Berio-Saal,
Konzerthaus
Boulez
– Le Marteau sans maître
Interspersed with miniatures in
homage to Pierre Boulez, all commissioned by PHACE and the Vienna Konzerthaus,
all receiving their world premieres:
Ivan
Fedele – Drive
Gerhard
E. Winkler – Anamorph VII (Alte Meister):
‘Boulez-Samba’
Alessandro
Baticci – L’Artisanat furieux
Alexandra
Karastoyanova-Hermentin – Letrei
Helmut
Oehring – MARTEAU, miniature for contralto and
instrumental ensemble
Iris
ter Schiphorst – Make him talk!
Eva
Reiter – Masque de fer
Luca
Francesconi – Sans
Isabel Pfefferkorn (contralto),
Sylvie Lacroix (flute)
Reinhold Brunner (clarinet)
Mathilde Hoursiangou (piano)
Berndt Thurner (vibraphone,
percussion)
Alex Lipowski (xylorimba,
percussion)
Harry Demmer (percussion)
Michael Öttl (guitar)
Felix Pöchhacker (electric guitar)
Ivana Pristašová, Rafał Zalech
(violas)
Alexandra Dienz (double bass)
Alfred Reiter (sound direction)
Simeon Pironkoff (conductor)
This was perhaps the most
ambitious instalment yet – of those I have heard, of course – in the Vienna
Konzerthaus’s tribute to Pierre Boulez: a performance of Le Marteau sans maître, still, perhaps, his most instantly
recognisable, celebrated work, interspersed with eight newly commissioned
miniatures from eight different composers. The new music ensemble, PHACE,
conducted by Simeon Pironokoff, joined by contralto, Isabel Pfefferkorn, did an
extraordinary job here, jointly commissioning the new pieces too, with the
Konzerthaus. Wisely the viola parts were split: Ivana Pristašová playing the
ferociously difficult, verging-on-impossible part from Le Marteau, Rafał Zalech the others.
Perhaps it was partly the
studio-like environment of the Konzerthaus’s Berio-Saal, underground like
IRCAM, yet not very much like it, but there seemed, at least in the beginning,
to be something of the old Boulez ferocity, even semi-pointillism, to the
performance. It was certainly – a favourite word of Boulez himself – a less
Romantic performance in character than he would have tended to give towards the
end of his life. Ivan Fedele’s Drive
came first of the new works, its three short sections (I have seen no programme
notes, let alone scores, so my solecisms will likely be many!) suggesting to me
a branching out, even a proliferation, from one another, the two instruments,
vibraphone and piano, shadowing, enveloping, one another, then again
accomplishing something quite different. Exploration of the relationship
between the two seemed to be the thing. The first ‘commentaire’ on ‘Bourreaux
de solitude’, itself of course still to be heard, offered a keen sense of a
perhaps surprisingly soft-spoken mechanism getting into gear. Gerhard E.
Winkler’s Boulez-Samba (!), perhaps a
nod to the composer’s 1950 visit to Brazil, seemed to take off initially from
that music, before going its own way, layers overlapping in a colouristic swirl
that did not quite, for me, evade questions of easy colonialism, as Le Marteau does. Perhaps, though, I was
missing the point; there was a huge amount to take in throughout the evening.
Alto flute, followed by that
unforgettable opening vocal melismata – what richness of voice from Pfefferkorn!
– in ‘L’Artisanat furieux’ came like a breath of fresh air, that vocal air
increasingly warm, yet never humid. Alessandro Baticci’s arresting combination
of electric guitar, floor tom, and double bass, made me keen to hear more from
a composer entirely new to me. It was not just the combination, but the variety
of sonorities, far from all expected, he drew from them. Following the second ‘commentaire’,
Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin’s piece brought viola fury of a very
different nature from Boulez’s, yet equally impressive. As the ice and fire of
Boulez’s inspiration continued to penetrate as only they can, return to his
music often offering a sense of ‘back to the real business’, I found some of
the other contributions a little hit-or-miss. Perhaps, though, that was down to
me. It was nice to hear Boulez’s own voice sampled in Iris ter Schiphorst’s Make him talk! and there was, I think, a
real sense of that voice becoming part of the ensemble. Hermut Oehring’s MARTEAU, though, took a while to pass
through its hand movement-silence-shouting phases, and Eva Reiter’s Masque de fer, intriguing though some aspects
may have been, seemed rather music-theatre gestural in this particular company.
It was a relief to near conclusion with Luca Francesconi’s exquisitely finished
Sans: winding down, or opening out?
Both, probably, those sentiments intensified in the final movement of Le Marteau. Boulez’s music, quite
rightly, was still the thing.
