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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
February 19, 2006
There was a point during Sunday evening's Aventa concert - the first in a three-evening series dedicated to composers who have worked at the University of Victoria - when I wondered what a visitor from another planet, one where the inhabitants do not use sound for communication, would have made of the event.
That point came during the first piece, John Celona's Possible Orchestras (at the 21st Harmonic), as I realised that I was a participant in what might seem a very strange ritual indeed: a room full (OK, not quite full) of people seated, concentrating heavily on...well, an empty stage.
To be entirely accurate, not quite an empty stage: there was a piano, a selection of percussion instruments, a very odd-looking device at stage right (I'll come back to this) - and four loudspeakers.
And as Celona's opening work was scored for electronics alone, the audience spent the first fifteen minutes of the evening staring, as I have said, at a stage devoid of all human life.
The fact, then, that the audience was indeed gripped by what emerged from those speakers, despite the lack of visual interest, speaks volumes for the quality of the music itself.
Possible Orchestras began with one of the longest crescendos I have ever heard, composed of constantly shifting sonorities and textures. In the course of its relatively brief span, the music ebbed and flowed several times, always keeping the listener's interest. There was even sufficient hint of tonality implicit that I would not have been completely surprised if the work had resolved itself onto a C major chord (it did not).
I also immensely enjoyed the following piece, Celona's Instrument Flying, for marimba and electronics, performed by David Humphrey.
If I say that the piece mines the same vein as Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air, that is meant as a considerable compliment. But whereas Riley had the advantage of ten fingers, a keyboard and a bank of electronics, Instrument Flying does the job with two sticks, a marimba - and a bank of electronics.
Which places considerable technical demands on the percussionist - fitness, I suspect, not being the least of them - which Humphrey overcame with aplomb and panâche.
Gordon Mumma laughingly describes his Sixpac Sonatas as "backward-looking", which in a sense they are. Yet, when you have pushed music to the very bounds of complete dis-organisation, as the 1960s and 70s avant-garde (of which Mumma was a significant part) did, then perhaps there is only one direction to follow.
The pieces are short, quasi-epigrammatic, even terse at times; their harmonies are at times craggy, at others delicate.
Miranda Wong, giving the world premiere of the set complete, was the perfect foil for the music, her unobtrusive virtuosity conveying the its wide range of emotions, from playful to aggressive to contemplative.
Dániel Péter Bíro's BeMitzraim (In Egypt) found "speaking percussionist" Humphrey wearing a headset and standing behind a table covered in what at first glance were "found" objects, apparently including at least one plastic kitchen bowl. He looked like nothing so much as the attendant at a drive-through (sorry, "thru") Tupperware party.
The music itself, which required Humphrey to speak in four different languages (I caught the odd word of English and German, my Hungarian and Hebrew are simply not up to the task) while striking his strange collection of drums, both real and found.
Given such minimal resources, it is a measure of Bíro's achievement - and Humphrey's playing - that the work both conveys a range of emotions and maintains a real hold on the listener's attention.
The final work on the programme involved the "very odd-looking device" I referred to earlier, which was in fact the "radiodrum". It looks like (actually is) a pad of foam rubber on a small table, with two sticks attached to wires and a pedal board underneath.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive and the radiodrum - by sensing the position and motion of the sticks - enables its player to control a piano remotely. In this case, as there was no Yamaha Disklavier available, it was a digitally-sampled piano.
Andrew Schloss played the Suite from the Seven Wonders, derived by himself and fellow-composer David Jaffe from the cadenzas to Jaffe's similarly-titled piano concerto.
As a substitute for the mesmerising sight of the Disklavier apparently playing itself, Schloss offered us a computer-visualisation of the music generated in real-time.
The result is difficult to convey adequately in words, as anyone in the audience will confirm. The nature of the instrument makes it possible for the two hands of the radiodrummer to produce music of such complexity and density that no human pianist could ever hope to perform - I was at times put in mind of those player piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow in which he counterposes totally incompatible rhythms, such as 37 against 41.
The computer visualisation was also exceptional, it almost enabled one to "see" each note, and provided a truly "multimedia" experience, which formed a marvellous conclusion to the evening.
There is no doubt that Aventa have raised both the profile and the standard of contemporary music performing in this city.
And the series still has two concerts to go!
Monday evening's programme will feature chamber works - including another piece by Celona of such ferocious difficulty that he told me he had never expected any North American group to tackle it - and Tuesday's concert music for large ensemble.
Nobody interested in the recent past and future possibilities of music should miss them.
MiV HomeLast modified: Mon Feb 20 12:35:27 PST 2006