01:00

For the next two weeks i am away on holiday, so the remaining Proms premières will be discussed when i return •

Proms 2011: Graham Fitkin - L & Cello Concerto (World Première)

2011-08-31T21:10:00.006+01:00

The music of Graham Fitkin has been featured twice this week at the Proms, both occasions in the hands of cellist Yo-Yo Ma • First came L, a work for cello & piano composed for Ma's 50th birthday (commissioned by Kathryn Stott, who accompanied the performance), while this evening's Prom brought the world première of Fitkin's Cello Concerto •

In his programme note, Fitkin claims L is "occasionally kitsch, often brutal and sometimes a little sensual", but not one of these epithets seems the least bit appropriate • What it is, rather, is spritely, Fitkin adopting a light, springing quality that's highly reminiscent of Shostakovich, particularly his cello sonata • Fitkin arranges the instruments in perpendicular compositional directions, the piano tackling the vertical, dominated by chords, the cello preoccupied with the horizontal • 'Obsessed' might be a better word, though; for a full five minutes it continues almost unabated, its line given direction from the piano, shifting between short repeated motifs, minimalistic circling & more extended passages of melody • An abrupt change of mood, around halfway through, comes as something of a relief; the music momentarily holds, & when it continues, the cello's slower movement makes for a nice contrast to the ongoing rapidity of the piano • Fitkin makes the music halt even further, causing the cello to remain on a single note through a series of piano chords, although its integrity is undermined by the clear fact it's simply a means to an end: a return to the mood & material of the opening • L is pleasant enough, but rather too harmless; it would have been nice for one of the duo to have shown some teeth •

Graham Fitkin - L [18:49]
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programme note

At the start of the Concerto, Fitkin makes it abundantly clear that he's trying to tap into something a bit different • The cello behaves oddly, presenting a succession of wide rising intervals, the upper note of which remains fixed in place; lower strings groan, upper strings hesitate, woodwinds clash—it's all a world away from the music of L, & a fair distance from Fitkin's usual fare • This somewhat leaden mood is inviting, suggestive of something dark looming in the wings, & Fitkin allows it to dig in • A rather abrupt crescendo halts proceedings, but they continue untroubled, whereupon the cello's stark material suddenly turns melodic, matched with a rocking motif from the orchestra • Instantly, the last five minutes of tension evaporate • It's a paradigm of all that follows •

Fitkin has structured his concerto as a string of episodes, but they come across as so many non sequiturs, linked only by the common thread of cello & orchestra • The piece certainly doesn't want for variety—although the range of ideas is smaller than first impressions suggest—but the chief problem is the way this clunky structure stunts one's attempts to engage with the work on a more emotional level • Just as that intense opening material vanished like smoke, there's absolutely no sense of an underlying direction or development, & while that's not of itself a problem (Kevin Volans' Piano Concerto No. 3 demonstrated superbly how composing by the seat of your pants can be deliriously successful), it's Fitkin's determination to strike a more deep & meaningful pose that is the work's undoing • Not one episode seems to make the remotest impact on the music following it; so we witness fanciful dancing passages in the wake of grave, sombre brooding, vast orchestral climaxes that are simply shrugged aside by mere froth • It's impossible to take anything seriously in such a context as this; nothing sounds as though it's in its rightful place, & one's left with a collection of arbitrary, vacuous & ludicrously bombastic installments that fail to convince on every level • i imagine if you just allow yourself to skim the music's surface, at each moment forgetting all that went before, the Cello Concerto might prove superficially entertaining (there are moments of striking beauty & weirdness to delight in); beneath the surface, however, there's simply nothing of any consequence •

Graham Fitkin - Cello Concerto (World Première) [39:55]
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programme note/biography

Proms 2011: Anders Hillborg - Cold Heat

2011-08-31T06:19:00.009+01:00

Monday evening's Prom brought one of the pieces i've most been looking forward to hear in this year's season, the first London performance of Cold Heat by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg • Few composers in recent times have revivified the Straussian idea of the symphonic poem more effectively than Hillborg, although his approach avoids overtly programmatic ideas • Hillborg prefers more abstract but no less evocative subject matter, & this train of compositional thought is continued through the fifteen minutes of Cold Heat, which was performed by one of the groups who commissioned the work, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, directed by David Zinman •

In truth, it's much more than a mere preference; Hillborg positively deliciates within the hypothetical sonic environments he creates, conjuring this one into existence via a series of vigorous woodwind flourishes • Immediately, they're countered by a largely static, drawn-out horn line, which is passed to the strings who succeed in slowing down the winds until they resemble a large collection of bird calls (the programme note cites King Eiders as inspiration) • A sudden loud bass pedal from piano & lower strings changes the mood like a jump cut, topped by descending oboes; while the strings predominate, brass surges start to appear, growing in forcefulness & eventually triggering a loud solitary percussion accent • It's archetypal Hillborg territory, broad & apparently slow overall movement, but crammed with a seething mass of activity • & then it bursts: an eruption of forward motion pushed along by the strings, dominated by them at first; after a couple of minutes the brass & winds get involved, & at the entrance of loud wooden percussion, the atmosphere turns almost violently ritualistic • Hillborg revels in the melée for a bit before abruptly cancelling out most of the orchestra, leaving just the woodwind with any real movement, before the deep pedal heard earlier returns, soon followed by the brass surges, the music's surface now glistened by the strings, who slowly move into the foreground • From the middle-distance, vast, imposing chords are carved out by the brass, crowned with a single tubular bell strike (throughout, Hillborg's use of percussion is impressively restrained) • Over an extended period, the texture gradually ebbs & fades, exposing a solo cello, whose cantabile melody, dusted with far off, tinkling bells, forms the epilogue of the work, joined by a high violin at its close •

It may seem an inappropriate association, but i always find myself thinking of Takemitsu when listening to Hillborg's music, perhaps due to the innate sense of inevitability with which Hillborg imbues his music • The Tonhalle Orchestra's rendition of the work is superb, teasing out even the tiniest threads in Hillborg's often dense textures •

Anders Hillborg - Cold Heat (UK Première) [17:29]
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programme note/biography

As a bonus, here's an old broadcast recording of Hillborg's impressive 1994 piece Liquid Marble, the first of his works to be featured at the Proms, in 1997 (sadly, i only kept it in mp3 format, but the sound quality's not too bad) • It's a more ominous work than Cold Heat, the material seething & roiling, Hillborg blowing a gale through the orchestra • The woodwinds have the most fun in this piece, keening crazily early on, later turning into a sequence of torrential downpours • In some ways, the textures are relatively simple, but that only makes them more wildly demonstrative; Liquid Marble could easily be subtitled, "a maelstrom for orchestra" •

Liquid Marble [192kbps | 13Mb]

Proms 2011: Stevie Wishart - Out of this World (World Première)

2011-08-30T12:13:00.003+01:00

As on previous occasions, new music featured strongly in last Saturday's Proms Matinee from the Cadogan Hall, this time including the world première of a new work by Stevie Wishart: Out of this World, composed for the BBC Singers •

Earlier in the concert, music by Hildegard of Bingen had been heard, & it's to Hildegard that Wishart has turned for inspiration, setting four of her texts, texts for which no extant music by Hildegard herself survives • Thankfully, pastiche is not on Wishart's agenda, although various influences do make themselves felt at points through the piece • Opening song 'O word of the Father' is the most spare of them all, soft open vowels giving way to a cool & austere atmosphere in which the upper voices are silent • The male singers handle the chromaticism admirably, but the music could really do with the kind of acoustic Hildegard would have known; in the relatively echoless Cadogan Hall, some of the warmth is lost, & it sounds more severe than it actually is • The brief second song 'O God eternal' is much more engaging, with strong interaction between the upper & lower voices, the latter of which initially offer brief, strange sounds beneath, demarcating the pulse • It develops into a distinctly French kind of sonority, at times quite strongly redolent of Poulenc •

The two remaining songs are performed without a break, & are by far the most ambitious music heard in the piece • 'O creation of God' begins with rather gob-smackingly high & low clusters, a rare & distinctly unsettling sound • Somewhere within, there's a melodic line moving, & gradually the outlying clusters slide inward, forming rich new chords • For a time the music becomes quasi-tonal (once again with a slight French accent), but at its conclusion, sends out assorted melodic tendrils that jar & interweave, searching out the final song, 'O most beloved Son' • This begins in a rather ecstatic harmonic place, but swiftly moves into something entirely harder to describe; stylistically, it's strange indeed, seeming to combine hints of earlier musics, elements from folk traditions, together with non-Western mannerisms—the whole has a passionate but raw quality that's spellbinding • Wishart softens the intensity ever so slightly towards the end, fixing the singers above a distant drone-like foundation, & ends with an uncanny chorus of sibilance •

Stevie Wishart - Out of This World (World Première) [30:00]
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In Memoriam Tomás Luis de Victoria - Proms 2011: The Tallis Scholars

2011-08-27T14:12:00.002+01:00

400 years ago today, Tomás Luis de Victoria, one of the very finest Renaissance composers, died • To commemorate his passing, a little over three weeks ago the Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Phillips gave a late-night Prom concert dedicated to Victoria's music •

The concert begins with one of the Motecta Festorum, Victoria's first volume of motets, published in 1572 & marking a significant point in his career • The stirring text of Dum complerentur recalls the scene—but not, despite what the programme note says, the actual act—of the descending upon the Apostles of the Holy Spirit, & the references to sound & noise clearly got Victoria rather excited (the Tallis Scholars take it at a helpfully brisk tempo) • The music can't sit still, although the opening section, setting the scene, is downplayed, the first 'Alleluia' barely allowed to grow before it's quickly interrupted ('Et subito') • But now everything heats up; at the reference to a "sound from heaven", Victoria lingers on the word 'sonus', the repeating downward lines hinting at the forthcoming climax • The second 'Alleluia' is allowed to develop more, but it's not until after the next phrase, likening the sound to a "hurricane in its fury", that Victoria unleashes a lengthy 'Alleluia', laden with overlapping descending lines, akin to a peal of church bells • The text then goes round in a little tautological circle, effectively setting the scene again, but affording Victoria the opportunity to explore 'sonus' again, this time with more extended melismas, in some of the motet's most breathtaking material • It closes with a repeat of much of the earlier music, allowing the listener to revel again in the sheer exhilaration of that climactic 'Alleluia' •

That's as cheerful as the concert's going to get; it's followed by the Lamentations for Good Friday, which form part of arguably the most important collection of music Victoria ever composed, the Holy Week compendium Officium Hebdomadæ Sanctæ • The text is a selection from the Bible's most desolate book, the Lamentations of Jeremiah—& incidentally, for those baffled by the presence of Hebrew letters in the text—heth, lamed, mem, aleph—these are part of the highly intricate structure of the original poetic text, which was arranged in blocks of 22 verses, each beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet (which has 22 letters) • It's interesting to note Victoria's different approach to these letters, setting them in a relatively plain, matter-of-fact fashion • As for the rest, the Lamentations fall into three sections, each containing a short paragraph describing an aspect of the despair & sense of isolation felt by the author • In contrast to Dum complerentur, Victoria keeps the choir much more as a homogenous group, heightening the sense of this being a communal lament; & despite the subject matter, it's music without bluster or outrage, kept almost surprisingly restrained—again, the Tallis Scholars judge this perfectly, keeping a lid on the dynamics throughout • The occasional, brief chromatic inflections are poignant, heard as early as 'luxitque antemurale', & even more powerfully at 'vel cui assimilabo te?' ("to what can i liken you?") • Almost throughout the second Lamentation Victoria keeps the basses quiet, which seems appropriate considering the specific female references at that part of the text • Each Lamentation ends with a common refrain, urging Jerusalem to return to God; Victoria saves some of his most telling material for these passages, the pleas equally as distressed as the laments • The closing refrain of the piece is the most striking, at first alternating between upper & lower voices, before combining them in a powerful final petition that superbly demonstrates one of Victoria's most astonishing abilities: to make music that's simultaneously immoveable, granite-like, & yet also lighter than air •

The remainder of the concert consists of one of Victoria's most well-known & impressive works, the Officium defunctorum or Office for the Dead, which beside other things, incorporates the elements familiar to many through more recent settings of the Requiem • The style of writing is something of an amalgam of the motet & the Lamentations, predominately homophonic but allowing for extensive counterpoint when the text demands it • Victoria also uses the voices in a more extreme way than heard earlier, exploiting a wider vocal range, at times plummeting the parts into the very depths • He waits until partway through the Introitus, about five minutes in, to start expanding the mood ('Te decet hymnus'), emboldening it through one of the text's few celebratory moments • This isn't an isolated example, but for the most part, Victoria keeps the music steadfastly po-faced, prepared to explore a rich harmonic palette, but in an environment that's unequivocal in its overarching solemnity • The phrase 'dona eis' ("grant to them"), recurring in different sections beseeching rest for the departed, is always given lush treatment; in the Graduale ('In memoria æterna'), Victoria continues this richness throughout, likewise in the latter part of the Agnus Dei • But some of the most captivating passages are the ones that exercise greatest restraint, such as the slow, stately Sanctus, & most particularly the two settings of the Kyrie; while in the first, Victoria extensively draws out each phrase, making the music all the more imploring, in the second, drawing the work to a close, the lines move with so little momentum that they almost approach a grief-racked stasis • Those more accustomed to a diet of the requiems of Mozart & Verdi may miss the fireworks, but the passion & intensity of Victoria's setting, especially at moments such as these, is unnervingly overt •

For an encore, the Tallis Scholars performs another setting of 'Versa est in luctum cithara mea' (heard earlier as part of the Officium defunctorum), by Victoria's esteemed contemporary Alonso Lobo • Lobo's is, if anything, more solemn still than Victoria's, & his choice of harmonies ever so slightly more piquant, but there's ultimately little to separate it stylistically from its counterpart, which goes some way to justify why Victoria himself regarded Lobo so highly • The ending is interesting, the final cadence almost seeming to arrive too quickly, the preceding phrases practically tumbling through their notes to get there in time •

One simply can't underestimate the consummate skill required to perform this music; the fact that, as they always do, the Tallis Scholars enable these pieces to arise seemingly effortlessly from the page proves that they continue to be one of the world's very finest choirs •

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Dum complerentur/Lamentations for Good Friday/Officium defunctorum (Requiem); Alonso Lobo - Versa est in luctum cithara mea (encore) [77:06]
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Proms 2011: Kevin Volans - Piano Concerto No. 3 (World Première)

2011-08-24T21:12:00.007+01:00

If one thing has dominated the premières at this year's Proms, it's the presence of the concerto; thus far, we've heard no fewer than six (Dalbavie, Carter, Holloway, Holt, Larcher & Aperghis), with more coming in the days ahead • Monday's Prom brought yet another concerto into being, Kevin Volans' Piano Concerto No. 3, performed by Barry Douglas with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Dausgaard •

The opening few minutes give a clear indication of what lies ahead, the piano presenting a stabbing ostinato that immediately infects the orchestra, responding in glittering accented chords • The piano then dissolves into a fluid, grace note-strewn passage, bringing proceedings briefly to a halt; starting up again, the sections of the orchestra now take turns to predominate • This is the essence of the piece, & also its unifying aspect, since Volans is not concerned here with conventional notions of material development • He has very different ideas, & indeed, his working method—each day to continue where he'd left off, making no amendments to previous work—is audibly etched into the grain of the music • It neither develops nor evolves; in a sense, it unfolds, but even this doesn't quite fit; perhaps all one can say is that it just happens, swiftly passing from idea to idea with only the barest of constants • There are occasions when Volans allows himself to revisit earlier material, but for the most part, this concerto is a flight of fancy, restlessly keen to press on, with barely a glance behind •

As one might expect from Volans, the work is nicely vague, stylistically speaking, & the overall manner it projects—characterised by a constant return to phrases that hammer out repeated notes & chords—which in lesser hands might just become emptily extroverted, is fascinatingly inscrutable: is the piece playful or pugilistic? heartfelt or calculated? loosely-spun or tightly-wound? is it a discourse or just a game?—indeed, is it all of these things? • Volans' resistance to pin the music down or seek to define it (still less, to explore some programmatic concept), is one of its chief successes; it provokes our curiosity & keeps us guessing • & it also succeeds in a way that might sound like a criticism: not everything we hear is vital, not every note counts—by which i certainly don't mean parts could or should be cut from the piece, but rather that Volans has the chutzpah to put material down & just see how it sits, without feeling the compulsion to trim off any 'fat' • This is most audible in the concerto's lengthy, halting central episode, where one practically witnesses Volans trying out different ways forward, without simply presenting the 'right' one • It's brave to afford oneself this kind of honest spontaneity, & the fact the material works itself out as convincingly as it does, is not so much a demonstration of an innate sense of direction than of Volans' confidence to continue, regardless of whatever uncertainties may worry the music's surface •

As a compositional attitude, it's admirable, but the price one pays for that attitude is music that's not necessarily terribly memorable • For some, that will matter, but to approach this concerto on its own terms (as one should at least try to do) is, i think, simply to trust it while it's happening, & take from it what you will • There's invention in bucketloads, & there's confusion too, lots of it • i, for one, would much prefer to come away from a piece scratching my head than nodding sagely •

Kevin Volans - Piano Concerto No. 3 (World Première) [31:11]
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Proms 2011: Colin Matthews - No Man's Land (World Première)

2011-08-23T21:14:00.011+01:00

Sunday night's Prom brought the world première of a new work from Faber's finest, Colin Matthews: No Man's Land for tenor & baritone soli & orchestra • Commissioned by Richard Hickox immediately prior to his death in 2008, it was presented by the orchestra Hickox himself formed 40 years ago, the City of London Sinfonia, directed by Stephen Layton, with soloists Ian Bostridge & Roderick Williams • Matthews' text is by Christopher Reid, recounting an exchange between the ghosts of two soldiers, Captain Gifford & Sergeant Slack, whose bodies hang on barbed wire in no man's land •

On the one hand, being charitable, perhaps the context was inopportune, coming as it did just a couple of days after Sir Harrison Birtwistle's brilliant Angel Fighter (also a work featuring two vocal soloists) • But that can only go so far to mitigate the dreadful way with which this piece comports itself; far from striking the dignified stance that Matthews presumably intended, it was instead slowly unveiled as a ramshackle, shoddily stitched together patchwork of wafer-thin attempts at evocation • We're fortunate—no, we're blessed—in recent times to have seen the slow, steady rise of hauntology, a unique kind of musical aesthetic that can powerfully reach into the past & reflect it back at us with genuine sincerity & authenticity, stained & sullied (as it must be) by the gulf that separates then from now, & by our increasingly tenuous grasp on increasingly distant things • But what Matthews gives us in No Man's Land is little more than a contrived collection of pastiche confectionary, coloured so as to appear moderately grim & stone-faced •

There are moments that suggest a music of greater power is crying to get out; Gifford's first passage of lyricism ("Before divine creation"), breaking vigorously free from the foregoing turgidity, is a really striking moment, as is the brief but effective imitation of the sounds of a mouth-organ a little over halfway through • The episode that follows this is particularly rich, surpassed only by the splendid aside towards the end, abruptly curtailing Slack's line "And I have to play patience—", where the strings embark on a distressed interlude that enters a genuinely moving place • But one clutches at straws to find occasions like these among the insufferable parade of period allusions Matthews clearly hopes will lend some kind of 'authenticity' to the language of this piece (Anthony Burton disgraces himself in the programme note by name-checking Mahler in this regard) • Even worse, though, are the intrusions into the musical fabric of period recordings, occurring at several points &, despite Matthews' earnest efforts at integration, remaining aloof & distant from the rest of the proceedings • One ends up wishing that Slack would just shut the hell up & allow Gifford's more meaningful material room to expand; even when, towards the end, Matthews seemingly gives Slack something more honest ("I went to bed in a bath"), far from proving emotive, the result simply comes across as a lame lytdybr litany, a dull catalogue of unengaging (& possibly spurious) memories • Throughout No Man's Land Matthews too often mistakes being ponderous for being portentous, & he's only fortunate that a work so utterly festooned with attempts to latch onto something significant from the past doesn't end up sounding, at best, funny, or at worst, downright insulting •

Colin Matthews - No Man’s Land (World Première) [35:00]
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Proms 2011: Georges Aperghis - Champ-Contrechamp (World Première) & Sir Harrison Birtwistle - Angel Fighter (UK Première)

2011-08-22T12:52:00.008+01:00

Last Saturday's Proms matinee was devoted to new music, featuring no less a line-up than the BBC Singers & the London Sinfonietta, both conducted by David Atherton •

The concert opened with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Il rozzo martello, a sombre & rather austere choral work that comes across as older than its mere 14 years would suggest • Unlike so many composers of contemporary choral music, Max is happily unequivocal in his mode of expression, but this also makes the piece a bit of a tough listen, so it benefits from repeated listenings, which 'soften' the ostensibly hard edges • It proves, at times, to be captivating; the opening, where overlapping plainsong-esque lines sustain their final note, gradually building a rich chord, is a rather magical way to start the piece, & it ends no less impressively, in a deliciously soft morass of lower voices • It's often the male voices who have the most striking material, including a dense homophonic episode around halfway through, & some unexpected loud whispers towards the end • A difficult piece, no doubt, but given half a chance, an increasingly rewarding one •

Next came the world première of Georges Aperghis' Champ-Contrechamp, a work for piano & ensemble featuring Nicolas Hodges in the solo role • It's always a treat to hear Aperghis' wildly theatrical music in the UK, & if ever a piece of his felt like a transcribed game, it's this one, soloist & ensemble engaged in a seemingly eternal escapade of cat & mouse • Once again, Aperghis has drawn on the other arts for his inspiration, this time turning to cinema; as his programme note explains, "Champ-Contrechamp (Shot/Reverse-shot) is a technical term coming from cinematographic language. It means, for example, that during a dialogue, the camera alternatively shows at first one character and then a second one who is looking at the first one. We pass without transition from one to the other. Similarly this Concerto for piano and ensemble is showing 2 points of view: the pianist one and the ensemble one. Sometimes the soloist creates the sound space in which the ensemble can fuse, and sometimes the ensemble creates the sound place that takes in the soloist" • Notwithstanding the clarity with which Aperghis explains his intentions, the result is highly complex, typified from the outset by subtle, filigree writing • Structurally, too, it's tough to unpack, & this, together with the relentlessly focussed interplay between the musicians, can on occasion make the piece seem alienating, as though the listener was spectating from a distance • But that would be to ignore the lifeblood of this piece, that very same unceasing interplay, which is mind-boggling in its scope • &, indeed, in its subtlety; for, despite the work's explicit drama, Aperghis keeps a firm restraint on his material, much of which is surprisingly quiet • The ear ends up skimming the surface of its multitude of intricacies, many of which are lost or barely-glimpsed on a first listening (& some of which will be lost in any listening), but there's ever the sense of being guided by a bigger instinct, Aperghis drawing our attention rapidly from sound object to sound object • The result, far from tiring, is exhilarating, at its conclusion doing what so few pieces are capable of these days, making one want to listen again straight away •

The rest of the concert was given to the UK première of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's large-scale Angel Fighter • The Proms guide feebly describes this 35-minute work for soloists, chorus & orchestra as a 'pocket oratorio', but one should make no mistake; Birtwistle has drawn on all his dramatic skills in the piece, which actually comes across as a short opera • With a superb libretto from Stephen Plaice, the work vividly explores one of the Bible's most enigmatic early episodes, Jacob's encounter with the angel at the river Jabbock, with whom he wrestles until daybreak • Angel Fighter elaborates this scene, beginning immediately before it, at the point where Jacob is dividing his belongings in order to make a present designed to appease his brother Esau, who is on the warpath since Jacob tricked him out of his inheritance • The chorus takes the role of antagonist, at first becoming the mouthpiece of Jacob's tribe, questioning both the decency of Jacob's action as well as the veracity of his recurring visions • It's a tense place for the drama to begin, & despite opening softly, Birtwistle quickly fills the chorus's words with vitriol, their lines hissed & spat at Jacob, becoming a vicious stream of caterwauling insults, coloured by sharp accents in the orchestra: "Jacob seducer ... deserter ... appeaser ... faker!" • Jacob's having none of it, his ripostes encapsulated in a lyrical moment of wistfulness, "I am in the thrall of higher design" • All the same, the chorus clearly undermines Jacob's sense of certainty, & in an aggressive aria, Jacob questions himself on his recent encounters with God, desperately concluding in a half-yelled refrain, "Yahweh, give me a sign!" • This is the cue for the first, distant glimpse of the Angel, Birtwistle instantly transforming the music into something hitherto unheard; the chorus transfixed, open-mouthed, string harmonics barely-moving, inflected with quartertones, brass & woodwind almost entirely reduced to microscopic gasps • At first singing in what Birtwistle describes as 'Enochian', the Angel's language finally becoming comprehensible at the culmination of its descent, at which point we enter the heart of the drama • In Stephen Plaice's rendering the wrestling match is the divine response to Jacob's uncertainties, "to prove I'm real" as the Angel puts it • Birtwistle doesn't just dive into the action, though; Jacob's response to the Angel's suggestion (& the chorus's taunts) is slow & hesitant, described in a telling passage dominated by the lower strings & bassoons • "Don't you want to know me?" from the Angel triggers Jacob into action, & they fight, their lines overlapping one another while the orchestra plays out the unseen strikes & blows • Having survived two painful falls, Jacob grasps the Angel for all he's worth, repeatedly demanding "Submit! Submit!"; in panic at the imminent daybreak, the Angel dislocates Jacob's hip, but even this can't dislodge him • Despite what the Angel claimed was the point of the combat, Jacob wants to know who exactly he's been fighting, which occupies the epilogue of the piece • In its own highly florid aria, accompanied by just cor anglais & harp, the Angel makes the case for the incompatibility (from the divine perspective) of the notion of names, arguing "Should the Word give up its mystery, to have it twisted in Babel's dust?" • Instead, it offers Jacob a blessing, whereupon its return to the beyond is heralded by a distant trumpet (marked in the score: "from behind the audience"), & it departs to a savage outburst from the brass • The chorus lets fly an equally harsh paean of praise, while Jacob offers his own final declamation of worship, his vocal line now tellingly liberated from the metric strictures of both chorus & orchestra •

This is easily the most substantial, challenging & memorable new work heard so far at this year's Proms • It's genuinely exciting to hear drama expressed with such raw clarity, in the process affording the listener a new kind of lyricism, free from clichés & prefabricated mannerisms • This is surely what new music is all about •

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies - Il rozzo martello [17:22]
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Georges Aperghis - Champ-Contrechamp (World Première) [21:33]
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programme note

Sir Harrison Birtwistle - Angel Fighter (UK Première) [44:36]
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Proms 2011: Thomas Larcher - Concerto for Violin, Cello & Orchestra (World Première)

2011-08-20T10:29:00.006+01:00

Last Thursday's Prom was an all Austrian affair, opening with the world première of Thomas Larcher's Concerto for Violin, Cello & Orchestra; Viktoria Mullova & Matthew Barley were the soloists, pitted against the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra directed by Ilan Volkov •

Beforehand, one wondered if it might prove to be the most tantalising new work heard this year; alongside the twin soloists, Larcher has included a peculiar concertino quartet comprising accordion, electric zither, percussion & prepared piano (played by Larcher himself) • Within minutes, though, it became abundantly clear that we were in very similar territory to that explored by Pascal Dusapin in his String Quartet/Concerto 'Hinterland'/'Hapax' three weeks ago • Throughout the first movement, Larcher, too, is hyperactive almost to the point of absurdity, but certainly well beyond the point of irritation • His material feels like the result of a large-scale collage, one put together from microscopic, barely-similar fragments • There are, admittedly, notions of unity in the movement—an occasional returring motif, & an oscillating chord progression redolent of film music—but they can do little to prevent the music from coming across as skittish & schizophrenic • For all their bluster (& there's a shedload of it), not once do the soloists, the concertino or even the orchestra suggest they're presenting something of real substance or importance • There are some lovely initiatives of melodic invention, but swiftly they become subsumed in furious but empty arpeggiations capped with gruff accents, the aural equivalent of vigorously shaking an Etch-a-Sketch™, wiping the slate clean • The quieter episodes that are interspersed about the mayhem contain some touching, even captivating moments (most notably the threadbare chorale towards the end), but they're prevented from being taken seriously, even at times seeming comic in such a madcap context as this • Larcher is, to be sure, no idiot, but his opening gambit is most definitely "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" • As for the second movement, Larcher—continuing the non-sequitur tone of the piece—opts for a largely unsullied C major tonality • Tim Rutherford-Johnson speaks truth in his programme note when he states the resultant music "speaks with Stravinskyan clarity", but if only it contained some Stravinskyan imagination • In every sense of the term, this is incidental music, its rare clarity revealing only how startlingly little it has to say; as such, it's disappointingly in keeping with the piece as a whole, conveying little beyond mere superficial interest •

Thomas Larcher - Concerto for Violin, Cello & Orchestra (World Première) [31:58]
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Proms 2011: Jonny Greenwood - Norwegian Wood - Suite & Purcell/Joby Talbot - Chacony in G minor (World Premières)

2011-08-15T11:49:00.010+01:00

The most recent premières at this year's Proms have been a pair of arrangements, the first, a suite formed by Robert Ziegler from Jonny Greenwood's score to the film Norwegian Wood, the second, a new rendition of Henry Purcell's Chacony in G minor, by Joby Talbot •

Greenwood's music was performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra (with which he is Composer in Association), at last Friday's Prom dedicated to film music • The augeries were ambivalent; hitherto in this concert, despite apparent energy in spades, the orchestra had proved itself lacklustre & even scrappy under Keith Lockhart's direction • A notable casualty was John Williams' Star Wars music, the opening of which was a mistimed disgrace, while the rest became a bombastic showy affair far, far away from the raw power of the original • On the other hand, the quieter music seemed to suit everyone much better, which boded well for Greenwood's restrained, even reticent soundtrack • It's not accurate to describe this Suite as an 'arrangement'; Robert Ziegler, the original conductor of Greenwood's score (& also for his music for the film There Will Be Blood), has simply extracted three movements to form this Suite: 'もう少し自分のこと、きちんとしたいの' ('I want to get a little better'), '草原、風、雑木林' (The Meadow, the Wind, the Trees') & '直子が死んだ' ('Naoko Died') • Ziegler's own contribution seems to be limited to a small extension of the opening material in the first movement; beyond that, any additional tweaks are too subtle to be noticeable •

All reservations evaporated in moments; the performance was superb • 'I want to get a little better' sounded as hypnotic as ever, its basic strand of material cycled round & round at different speeds, woven into an ever more tightly-packed texture • The entrance of the lower strings, a few minutes in, is magical, at first quieting the anxious tone of the upper strings, before getting caught up in their material as well • It's a case of blink-&-you'll-miss-it with central movement 'The Meadow, the Wind, the Trees'; for barely more than 90 seconds a high violin note slowly starts to become a melody, while beneath, a series of rich string chords shift & alter • One's attention is constantly pulled between the two, which feel connected yet somehow independent • Its brevity is no bad thing; as it is, it becomes a sliver of beauty; a lesser composer would seek to draw this out for considerably longer • Ziegler's choice of 'Naoko Died' to conclude the Suite is a bold & surprising one, abruptly changing the mood from overt lyricism to dark & unsettling texture music • The orchestra tackled the gear change effortlessly, distant bass drum notes triggering a weird network of double bass grindings • Particularly outstanding were the movement's two soloistic passages, for horn & cello; both emerged as, respectively, desperate & plaintive outbursts from a music that seemed impelled to slide ever down into a dark nadir • Personally, i'd have liked to hear the Suite conclude with 'クォーター・トーン・ブルーム' ('Quarter Tone Bloom'), a rich, at times Messiaenic, movement that would have been a rather glorious conclusion • As it stands, though, it does at least include the best of the soundtrack, demonstrating the range of moods & influences that Greenwood has sublimated into his score •

Jonny Greenwood (arr. Robert Ziegler) - Norwegian Wood - Suite (World Première) [12:11]
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Joby Talbot's arrangement began yesterday evening's Prom, given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra directed by Mark Wigglesworth • Talbot self-effacingly gives full credit to Purcell, describing the music as "fiendishly intelligent & dense", on which Purcell "brings every ounce of his genius to bear" • But one could & should say much the same of Talbot's arrangement, which is a masterpiece both in terms of orchestration & compositional timing • The essence, of course, is simple enough; Purcell's basic material—a triple-time bass melody (repeated with elaborations above, thus becoming a Chaconne)—revolves 14 times • Talbot exercises patience with the orchestra, opening with winds & bells, slowly working in the upper then lower strings, adding weight with the timpani • At this point, just as Purcell himself was wont to do, Talbot tilts the harmonies obliquely, adding spice to the feeling of regularity & thereby momentarily throwing off the listener • He allows himself a few moments of ornamentation, but avoids becoming anachronistic by matching them with glissandi • He also holds back the music's development, returning to the wind & bells that opened the piece, & even retreating further, presenting the barest shape of the material • & then it comes as if from nowhere, a vast orchestral tutti, crowned by an emphatic brass contour • It's exciting enough, but what follows this climax is breathtaking • Talbot immediately quietens everything, staccato woodwind tracing the outline of the melody • Ever so gently, the strings take over, softening with every passing moment; & the final iteration goes almost beyond my power to describe: flutes, string tremolos, sliding violin harmonics, almost inaudible chimes, & the most spine-tingling tam-tam strike you'll ever hear—a staggeringly beautiful conclusion to an unforgettable arrangement •

Henry Purcell (arr. Joby Talbot) - Chacony in G minor (World Première) [8:51]
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Proms 2011: Simon Holt - Centauromachy

2011-08-10T20:49:00.003+01:00

Simon Holt has been featured at the Proms on numerous occasions over the years, & yesterday his music returned to the Albert Hall with the orchestral work Centauromachy • It was given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom Holt is Composer in Association; they were conducted by François-Xavier Roth, who also oversaw the première of the piece in November last year • The work features a pair of soloists, of distinct but not dissimilar timbres: clarinet in A & flugelhorn, played by Robert Plane & Philippe Schartz respectively •

Holt has structured the work in five movements, the shortest of which comes first, featuring the soloists alone • Titled 'Two natures', it serves to compare & contrast the clarinet & flugelhorn, which at first take it in turns to attempt to catch each other, scurrying around, imitating, their phrases ending together on a unison note • It's not until the third & final phrase that they move beyond a relatively narrow pitch space, moving swiftly to occupy distinct registral areas, the clarinet initially high above the flugelhorn, then leaping below it • Following a final chirrup, the second movement, 'Chiron's dream' introduces the orchestra, rapidly materialising like a grand, cinematic fade-in • When the soloists restart their activity, it's with forceful gestures, but they quickly yield to lines that continue to cling together • A trumpet strikes up a rapport with the flugel, while the strings seek to try something out in their uppermost register, delineated by glockenspiel strikes • Everything coalesces onto a lower note, from which the soloists again recommence strongly but immediately become soft; as earlier, though, Holt keeps the material restless, suggesting a dream that's not entirely comfortable •

The work's centrepiece is also its most fascinating movement, 'A centaur glimpsed through trees' • Holt liberates the soloists both from the orchestra & each other, bestowing on them independent lines • To the orchestra he gives an irregular series of brief, glistening chords (Anthony Burton plausibly likens them to the trees); they have a Feldman-like inscrutability, shifting subtly from chord to chord, while staunchly avoiding even the remotest change in character • In some ways, the soloists sounds as though they're continuing & expanding on their material from the opening movement, only now as true individuals; the flugel quickly becomes rapid & virtuosic, the clarinet takes longer to get excited; meanwhile, the orchestra continues, completely unaffected by either of them • The sense of perspective here is palpable, & not just between the soloists & the 'backdrop'; the orchestral chords themselves suggest a variety of sonic 'distances', some seeming closer & clearer, others briefly glimpsed in semi-shadow •

Holt titles the penultimate movement 'Pitched battle', a name that's even more striking than normal considering the recent troubles experienced in & beyond London • Continuing that metaphor, the soloists form their own gangs with sections of the orchestra; to the clarinet, which predominates first, gather the upper strings & woodwinds, raucously swooping & shrilling with glee • The flugel finds support from deeper instruments, presenting a more thudding, bombastic demeanour, the soloist almost seeking to glamour its cohorts in a highly lyrical display, getting the trumpet even more excited than in the second movement • Holt superbly sets the scene for things to come, but as the opposing colours become ever more sharply defined (perhaps even exaggerated), the result doesn't so much sound like a battle than a strutting contest, a war of postures & poses, rather than punches • For the final movement, 'Elegeia', the work's sporadic gentleness takes over, emerging from solitary harp notes thrown out into darkness • Drawn-out melodic aspirations are passed around, becoming hectic on the clarinet but immediately answered disapprovingly by the strings, with a rather severe descending phrase • So the soloists become solemn, a slowly-beating deep rhythm plodding sadly beneath like a laboured cortege • A pause leaves the harp alone briefly, before the orchestra slowly fills out a quiet but tortured image, leaving the strings meandering in small circles, as though not knowing what to do • An abrupt burst of cacophony from the soloists, unexpected & unexplained (& momentarily setting off the trumpet again), only heightens the weird uncomfortability of this movement, fizzling out with a tremble & a blurted sob •

Simon Holt - Centauromachy [25:28]
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MP3 [v0 vbr | 40Mb]
programme note/biography

The Softness War: Chubby Wolf - Los que No Son Gentos & Celer - Noctilucent Clouds

2011-08-09T10:52:00.003+01:00

A little under a year ago, reviewing Celer's then latest release Dying Star, i made the rather rash remark that with its "quietly massive majesty ... [it] may just be Celer's masterpiece" • i'm not going to retract that statement—it remains for me the most striking album in the Celer corpus—but it's been fascinating to hear a pair of albums this year that draw very near to it, in terms of both aspiration & execution •

The first comes from the Celer-offshoot Chubby Wolf, the result of Danielle Baquet-Long's solo explorations • As i've remarked in the past, left to her own devices Baquet-Long pursues a more austere, sonically complex soundworld than that of her duo work with husband Will, & new release Los que No Son Gentos is no exception • That's not to suggest it lacks warmth—far from it—but the 'heat' it emits is soft & residual, not blazing; there are no overt grand gestures here • The 14 tracks are founded on slowly-moving foundations that for the most part keep themselves at a distance, not so much aloof as reserved; & their mode of expression is pithy & succinct, many of the tracks lasting under three minutes • Yet their miniature stature belies a remarkable intensity with which the music speaks • It's a paradox neatly encapsulated in Baquet-Long's familiarly loquacious track-titles, which (like so much poetry) are simultaneously immediate—more than once invoking desire—& alienating • One quickly realises that each track is not merely concise, but concentrated, boiled down into a richly undiluted essence, in which each shifting agglomeration of notes, each surging bass protrusion becomes utterly compelling • Thankfully, this is clearly what matters most; once again, Baquet-Long flies in the face of so much contemporary ambient music, that simply regards sounding pretty (which is, in any case, subjective) as its primary goal • Los que No Son Gentos shifts in & out of loveliness, but the weight & power of its conviction never lets up for a second • It's perhaps perverse to single out any individual track in such a context as this, but "You are the Description that brings me out of Myself... But cannot Give Me anywhere to go" is especially impressive, bringing to mind the best work of Jonathan Coleclough •

In my first encounter with Los que No Son Gentos, i accidentally had the volume turned down lower than usual, resulting in my being forced to listen much harder than i should have needed to • But there's nothing accidental about the dynamic restraint heard in the latest Celer album to emerge, Noctilucent Clouds • Intended as a successor to their 2008 release Nacreous Clouds, the similarities are in name only • The duo pushes their (&, thereby, the listener's) patience further than ever before here, spending nearly 100 minutes exploring material often at the edge of audibility, a series of "slowly moving, randomly-appearing swathes of high lights, and deep blacks" (Will Long's words) • The effect is akin to the music of Morton Feldman, where silence almost becomes as substantial as sound, & where the minutest of gestures is highly significant • The music occupies a kind of 'steady state', evolving slowly but irrevocably, always as from a great distance; it's exquisite, & absolutely riveting, becoming all the more so the closer the material tends to silence • Technically, it never does, though; beneath everything else, a very soft but omnipresent layer of tape hiss keeps the music aloft at all times, cushioning it from absolute silence • The sheer breathtaking naturality of Noctilucent Clouds harks back to no less than Eno's Music for Airports; ultimately, it stops feeling like the product of a conscious creative act, which is perhaps the best compliment one can pay it • An amazing album, best heard through headphones if you want to experience every nuance; otherwise, make sure you're listening in a very, very quiet room •

Los que No Son Gentos is a limited edition of 200, released in June by Dragon's Eye Recordings; while most have probably been sold by now, copies can still be had from the ever reliable Norman Records • Noctilucent Clouds suffers no such limitations, released digitally via Celer's Bandcamp page •

Proms 2011: Robin Holloway - Fifth Concerto for Orchestra (World Première)

2011-08-04T22:02:00.005+01:00

After a few days' break, new music returned to the Proms this evening with the world première of Robin Holloway's Fifth Concerto for Orchestra, played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Donald Runnicles • His previous quartet of orchestral concerti have been diverse, making it difficult to predict with any certainty what Holloway would do on this occasion • The beginnings of an answer come quickly; Holloway has jettisoned all conceits of programme music—indeed, he goes to great pains in his accompanying note to emphasise how 'abstract' it is • But this is undermined to an extent by the lengthy quasi-synæsthetic description Holloway offers instead, suggesting the five movements explore a variety of colours & hues, which may be abstract in one sense, but in another is arguably no less demonstrative in the way it describes to the listener what the music is 'about' • This is not a complaint, though, & the prospect of exploring colour in sound - such a richly-mined concept in the 20th century - is an intriguing one, particularly in the hands of Holloway, who always takes such a filigree approach to orchestration (heard so captivatingly in his re-working of Schumann performed at last year's Proms, the song cycle RELIQUARY) •

Speaking in detail about the five movements individually (& they are heard in a different order from that listed in the programme note) seems somewhat redundant, for two reasons, both of which will seem, at first, to be negative • The first is that the differences between the movements are not as great as is suggested by their descriptions; Holloway's "blackness ... settling into still deeper darkness than ever", heard in the opening movement is dense but does not shy away from drawing on bright, resonant percussion, from the outset onwards • & despite being marked 'Adagio molto', the density of the lines, & the way they intertwine as they collapse gives the impression of activity of far greater pace than that tempo indication would suggest • In short, Holloway's 'black' is not necessarily how i hear 'black', & this subjectivity is heightened by the similarity in the movements • The second reason is that there isn't actually anything particularly memorable in the piece as a whole; one is caught up with it while it's happening, but as soon as the last notes die away, nothing remains apart from feelings growing vaguer with each passing second •

Those remarks seem negative, but Holloway's skill entirely prevents the work from becoming a bland, forgettable experience • Being called a 'concerto for orchestra', it will come as no surprise that Holloway uses the different sections of the orchestra as single entities, blocks of timbre that are made to work en masse • Despite occasional soloistic forays, for the most part these sections work as teams, taking turns to pull forward into the foreground; in practice, the effect is almost like one almighty hocket expressed with huge lashings of klangfarbenmelodie (& Holloway refers to his own Concerto as a "homage in idea, not style" to Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces) • This underlying aspect of the piece is complemented with another, material-based, where the work's assorted, ever-evolving musical ideas regularly seek to ascend to ever higher registers • Together, these two simple notions present a strong sense of unity in the piece, making the similarity between the movements more of an asset than anything else (despite what the programme note says) •

Essentially, the Fifth Concerto for Orchestra is one that lives in the moment, jam-packed (almost over-stuffed) with invention, from complex melodic games in the first movement (wherever you glimpse a melody, it escapes as soon as you concentrate on it), to rising string & celesta spirals in the second, to lilting, almost ländler-esque material in the fourth • Climaxes are suggested & averted, one section's music is 'captured' & resonated by others, musical glottal stops break up the flow when least expected... & what's with all those rather incongruous major triads at the end of most of the movements? • For all its surface emphasis, Holloway has created a highly entertaining, even mischievous work; the colour references come across like a red (or is it scarlet?) herring, & one forgets it all soon enough once it's over, but for 25 minutes it contains not a single dull moment, which is no slight achievement •

Robin Holloway - Fifth Concerto for Orchestra (World Première) [34:11]
FLAC [142Mb]
MP3 [54Mb]
programme note/biography

Proms 2011: Marc-André Dalbavie & Elliott Carter - Flute Concertos

2011-07-29T21:19:00.005+01:00

Yesterday evening's Prom concert brought not one but two flute concertos, performed by Swiss virtuoso Emmanuel Pahud, together with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, again under Thierry Fischer's direction • The two pieces are nearly five & three years old respectively, the first from Marc-André Dalbavie, who turned 50 earlier this year, the second (heard here in its UK première) from Elliott Carter, who will be a staggering 103 years old in December • Despite first appearances, there are commonalities between the two works • Both eschew the contemporary practice of opting for descriptive names; the bald title Flute Concerto has connotations of its own, of course, but nonetheless suggests that deeply programmatic content is not the order of the day • To that end, both also place greatest importance on the surface of the music, inviting the listener first & foremost to place their focus on its undulations • But there the similarities end •

Dalbavie seems intent on aiming the flute on a trajectory that seeks to reincarnate the Flight of the Bumblebee • The orchestra are given a rather muted thud as their signature, which they use frequently to punctuate the flute's seemingly never-ending sequences of scales & arpeggios • The brass seem to be charged with a certain authority, as it's only they who prove able to change the work's direction • Beyond that, we're in desperately simplistic musical territory, Dalbavie's overt ternary form structure being just one example of how crudely basic the piece is • There are positive aspects, insofar as the relationship between the flute & orchestra is sensitively handled, & the brief shadings of Honegger-esque harmony early on are nice • But the work's overwhelming handicap is the sharp contrast between its apparent aspirations & the crudely ineffectual results •

Time & time again, there's the intimation that the music really wants to sing; the flute, not surprisingly, is the first to suggest this, & the strings on several occasions—some spontaneous, others in response to the flute—make moves in that direction • But each & every time, barely after a few notes have been uttered, the nascent melody is quashed & everything twirls off somewhere else • This is even the case in the lengthy slow episode at the work's centre; in what is perhaps the most vacillating bit of solo writing the flute has ever known, the instrument, uncertain of how to proceed, resigns itself to repeating a single note • Rendered totally unable to fly, the flute ends up skittering around like a moth in an unpredictable wind, ultimately reduced to a demonstration of mere velocity & yet more spiralling scales & arpeggios that speak more of showing off than of virtuosity • His concerto is little more than a vacuous compositional exercise, the most cringe-making moment being when Dalbavie attempts a pastiche of impressionism, replete with octatonic scales: ghastly •

Elliott Carter, on the other hand, doesn't just afford his flute the opportunity to sing, he allows it to do so for nearly 13 minutes • The pointillistic opening establishes what will turn out to be a gentle, occasional counterpoint to the flute's lyricism; now & again, they intrude on the solo line, the pointillism shifting into blunt but penetrating accents • The texture bristles with the far-off presence of percussion (woodblocks at first, rototoms later), & through the first half of the piece, the orchestra is allowed to project significantly but never seems terribly robust; an attempted coup around six minutes in is like a fanfare reduced to fragments • They lumber around, moving forward in shuffles, & on the very rare occasions when they wrestle attention away from the flute, their gruff material fizzles quickly •

Carter seems content to leave ambiguous whether this kind of antagonism is malevolent or simply playful; either way, it makes little impact on the flute, apparently immune to all & any inroads from the orchestra, no matter how agitated they get • In fact, as the work unfolds, the quizzical nature between the one & the many takes on an ecstatic quality, the flute continuing its endless melody in a quasi-mystical manner, ever quieter & more tranquil • A bit like swearing at a monk, the rudeness proves itself impotent, & the relationship evolves into something rather uncanny • The simultaneous sense (particularly in the strings) of distance being kept from the flute while yearning to be near to it smacks of a kind of reverence, as though the soloist's manner had struck awe in those around • Carter's concerto is a shockingly powerful musical statement, in which a solo line demonstrates more power than an orchestra precisely by abnegating all the superficial trappings of the 'virtuoso' • A beautiful & rather moving piece, it shows Carter to be as bold & impressively thought-provoking as ever • Dalbavie should thank his lucky stars that his effort came before Carter's in the concert •

Marc-André Dalbavie - Flute Concerto
FLAC [91Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 35Mb]
programme note & biog

Elliott Carter - Flute Concerto (UK Première)
FLAC [80Mb]
MP3 [v0 vbr | 31Mb]
programme note & biog

Proms 2011: Pascal Dusapin - String Quartet No. 6, 'Hinterland' ('Hapax' for string quartet and orchestra) (UK Première)

2011-07-27T21:07:00.005+01:00

Turning one's attention to the second work of Pascal Dusapin's to be featured at this year's Proms, superficial similarities to the last première, Sally Beamish's Reed Stanzas, immediately present themselves • This, too, is a piece for string quartet (Dusapin's String Quartet No. 6), although extensively augmented & amplified by the presence of a small orchestra (on this occasion, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, directed by Thierry Fischer) • Dusapin's work also bears two titles, the first of which, Hinterland, suggests a similar kind of remote landscape to that explored in Beamish's piece • The second title, in Dusapin's trademark pithy fashion, is the single Greek word Hapax, a word perhaps better known in English through the linguistic term hapax legomenon, referring to the rare phenomenon of a word or construction that appears just once in a particular language • Dusapin rather indifferently claims to have used the word 'Hapax' simply because “It is [...] highly unlikely that I will ever write another quartet with orchestra”, but one can't help feeling there's more to it than that • Due to the nature of hapax legomena, they are notoriously difficult to make sense of, & as Dusapin's work progresses, it's a parallel that seems increasingly apt •

On the one hand, this is certainly not a piece lacking clarity • The quartet serves to initiate material (delivered in predictably superb fashion by the still incomparable Arditti Quartet), which is then by turns radiated, resonated, expanded, elaborated & projectile vomited by the orchestra • Harmonically, too, the work is relatively straightforward, much of the time fixating on certain pitches & oscillating around them, establishing what sound almost like floating pedal points • The pervading emphasis on rhythm is an additional aid to clarity, & keeps the material light, essential if Dusapin is to ensure the quartet can be heard in the midst of a throng that could so easily overwhelm them •

But all this transparent directness goes precisely nowhere in terms of helping one decipher what Dusapin is on about—if anything, it does the reverse, exaggerating the respective roles of quartet & orchestra • So we hear a quartet that sounds less like a homogeneous unit than a cluster of disparate individuals connected only by their mutual suffering from OCD • They shiver, they stutter, they spasm; sometimes they launch into half-baked attempts at lyricism, ideas that begin briskly but in no time collapse into circular arguments, all the while feeling pinned in place (akin to the ludicrous, imagined 'ride through the air' from Richard Strauss' Don Quixote) • The quartet becomes a lucid paradigm of abject anxiety, garrulously fretting & fussing in an apparently endless stream that seems to seek shelter in minimalistic passages focussing on a single note, drummed out ad absurdum, like a deranged man beating his hand on a table •

Placed in a supporting role, the orchestra cannot distance itself from this manic behaviour, & while they spend most of their time in the periphery, when called into action they only heighten the madness • Upper notes cause the clarinets to bicker, & the flutes to spit; the strings seem to want to slow things down, or at least draw them out for a bit, in the process coming across less like a 'voice of reason' than an attempt to stop a runaway train with a mattress • They end up glowering ridiculously (especially when the tam-tam gets involved), the basses becoming pointlessly ponderous in the depths • No, nothing can intervene in the quartet's convulsive stream of consciousness; if only they betrayed some symptoms of Tourette syndrome, they might become interesting • But they don't, & the impossible number of notes they ejaculate are nothing more than empty noise & hollow gestures, unhinged blurts & bellows that leave one ultimately wanting to give all concerned a hefty slap •

As a listener, one feels inclined to treat Hapax's literal meaning as advice: 'once' •

Pascal Dusapin - String Quartet No. 6, 'Hinterland' ('Hapax' for string quartet and orchestra) (UK Première) [30:36]
FLAC [132Mb]
MP3 [48Mb]
programme note/biog