Six Steinway grands, six energetic pianists and six
composers of mostly unknown recent music made for an electrifying evening.
The first half was a perfectly programmed sequence of considerable variety,
with a transcription of the Adès solo piano 'explosion of Dowland's
lute song In darknesse let mee dwell ' as a quiet centre (it
was one of those occasions in which darkness dwelt in the hall too,
making it impossible to study our programmes!).
The featured, and already lauded, Scutigeras
'with sculptural lighting', by the music-theatre composer Heiner
Goebbels, carried a lengthy and portentous commentary referring
to Robbe-Grillet & Kafka but proved a disappointment in the event.
Only two of the 6 Steinways remained on stage for Goebbels after the
interval (one pianist seemed to be repeatedly pulling out the entrails
from one of them); there was a bank of assorted electronic keyboards
back stage, fairly invisible behind music stands, with hasty comings
and goings between the multi-skilled performers who put their hands
to whatever came next. It was good to see a clavichord placed centre
stage front, prettily tinkling occasionally but, given that visual prominence,
it was under-used by the procession of pianists taking turns to open
it, play a little whilst managing on either side a sheaf of small pieces
of paper, before closing it and rushing to the next destination. Panels
of white strip lights flashed slow or fast, reminding one by contrast
of the more colourful light sculpture above, driven by the wind outside.
Not an inspiring visual picture, but the real trouble was that the music,
with its heavy programme, sounded shapeless and often too desultory
to engage the listening ear.
PianoCircus was formed in 1989 to play
Reich's Six Pianos, and three original members are still with
them. The minimalist movement is never far away in their commissions,
but there was a wonderful blurring of textures at the heart of Tuur's
Transmission and Aguila's Latin-American inspired Conga in
Hell was at one exciting and a little sinister. A rhythmically intricate
Nancarrow player-piano study went well with six players, and Adès
should be invited to apply his imagination to composing an original
piece for pianocircus.
Several of the best of this selection of pieces can
be heard in their recommendable new CD
Transmission pcd003
which, although lacking the repose offered by Adès, does have
a wonderful bell-inspired, clangorous Carillon with some of the
pianos sounding as if microtuned (though the skimpy cover notes speaks
of 'a detuned whirl of sound only possible in a digital age'). I found
Tüür's Transmission less magical than in QEH on the
CD, with close miking and greater clarity, and to my taste there are
a few too many relentless machine-like pieces, but this is a group of
expert young musicians, who share wide-ranging interests and are constantly
experimenting and reaching out in numerous collaborations; they deserve
the serious attention of major composers.
After writing this above, I received the CD of Surrogate
Cities from some of which parts of Scutigeras had been
arranged for six pianists by Richard Harris and the composer Heiner
Goebbels. A one-time member of an avant-rock group, Goebbels has worked
extensively with literary texts, here excerpts from Kafka, Heiner Mueller
and others, all given in English. The multi-media Surrogate Cities,
commissioned by the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, explores the complexities
of urban life. Heard without visual distraction and in its original
scoring, this CD has been a more positive experience for me than several
Heiner Goebbels musical-theatrical events encountered in UK and abroad
(hampered by not understanding German) and it has convinced me that
Goebbels is to be taken very seriously; a telling example of why critical
opinion must always remain provisional.
D & C (for large orchestra) and Suite
for Sampler and Orchestra address the 'cities' concept in abstract
music. The overall concept reflects city life and the sampler suite
has subtle Baroque musical allusions, evokes Berlin, New York, Tokyo,
Lyons and St. Petersburg in passing, and rescues Jewish cantors from
cleaned-up 1920s and '30s recordings (c.f. Uri
Caine in his Mahler recreations). Three dramatic Horatian Songs
(adapted from Livy) carry a terrific punch from soul-jazz diva Jocelyn
B. Smith, who asks us to consider "a Horatian who saves his city but
kills his sister, and is both a victor and a murderer". She joins David
Moss for In the Country of Last Things, about loss and uncertainty.
Anything may happen - jazz riffs and rock licks appear amongst the frequent
surprises. The Junge Deutsche Philharmonie under Peter Rundel must have
found this project inspiring, and the recording and presentation are
what we have become used to expect from ECM. Intellectually ambitious
and challenging, Surrogate Cities is often beautiful too and
not to be missed: ECM New Series 1688 465
338-2.
Peter Grahame Woolf
Track list of the new pianocircus CD
Transmission pcd003 (Observer CD of
the week):
Erkki-Sven Tüür- Transmission
Nikkii Yeoh- Six as 1
Barak Schmool- Stolen Train
Peter Bengston- Carillon
Sarunas Nakas- Merz Machine
Conlon Nancarrow- Study No.5
Huw Warren- Riot!
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