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Fanfare
Magazine STRING
THEORY - Penderecki Str Qrt; Richard Moore (perc); Rose Thompson, cond;
NUMUS Cello Ens; Mark Fewer (vn); Omar Daniel (laptop); Laura Pudwell
(mez); Cathy Anderson (vc); Paul Pulford (vc) ECLECTRA 2074 (73:50) This
disc is a collection of chamber works for strings, often with unusual
added media, by Canadian composers. Specifically, it showcases works
from the NUMUS concert series in south-central Ontario. While the notes
don't give the birthdates for most of the composers, it seems that most
are in the late twenties to mid-forties age range. The music also suggests
that theirs is, in fact, a fertile scene. Jascha
Narveson's 2003 BSQ5 (remix) is, as its title indicates, composed entirely
of materials from Bartok's Fifth Quartet, rearranged to change the musical
syntax completely. It's accompanied by a groovy but complex live drum
part. Accompaniment
in James Rolfe's Worry (2001) comes from the cello ensemble, providing
the backdrop for a violin mini-concerto. The piece is an homage to the
modernism the composer grew up with, its formal flow a stream of consciousness,
its gestures mysterious and anxious. Omar
Daniel's Annunciation (2005) refers to the appearance of the angel Gabriel
to the Virgin Mary announcing Jesus's upcoming birth. Daniel has taken
six Renaissance paintings of the event and used each as an inspiration
for a movement. What distinguishes the music above all is the subtle
use of electronics-there's no explanation in the notes, except to call
them "live" and indicate the composer is playing laptop, but
the impression given is that of delicate processing of live string sounds
to enhance and enlarge the timbral space (and if it's all prerecorded,
the illusion of live processing is artful as well). Roger
Bergs's 2001 Elements is a four-movement suite for cello ensemble that
evokes water, air, fire, and earth. Bergs's technique is notable for
the way he "loosens" the rhythmic bonds on the ensemble, creating
textures that are rich and yet not cluttered, that flow naturally. And
Peter Hatch's The Fleeting World (2004) is a setting from the Buddhist
sacred text The Diamond Sutra for soprano, two cellos, and a continuous
water fountain! It's very nonlinear and intricately detailed, with tiny
inflections, harmonics, and glissandos (the latter become a sort of
moaning dialogue about two- thirds of the way through). I found myself
reminded of Cage's Ryoanji, though Hatch's voice is more lyrical and
romantic within the austere constraints he sets himself. While
I don't find any one of these pieces truly extraordinary, they all are
of a very high quality. Each has its own point of view, great imagination,
and real technique to accomplish its aims. For me, the Bergs and Hatch
are the strongest, and indeed the program seems designed to move from
one strength to another over its course. The
sound throughout is superb. For those interested in new works for strings,
and/or Canadian composers, this is a rewarding disc. Finally, the Penderecki
String Quartet is Jeremy Bell and Jerzy Kaplanek, violins; Christine
Vlajk, viola, and Simon Fryer, cello. The NUMUS cellos are Margaret
Gay, Amber Ghent, Roberta Janzen, John Marshman, Paul Pulford, Carina
Reeves, Mary Stein, and Karl Toews. String
Theory, as I understand it in its most essential form, is an expansion
of the wide-reaching Einsteinian dream of establishing a unifying theory
of physics, an extrapolation of the old man's quest for a quantum-based
vision of the universe. The essential physical and metaphorical element
of the theory is a ubiquitous system of vibrating strings. Naturally,
it is an especially attractive concept to string-players that the way
that they express their art is akin to the very essence of life. But
of course, they knew that all along. Five
Canadian composers are included in this collection of new works for
string ensemble, all featuring novel combinations of instruments designed
to create dense, rich sonic textures. Jascha Narveson's BSQ5 (remix)
is so named because it is based on splinters of Bartok's String Quartet
No. 5. The novelty here is that the string music is accompanied by the
rat-a-tat of a drum kit, lending the piece an easy-to-enjoy, toe-tapping
vitality that still honors the essence of Bartok. James
Rolfe's Worry is scored for the lush combination of solo violin and
eight cellos, and as the name suggests, is a softly rendered meditation
on the anxieties of contemporary humankind. Annunciation
consists of six short works, each inspired by a specific painting of
the Italian Renaissance (in order; Raffaello, Da Vinci, Fra Angelico,
Botticelli, Caravaggio, and Fra Lippi). Omar Daniel, accompanying the
string quartet on his laptop computer, goes beyond the merely pretty
effects that a similarly inspired Respighi created to achieve individualized
glimpses of the psychological underpinnings of the painters' working
methods. He does so with language that is concise, evocative, and attractive. The
last two works on the program are, harmonically and structurally, somewhat
more accessible, but not in the least bit prosaic. Both include water
as an element of the music, illusory in the case of Bergs, and literally
in the Hatch piece. Bergs describes Elements as a kind of etude set,
with the cellists employing a variety of common practice techniques
in ways that mimic the sound of water and other natural phenomena, using
free bowing, arpeggiation, fast leggiero glissandos, and pizzicato.
The Hatch composition has a Buddhist text, sung in Sanskrit, and the
sound of gently running water (a water fountain is part of the score)
as an unusual obbligato. The Fleeting World possesses a quiet strength
that makes for a subtly powerful conclusion to a compelling collection
of new music. |
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