Musikfest Berlin (4) – Ensemble Musikfabrik, Aperghis, Lim, Schöllhorn, Baltakas, Zorn, Saunders, and Poppe, 10 September 2017

Kammermusiksaal, Philharmonie

Georges Aperghis: Damespiel, for bass clarinet (2011)

Liza Lim: The Green Lion Eats the Sun, for double bell euphonium (2014)

Johannes Schöllhorn: grisaille, for cello (2013)

Vykintas Baltakas: Pasaka – Ein Märchen, for piano (1995-97)

Liza Lim: Axis Mundi, for bassoon (2012-13)

John Zorn: Merlin, for trumpet (2016)

Rebecca Saunders: fury, for double bass (2005)

Enno Poppe: Haare, for violin (2013-14)

Saunders: shadow, for piano (2013)

Poppe: Fell, for percussion (2016)

Saunders: Bite, for flute (2016)

Carl Rosman (clarinet)

Melvyn Poore (euphonium)

Dirk Wietheger (cello)

Alban Wesly (bassoon)

Marco Blaauw (trumpet)

Florentin Ginot (double bass)

Hannah Weirich (violin)

Ulrich Löffler and Benjamin Kobler (piano)

Dirk Rothbrust (percussion)

Helen Bledsoe (flute)

Alas, I was only able to stay for two out of the three sections of this lengthy Matinée concert from soloists of Ensemble Musikfabrik. That meant that I missed out on George Lewis’s Oraculum, Toshio Hosakawa, Three Essays, and two world premieres: Tansy Davies’s Song Horn and Enno Poppe’s Filz. Eleven out of the fifteen solo works still gave me much to experience, enjoy, and reflect upon. And if, unsurprisingly, some spoke to me more from a single hearing – each one was new to me – that does not necessarily reflect upon their ‘worth’. Indeed, it is quite likely to say more about me and my state of alertness than anything else. What probably goes without saying, yet should not, are the extraordinary virtuosity, musicality, and commitment shown by all of these soloists – not least coming on the morning immediately following a not inconsiderable concert of music by Rebecca Saunders and Harrison Birtwistle.

In the first two pieces, Georges Aperghsis’s Damespiel and Liza Lim’s The Green Lion Eats the Sun, I was struck by something at least akin to a ‘traditional’ conception of unbroken line, not least in performance, even when silence formed part of that line. The former, toccata-like, often high in pitch, with considerable, often thrilling, variation in dynamic range too, nevertheless contrasted strongly, interestingly with what seemed to me two contrasted voices, in near-consequential dialogue, in the latter, that impression not least owed to the two bells of the euphonium (one muted). Johannes Schöllhorn’s grisaille was slower, stiller, its navigation through the not quite frozen waters of cello harmonics again offering contrast with the ensuing Pasaka – Ein Märchen for piano, in which Benjamin Kobler had, in addition to an unquestionably demanding piano part, also to tell the story in words (irrespective of comprehension!) It had a beguiling innocence to it, the single(ish) piano line, shared between the hands, blossoming into something more complex, again toccata-like. (That perhaps often will go with the territory of works for instrumental solo.) Another work by Lim, Axis Mundi, again showed a keen sense (to me, at least) of dialogue, in this case between the lower range of the bassoon and something else, not quite to be straightforwardly assimilated to higher pitch. If I could not quite escape the sense of notespinning in John Zorn’s Merlin, for trumpet solo, Marco Blauuw’s performance proved quite mesmerising.

The second – and, for me, final – of the concert’s three parts alternated between Saunders and Poppe. Florentin Ginot’s double bass playing had impressed me enormously the night before, even amongst such a galaxy of instrumental talent; here it did so again in fury. Almost the entire range of the instrument seemed traversed within a few seconds, and that despite the relative leisure of the pace. That done, a dark heir to the Expressionist past revealed itself, without overt, or perhaps even covert, ‘influence’, but at the level of something deeper. I thought of Anselm Kiefer, but again that may just have been me. Poppe’s Haare for solo violin opened almost as if playing with a Bachian wedge opening, although it never quite was. One was made to listen, perhaps almost so as to ascertain what was not repetition. If that sounds quasi-minimalist, I am not sure that it was, but perhaps there was some sort of relationship there. I loved the wild excess of Hannah Weirich’s vibrato (which I presume to have been written in), suggestive almost of a theremin, not least in glissando passages. I was a little more at a loss with Poppe’s Fell for percussion, although again there was no gainsaying the quality of the performance. Either side of it fell another solo piano piece, Saunders’s shadow, and her Bite for solo bass flute. The piano piece, played by Ulrich Löffler, again had something of an intangible sense of association to ‘tradition’ – Stockhausen, perhaps? – without being determined by it. There was certainly no doubting its bold, substantial quality of utterance. The shadows of the bass flute were readily apparent, yet for shadows to have meaning, there must be light, and so there was, in a vivid creation, both compositional and performative (Helen Bledsoe) of chiaroscuro.

I think that, in the case of pretty much all of these pieces, we have probably now reached a stage at which the phrase ‘extended techniques’ has become superfluous. Composers and performers alike, perhaps audiences too, have ensured that, not least through occasions such as this.

Wien Modern (3) - Arditti Quartet: Zorn, Lim, Tonia, Parades, and Kessler

Mozart-Saal, Konzerthaus

John Zorn – The Remedy of Fortune (2014, Austrian premiere)

Liza Lim – The Weaver’s Knot (2013, Austrian premiere)
Lina Tonia – Ennea (2015, world premiere)
Hilda Paredes – Hacia una bitácora capilar (2014, Austrian premiere)
Thomas Kessler – String Quartet, for string quartet with live electronics (2012, Austrian premiere)

Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan (violins)

Ralf Ehlers (viola)

Lucas Fels (cello)

 

By default rather than design – although I think it is worth doing more often – I heard all five of these pieces without programme notes, since I had left the Wien Modern programme at my apartment. My experience was often unmediated by anything whatsoever, since I had only heard music by one of the composers, Hilda Paredes, previously, and even then, not this particular piece. Too much can sometimes be made of the virtues of listening with an ‘innocent ear’. An important part of artistic creation and reception is what we bring culturally to the table; we do not need always to reinvent the wheel, or sonata form, or whatever it might be. However, there are real virtues too; I hope that my reactions would not have been different, had I known more about the works and the composers – the performances, needless to say, all seemed excellent – but how can I know?

 

First up was John Zorn’s The Remedy of Fortune. I learned afterwards that it was ‘inspired by Guillaume de Machaut and Béla Bartók’s work’. The title, it seems, is after a poem by Machaut; the work, Zorn’s sixth quartet, unfolds in six tableaux, each of them beginning, in a tribute to Bartók’s Sixth Quartet, mesto. That must, the first time around, have been what I heard as an introduction of sorts: so far, so good. Moreover, the work seemed to unfold in sections as outlined, although I naturally had no idea of the reasoning, nor of the emphasis upon different aspects of ‘romantic love’: hope, pain, ecstasy, and so on. A tonal violin fragment was repeated several times, prior to some quite different material, setting up what seemed like an unpredictable pattern for the rest of the work. Sounds from the past came and went. One pizzicato passage sounded almost balletic, a first violin passage following with shades of Prokofiev, although the music against which it was set certainly had no such shades! At what seemed like the heart was another pizzicato section, certainly seeming to evoke, to imitate, perhaps even to incorporate early music. Involved counterpoint would be followed by simple, diatonic harmony, with much in between too. I am not sure what it all added up to, but, by the same token, could certainly not, on the basis of a single hearing, say that it did not add up.

 

Liza Lim followed, with The Weaver’s Knot, written for the fortieth anniversary of the Arditti Quartet. Her piece was – a welcome thing, this! – shorter than its predecessor. ‘Traditional’ extended techniques, harmonics included (if one can call them extended techniques!), sounded, especially at its opening, surprisingly fresh, even new. There seemed to me far more of a continuous line than in the Zorn piece, however quickly that line might change its quality. Pitches emerged as centres, if only then to be replaced by others. A process of unfolding, not necessarily as one might expect it, seemed to be at the heart; perhaps that was the concept of the ‘knot’ and its untying?

 

Lina Tonia’s Ennea, still shorter, or so it seemed (I am never any good at knowing how long music lasts in seconds, minutes, hours…), emerged as an accomplished work indeed, again from someone with whose music I was entirely unfamiliar. The ‘spiral form’ – as I learned later – had in common with Lim’s work a strong sense of what one might reasonably think of as development and of unexpected, yet far from arbitrary, twists to that development. An arresting opening with high (post-Ligeti?) scurrying immediately instilled the sense of not knowing where the music might lead. Lucas Fels’s cello continued to offer something different: both from the violins and viola, and from its earlier, reinventing self. A long, quite viola note (Ralf Ehlers), perhaps with a reminiscence, at least for me, of Nono, led to reinvigorated, even violent scurrying. I should certainly like to hear more from Tonia.

 

Finally, in the first half: Paredes’s Hacia una bitácora capilar, a shorter version, as again I would learn afterwards, of another 40^th anniversary Arditti work, Bitácora capilar. The players’ performance certainly seemed to speak of knowing the material inside out: performed as a ‘classic’, as other quartets might perform Brahms. There seemed, to my ears, to be a strong sense of harmony and harmonic progression, although the harmonies themselves were rarely over-familiar, or expected. Likewise, the sense of musical narrative, not necessarily to be translated into words or images, though not necessarily not so to be translated, sounded strongly throughout, both in work and performance. Textures were varied, yet always sounded as if they took their leave from a greater whole.

After the interval, came the one work with electronics: Thomas Kessler’s 2013 String Quartet. I have still not consulted the programme note, but shall do so after writing. Ghostly – in the sense of the past and of something akin to the spirit world – opening electronics sounded initially an intriguing idea that a more tonal realm might be that of modern Klangregie, whilst the venerable string quartet sounded more of the present. And yet, that relationship did not remain constant, apparently subjected to all manner of twists and turns: the well-worn metaphor of a journey sprang again to mind. Intervals sounded with stronger tonal implications than I might have suspected they intrinsically had; I was not sure how or why that was accomplished, yet again, it intrigued. Electronic manipulation of ‘old’ harmonies and incessant instrumental ‘interference’ put me in mind of an old radio broadcast. And then, quickly, there was something else entirely; or was it? At any rate, there seemed to be no resting upon laurels, upon easy assumptions. Materials seemed re-examined, re-imagined, almost like Lachenmann, but in a less overtly didactic fashion; indeed, I sensed no didacticism at all. Perhaps there was an irony in that the traditional pattern of what sounded as the ‘weightiest’ – that is not necessarily to say the ‘best’, though equally, it is not to say that it was not, either – work was placed as the culmination of the concert. Much, then, to think about, in another splendidly impressive Arditti Quartet performance. And yes, I should be eager to hear more of Kessler’s music.