strange imaginary animals: eighth blackbird, The Kitchen, New York City, 11 and 12.01.2007 (BH)

 

 

Jennifer Higdon: Zaka (2003)

Gordon Fitzell: evanescence (2001/2007)

Steven Mackey: Indigenous Instruments (1989)

Dennis DeSantis: strange imaginary remix (2006)

David M. Gordon: Friction Systems (2002, rev. 2005)

 

 

Tim Munro, Flutes

Michael J. Maccaferri, Clarinets

Matt Albert, Violin

Nicholas Photinos, Cello

Matthew Duvall, Percussion

Lisa Kaplan, Piano

 

 

It is perhaps a bit startling for some listeners to imagine that a sextet can have a professional career – touring and recording – playing nothing but contemporary music, but that is what the virtuosos of eighth blackbird have achieved, and they’ve only been around since 1996.  They are also getting savvy advice on new ways of presenting their material.  This show was shrewdly assembled into roughly 75 minutes with no intermission, moving seamlessly from one work to the next, and it was so pleasurable I went both nights.

Last spring I heard the group in Jennifer Higdon’s Zaka, and it is astounding to think they have assimilated this fast-moving bolt of lightning so completely that they are able to perform it from memory – a feat they have also done with more complicated works, such as George Perle’s witty Critical Moments II.  From the beginning, Higdon races off with throbbing accents and nervous metallic sounds, the group emulating some chugging, puffing machine.  Michael J. Maccaferri, the group’s clarinetist, taps the open spout of his instrument; Matt Albert attacks his violin strings with a small metal bar in a tangy, skittering motif.  I can’t imagine Higdon wanting anything more than these musicians’ energy and precision.

Gordon Fitzell, based in Winnipeg, revised a previous work called violence to create evanescence, an electro-acoustic work for amplified ensemble and electronic sounds.  In contrast to Higdon’s relentless stomp, Fitzell holds the ensemble in a tightly contained mix of tiny, sputtering sounds, softly creaking and moaning.  His sensuous timbres turn, orbit and display themselves in introspective splendor – all precisely notated, and again the ensemble performed the entire score without music. 

The program’s title (and that of their new recording) comes from Steve Mackey’s Indigenous Instruments, which pits standard tuning against quarter-tones, and asks the violinist to tune the G string down an octave lower, so that in the last movement, “…the result should be like the moaning of some strange imaginary animal.”  One moment is intended to evoke the rumble of a parcel delivery truck, which happened to arrive at the composer’s door one day.  The eclectic result juxtaposes gently floating sections with those that sound like attempts to play some kind of bizarre national anthem.  The ensemble’s furious discipline served a slightly wacky score beautifully.

Just before the final work, Dennis DeSantis’ strange imaginary remix emerged over loudspeakers, and is a limber and engaging riff, combining – get this – all of the pieces on the group’s new recording.  DeSantis’ fantasia also served another purpose: it kept the audience engaged while the stage was being reset, and pianist Lisa Kaplan even suggested that audience members get up and dance.  (It was tempting.)  David M. Gordon’s Friction Systems, among other things, requires the Ms. Kaplan to insert machine screws between 26 of the piano strings, creating a jangly, metallic texture.  The percussionist – here the peerless Matthew Duvall – uses a host of nontraditional instruments such as tuned bowls, acknowledging the composer’s interest in Javanese gamelan, and the eerie resonances of percussion instruments played with bows.  The result was a barrage of spiked sounds that appeared to emanate from all corners of the room.  This ferocious performance would surely be considered definitive, noting flutist Tim Munro joining Ms. Kaplan on the piano, and cellist Nicholas Photinos in glorious tandem with Mr. Maccaferri.  The composer writes in his program notes that Friction Systems is “conceived, abstractly, as a psalm of praise to God.”  If so, said deity must be delighted to be acknowledged with this kind of eccentric, explosive imagination.

 

 

Bruce Hodges

 

The eighth blackbird web site is Here 

 

MusicWeb reviews of this concert on CD are Here