Monotonous Forest

Hybrids

2 String Mavericks Mix Classical With Pop and Jazz.  The Juilliard Journal, April 2009

Killer festival

I always do a tiny double-take when I see publicity for MATA, the organization dedicated to the work of young composers, since in Spanish "mata" can be translated as "it kills."  This year's festival, on four nights at (Le) Poisson Rouge, looks particularly ready to slay listeners with unusual fare.  Tonight's opener features Eric Jacobsen conducting The Knights Chamber Orchestra in works by Francesco Antonioni, Justin Messina, Joseph Pereira, Mike Block, Ted Hearne, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Andrew Hamilton.  Wednesday features electronic works by Sawako, with Miguel Frasconi on glass instruments, and Cornelius Dufallo and Ariana Kim on violins.  Also on the docket is Ne(x)tworks, with recent pieces by Dufallo, Kate Moore, Christopher McIntyre (MATA's Artistic Director) and Shelley Burgon.

After a one-night break, the festival resumes on Friday with the NOW Ensemble in music by Jascha Narveson, Patrick Burke, Greg Spears, David Crowell and Missy Mazzoli (also MATA's Executive Director).  And in the second half, David Moore leads Bing and Ruth in his own works.  To conclude on Saturday night, the indomitable guys of So Percussion dive into Cenk Ergün, Jason Treuting, and a new work by Nicole Lizée.

[Photo: Killer Shower Curtain, $19.98 from Things You Never Knew Existed]

Chamber music actually in a chamber

There are few experiences more satisfying than hearing musicians close-up in intimate venues, and last night pianist Lisa Moore and violinist Karen Bentley Pollick provided a fine example.  The site was Klavierhaus, a showroom near Carnegie Hall with a small space in the back for just 50 people, plus two enormous Fazioli instruments in front and three more on the right side.  ("It's just like being in someone's living room," I quipped, to which a friend said, "Yeah, a living room with a bunch of pianos in it.")

The first half of the unusual menu began with Janáček's earthy Sonata for Violin and Piano (1914) and Paul Dresher's Elapsed Time (1998), culminating with a world premiere: Aves Nostradamus (2008) an intriguing short work by Sam Adams, the son of John Adams.  A restless account of the latter's Road Movies (1995) began after intermission, followed by Bird as Prophet (1999), Martin Bresnick's luminous tribute to Schumann and Charlie Parker.  I realize economics don't often allow artists to shed light for such small crowds, but it's a treat when it happens.

Repeat hearings

Last night's Either/Or concert marked the fourth time I'd heard Richard Carrick and David Shively perform Salut für Caudwell (1977), Helmut Lachenmann's "deconstruction of Spanish guitar technique," and each encounter brings new insights.  It's a rare luxury to be able to get to know an unfamiliar piece solely through live performance, since works like this one are not easy to learn (from the musicians' point of view), and are not often repeated.  Yes, there is a recording available (apparently out of print at the moment), but I haven't hunted it down yet, not wanting to blur the memory of what Carrick and Shively have accomplished.

This was the second time I'd heard Lachenmann's extraordinary Third String Quartet, "Grido" (2001), and again, although I fully expect to encounter the Arditti String Quartet recording at some point, there is nothing like hearing this flinty score done by experts, plunging into its unusual sound world with complete abandon.  Conversation afterward ranged from how to film a performance like this, both for artistic and archival purposes, to the perhaps unexpected emotional reactions to the music itself. 

[Above: "Gratitude to Helmut Lachenmann for the Opposite Side of the String" (2008, oil on canvas) by Lisa Abbott-Canfield, via Jason Rulnick Gallery]

Happy 84th

 

[Pierre Boulez, April 8, 2007, via Le regard de James]

Tomorrow's traffic jam

I hate nights like this.  On Thursday at Scandinavia House, Bridge Records hosts a 60th birthday concert for Poul Ruders, with guitarist David Starobin in the world premiere of Pages 1-X (2008).  Also appearing are Mikko Luoma on accordion and the iO String Quartet, in the U.S. premiere of Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.

At the same time, downtown at Roulette, Modernworks (headed by cellist Madeleine Shapiro, who incidentally has performed with Luoma) will present three string quartets and a work for solo cello by Ge Gan-ru.  In June, Naxos will release Shapiro's recording of these works. 

Still on the fence?  Flutists Claire Chase and Eric Lamb of the International Contemporary Ensemble will be at The Tank (now at The 45th Street Theater), playing Philippe Hurel's dazzling Loops III, plus new pieces by Richard Barrett and Dominik Karski.  (This one is for the unbelievable price of $5; I don't ever want to hear that potentially memorable concerts aren't affordable.)

And at Merkin Concert Hall, Either/Or will reprise two of its big hits from last year, Helmut Lachenmann's Third String Quartet ("Grido") and Salut für Caudwell, for two guitarists.  Also on the program are world premieres by Richard Carrick and Elizabeth Hoffmann, and Sahaf (Drift) by Chaya Czernowin.

It's enough to drive one mad.  If I've omitted any others, clamoring for attention, please post them as comments. 

[Photo: scroll of Madeleine Shapiro's Betts cello, c. 1790]

Simile of the week

"The timpani part has been colorfully (and sympathetically) described as sounding 'like a hamster with unclipped nails locked in the dryer.'"

[Thanks to Jens F. Laurson, via Elizabeth Bergman's program notes, on Jörg Widmann's Con brio (2008), performed last Friday by Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.]

Midwest juggernaut

Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (second night is here).  MusicWeb International, March 13, 2009

"Music" from McDonagh

My admiration for the Irish playwright Martin McDonagh only increases with each exposure.  Last night I caught one of the final performances of The Cripple of Inishmaan, a co-production of the Atlantic Theater and the Druid Theatre in Galway.

One characteristic of McDonagh's prose is its recurring rhythms, circling like canons.  A character is likely to throw out a sentence which its recipient will toss back in irony.  A phrase will travel back and forth between two, even three people, accumulating meaning with each circuit.  And now and then the plot will deftly pause, while a speaker makes self-referential comments on the very lines he or she has just spoken.

In other hands it might be too precious, but here McDonagh reveals deeply touching emotions.  The title character (Billy) is brilliantly played by Aaron Monaghan, who delivers McDonagh's acid lines while juggling facial spasms and a twitching left shoulder, and lurches around the stage with one foot turned on its side.  I won't reveal the entire plot, but it concerns Billy's decision to travel to America to become a movie star.  Little does he know that a bit of family history will eventually come sneaking in, changing how he sees himself and the others in his universe.  It is a slightly warmer side of McDonagh, in contrast to the black humor of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, or the disturbing tales related in The Pillowman.

The Druid's Garry Hynes directed, focusing on the story and the language, and her clean technique never calls attention to itself.  It runs through Sunday, and if I weren't already committed to other things this weekend, I'd go again. 

Pousseur, R.I.P.

  The LP above, The New Music, was one of the first recordings of "modern" music I encountered, and I recalled it here in December 2007 when Karlheinz Stockhausen died.  Now it is on my mind once again with the death of Henri Pousseur, whose Rimes pour différentes sources sonores for orchestra and tape (1958) was one of the other three works on the program.  On an Overgrown Path and The Rambler have tributes, the latter with links to some of Pousseur's music.