SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Xenakis: Psappha (1975)
Xenakis: Akanthos (1977)
Xenakis: Échange (1989)
Xenakis: Palimpsest (1979)
Xenakis: Thalleïn (1984)
Xenakis: O-Mega (1997)

Tony Arnold, soprano
Jennifer Curtis, violin
Erik Carlson, violin
Elissa Cassini, violin
Wendy Richman, viola
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
Randy Zigler, double bass
Eric Lamb, flutes
James Austin Smith, oboe/English horn
Joshua Rubin, clarinets
Ben Fingland, clarinet
Adrian Morejon, bassoon
Tim McCarthy, horn
Peter Evans, trumpet
David Nelson, trombone
Dan Peck, tuba
Nathan Davis, percussion
Kevin Sims, percussion
Cory Smythe, piano

A few hours before this concert, I found myself with two classical music lovers who confessed they had not a single Iannis Xenakis recording in their otherwise eclectic collection. So I was wondering what I would recommend when I arrived at Miller Theatre for this concert by the International Contemporary Ensemble, and lo and behold, Steve Schick came to the rescue immediately, opening the evening with an astonishing performance of Psappha (1975). Explosive, yet meticulously timed, the piece gives the performer freedom to choose the instruments involved according to body type, so Schick made his choices: a pounding skirmish between skin and metal, with imposing bass drum thwacks anchoring delicate filigree for wood blocks. It is irresistible.

This evening of Xenakis, part of Miller Theatre's longstanding Composer Portraits series, may have made some fans—and the place was packed—but talking with friends later, it alienated a few at the same time. It's not for no reason that Xenakis is often found in the ears of metalhead rock and roll fans; the music is sometimes acerbic, brittle, and often with a primitive streak that suggests the listener is eavesdropping on some kind of brutal ritual.

The ethereal Akanthos boasts a treacherously high soprano part, here sung with impressive ease by soprano Tony Arnold. The composer uses the singer almost as another instrument, against a polyrhythmic piano, with strings hissing quietly in the background—except when they deploy what Xenakis calls en grinçant, pressing the bow against the strings to create a grinding sound.

In Échange, a bass clarinet (Joshua Rubin) shows its entire spectrum, from luminous low tones to squeaky multiphonics and everything in between. At the same time, the soloist and ensemble deal with rapid tempo changes, sometimes navigating passages requiring 480 beats per minute. Rubin made virtuosity look easy.

As Schick writes in his notes, "Palimpsest explodes the rhythmic map altogether…single lines splinter into as many as 11 different individual polythythmic threads at a time." Cory Smythe, the pianist, opened with a solo line of fractured scales—perhaps oddly, I thought of Rachmaninov, albeit through a prism—setting the stage for a barrage of patterns building in intensity and complexity.

Thalleïn, which opens with a shriek and a gong stroke, seems to expand like a fugue, although it would be difficult for most listeners to pick out lines and follow them as they develop—everything happens much too fast. The work builds, stratum by stratum, arriving at an unexpectedly pleasurable sonic density. Schick ended the evening with O-Mega, a short fanfare with the musicians grouped around the hall: strings and percussion onstage, flanked by winds at left, and brass on the right. As with everything that came before, the ICE musicians were confident but not overly so, at their ability to grapple with what are fearsomely difficult scores.

The theatre holds almost 700 people and every seat was taken—so much for modern music having limited appeal.