St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch
Carlos de Castellarnau – Natura Morta (2014, UK premiere)
Michelle Agnes – Vento Noroeste (2012/2015, UK premiere)Mateu Malondra – Systematic Double Bind (2015, world premiere)
Rebecca Saunders – the under-side of green (1994)
Yukiko Watanabe – Mono-Dialogue III (2012, world premiere)
Joan Bagés i Rubi – Sobreimpresión (2009, UK premiere)
It is always an exciting
prospect to hear a concert of entirely new music (new to me, at least, and much
of it new to the world). For me, moreover, five of the six composers were new
too. With no programme notes for a crutch, simply a list of composers and works,
one has little idea what to expect. One might well gain a greater appreciation
upon repeated listening, yet one might also wish one were able to hear the
Ninth Symphony for the first time again: imagine! In many ways, it is difficult,
almost impossible, to do so. A lack of faith in new music in many quarters has
led some to take refuge in a remote pseudo-historicism, which knows little much
history than our political masters. The alleged cure proves worse than the imaginary
ailment: better, of course, to point to the fallacy via an encounter between
London- and Barcelona-based ensembles.
Carlos de Castellarnau’s Natura Morta, for accordion (Josep Vila)
and electronics (Joan Bagés) proved something of a performing tour de force:
one could hardly but be impressed by Vila’s musicianship. The material seemed
to incorporate, indeed truly to integrate, some more ‘popular’ elements,
without descending to the level of the ‘folkish’. Repeated notes, long notes
(perhaps with a touch of nostalgia?), something not so far removed from white
noise, eventually fading away into nothingness: throughout there was a strong
visual, physical element, but the sustenance came from an undeniable sense,
both in work and performance, of musical line.
Michelle Agnes’s Vento Noroeste for bass clarinet
(Alejandro Castillo), violin (Kamila Bydlowska), and cello (Mónica Mari), opens
with harmonics, swiftly supplemented, followed by scurrying, whispering slides.
(The clue, one assumes, lies in the title.) I thought a little of Debussy’s Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest, not that the
music in any sense sounded ‘like’ Debussy’s. There seemed to me a real sense of
patient yet dramatic, even pictorial, development.
Mateu Malondra’s Systematic Double Bind followed,
musicians as follows: voice (Josephine Stevenson), flute (Ilze Ikse), cello
(Mónica Marí), and electronics (Bages). The vocal part had me think both of
Berio (post-Berberian lightness) and Stockhausen (breathing and manipulation),
but they might simply have been personal points of reference. The piece emerged
almost as a mini-cantata, or scena. At one point, I felt an almost Romantic
(though certainly not neo-Romantic) cast to the cello line. Instrumental
combinations always intrigued; the sense, again, of dramatic ‘line’ was quite
compelling.
Rebecca Saunders is, apparently
a ClapTON ensemble favourite: an excellent choice and the composer with whose
work I was a little familiar. the under-side
of green, for violin (Bydlowska), clarinet (Castillo), and piano (Tomeu
Moll) opens with an éclat that perhaps inevitably brought Boulez to mind. A
sense of pinpoint precision within sonic (post-Webern?) drama offered ample
opportunity, well taken, for brilliance in performance at combining of
different instrumental registers. There was a very strong impression of musical
procedures working themselves out, perhaps especially in an almost toytown-like
section of piano writing.
Yukiko Watanabe’s Mono-Dialogue III is for ‘two flautists’
(here, Zinadra Kodrič and Ilze Ikse). As a piece of performance art, it
certainly made its point, the two flautists having split the flute between
them. I struggled to find a great deal more behind the extended techniques, but
the fault may well have been mine.
Joan Bagés i Rubi’s Sobreimpression was the final work
performed. Flute (Kodrič), bass clarinet (Castillo), cello (Marí), Moll
(piano), and electronics (Bagés) participated in a performance that certainly
had its ‘performance art’ quality but seemed to go beyond that. A multi-media
element was offered by initial numbers whirling around on screen; I do not know
whether they had importance beyond that, but assumed that they offered a digital
shuffling of the pack, the numbers finally settling upon corresponding to the
ordering of sections of the music. (I may, of course, have had that entirely
wrong!) It was, at any rate, theatrical. There was, moreover, more perhaps of
an ‘ensemble’, less of a ‘chamber’ sound, although the boundaries are anything
but absolute, and I found a real sense of sonic art-drama upon a first hearing. Highly assured writing seemed to attract equally assured
performances. For what it is worth, if anything, the number sequence was
7563142.
