A most interesting
disc. It is good to see the names of
Xenakis and Scelsi on newly-issued discs.
Their musics stand for challenge and
involvement on the listeners’ part in
a way that the more smoothly-edged music
of our time so often does not. The harnessing
of these two major names with talent
from the younger generation is to be
applauded. This record company (Migros
for short, I’ve decided) is clearly
brave; the audience for this programme
is surely not over-large. I would hope
that one of the services positive criticism
can provide is to point readers in the
direction of new and stimulating pastures.
Look no further.
Iannis Xenakis was
in many ways a unique figure of the
twentieth-century. His compositional
practices were sozzled in advanced mathematics,
stochastic practices whose explication
was certainly not for the feeble-hearted;
or the non-mathematical for that matter.
But what is really surprising is the
primal force of the resulting scores.
Shorn of obvious melody and containing
rhythms that can one moment appear simple,
the next moment dauntingly complex -
pity the poor executants! - Xenakis’s
music often speaks to us deep within
our psyche.
The Mondrian Ensemble
is fearless in the face of such a score
as Ikhoor from 1978. The title
refers to the fluid that flowed in the
veins of the Gods. The characteristically
raw energy of the opening sets the tone
for the piece as a whole, although some
surprisingly ‘warm’ sounding chords
raise an eyebrow. Xenakis’s ear was
acute and his effects could certainly
make one listen anew. Try the violin
slides around 5’10, so reminiscent of
the ‘Clangers’ (as the other instruments
join in, we get a conference of Clangers).
For those readers either not old enough
to remember the Clangers or from other
territories, my apologies. They made
scooping noises like other-worldly penny-whistles.
The Mondrian Ensemble
delivers the score with huge confidence;
from the accompanying pictures, it is
that confidence born of youth. This
is one of three trios by Xenakis (Linaia-Agon,
of 1971 and Okho of 1989 are
also in his catalogue – for further
investigation, go to the Arditti’s excellent
two-disc set issued in 2000 on Disques
Montaigne MO782137).
To take the works in
order of playing, Michel Roth’s verinnerung
for piano trio takes its inspiration
from a painting by Mondrian (‘Composition
with Red, Yellow and Blue’ of 1928:
http://www.inter-art.com/en/1881.htm).
The work was commissioned by the present
ensemble.
Michael Kinkel’s booklet
note states that: ‘The consistent elimination
of direct musical gestures in favour
of nuanced sound could be interpreted
as a parallel to an external stylistic
trait of Mondrian’s painting’ before
suggesting that, ‘such comparisons do
not take us very far’. No, quite. But
that is not to knock the piece itself.
Roth used microtonal techniques as part
of his armoury. There is something of
Feldman about this work in that one
is kept hanging on for the next sound
one hears. Certainly there is a fragile
beauty about much of this work; although
there are also elements of the violent
– the blindly obsessional note repetitions
around 12’10 almost exude panic and
are definitely discomforting to listen
to!
Martin Jaggi takes
natural phenomena as starting points
for his music; in the present instance
Saharan plateaux that have networks
of dry furrows. Apparently this is part
of a Sahara trilogy. There is a sense
of peace to contrast with the piling-up
of aggregates; an agile piano part,
well delivered here. Again, as in the
Roth, there are obsessive repetitions,
but here they are more rhythmically
primal.
It is always exciting
to see the music of Scelsi being made
freely available. His simply titled
‘Trio à cordes’ was written in
1958 and typically for a product of
this fertile mind, Scelsi goes about
reinventing the string trio into a hitherto
‘unknown’ instrument. Each of the four
movements unfolds (or evolves) from
a single note (B flat – F sharp – B
natural – C natural). The booklet notes
tell of Scelsi’s overcoming of a creative
crisis by repeating a single note over
and over until he could hear it ‘from
the inside out’. There is the hand of
a Master in the way the second movement
dissolves into nothing, balancing perhaps
the progressive intensification of the
first movement. The finale is the most
overtly nocturnal movement.
Finally Dieter Ammann’s
Gehörte Form – Hommages.
The booklet notes link the opening to
the beginning of Ligeti’s Second String
Quartet (1968). Although Ammann obviously
has a keen ear for sonority, the work
seems over-long at 18’46. He delights
in juxtapositions. The ‘arrival’ at
around four minutes is noteworthy; as
if in recognition of this arrival, the
instruments slither away, almost guiltily!
Unpredictable terrain, certainly, although
it strikes the present writer as rather
weak. A shame, as the rest of the disc
has so much to offer.
Colin Clarke
cMondrian Ensemble (abdeDaniela
Müller, violin; adeChristian
Zgraggen, viola; abdeMartin Jaggi,
cello; bWalter Zoller, piano) with
cDaniel Sailer (double-bass). 
