Listen to this disc
and you’ll hear how beautiful new
music can be. Cerebral, yes, but moving
and spiritual, too. Emmanuel Nunes
is a highly respected cult figure
in new music circles. Based primarily
in Paris, he’s well known throughout
Europe, where his music is known through
performance. Since there are relatively
few recordings of his work, this disc
shouldn’t be missed.
Litanies du feu
et de la mer is an early work,
but a good starting point. Although
the two sections were written a few
years apart, they reflect each other,
like the parts of a diptych. More
duality lies in their imagery: fire
and water, opposites that react upon
each other. There are moments of great
stillness, where single notes hang
in the air like droplets of rain,
then shatter like a raindrop shatters
when it hits a hard surface. Then
there are moments when the music is
whipped up like a sudden conflagration.
This imagery is a perfectly valid
point of entry to this music but there’s
far more to it.
Nunes was interested
in the spatial aspects of sound. With
a large orchestra, such ideas can
be explored through variations of
texture and volume, but this is a
piece for solo piano. Yet Nunes coaxes
from the piano a dazzling variety
of sounds, which heard together really
create a sense of space and movement.
Flurries of rapid, flickering notes
scatter across the keyboard. Single,
slowly articulated chords reverberate
into silence long after the pianist’s
fingers have lifted off. It’s almost
as if Nunes wants to hear how long
a note can be sustained in space,
vibrating in the air. Then there are
passages where notes tumble over each
other piling up in dense textures
at the darkest range of the keyboard,
then suddenly break free again, flying
back towards higher registers. This
is such inventive music, constantly
moving and feeling its way. If you
like Debussy, and Takemitsu, this
is for you.
What’s also interesting
is that Nunes wants a performer to
experiment, too. He gives a performer
opportunities to be spontaneous, to
expand the notes and judge the intervals
creatively. Obviously, this work needs
a pianist who responds intuitively
to the pace and to the way repetitions
vary and develop. In the Dutch-born
pianist, See Siang Wong, he has found
just such an interpreter. Wong had
been playing the piece for a while,
and played it before the composer
himself in Zürich in 2000. Hence
this recording, by the Swiss label
Guild. Wong’s playing is lucid. He
understands the way the work evolves,
from dominant and upfront to barely
audible. The silences when notes fade
into stillness are very much part
of the composition. Wong also finds
in this work great spiritual resonance.
He notes that, in Buddhism, "man
… contemplates with a calm conscience
the time spread out before him … Nunes
seems to do this in music". Just
as meditation liberates the spirit,
Nunes allows the pianist to improve
within the basic framework, making
the work deeply personal and individual
in performance.
Rudolf Kelterborn
wrote Trifolium, the first
part of the six Piano Pieces for
Wong, later expanding it to the six
movement unit it is now. It’s the
longest segment in the series, and
the others grow from it, like the
tendrils of a plant. Trifolium
means "three-leaved".
Cascading triplets branch off and
reform in intricate patterns. Wong
calls the pieces "aphorisms".
Each section has a distinctive atmosphere,
for example, the seventh section "Blurred",
where the notes are muted and imprecise,
blending into each other. Together
they form a cycle, like a song-cycle,
but without words. The final section,
Kontrapunkte, pulls the various
threads together, while keeping their
contrasting characters. It adds a
lively tension. This is the world
première recording, and Wong
is its dedicatee.
This might not be
a recording you’d seek out without
knowing who the composers are, or
the performer, but it’s definitely
worth listening to, particularly for
the Nunes.
Anne Ozorio
See Siang Wong (piano) 
