Duo
Morgan and Dullea chose the title ‘OPERA’ for this CD ‘partly
for its humorous potential - we thought it would perhaps
inadvertently increase sales’ but also with the original
meaning of the word in mind – this being, ‘after all, a
collection of ‘works’.’ I have my doubts as to whether
confusing your public as to the content of a recording
will increase sales – it might sooner increase ire. Fortunately
however, the subtitle ‘new works for violin and piano’ is
clearly enough printed even for the darkest of basement
classical CD departments.
It
is interesting to compare the differing tastes of duos,
and going head to head with Alexandra Wood and Huw Watkins’ ‘Chimera’ CD
- another contemporary violin and piano recital I have
reviewed this month - the recording acoustic is drier and
less immediately appealing. The violin is also a little
more forward, with the piano slightly indistinct at times,
as if we are in a concert situation where the raised podium
gives us an indirect – more of a reflected - sound. These
are mild comments, and I don’t want to be negative about
what are after all a series of performances which have
been made in the presence of each of the composers. For
the more hard-hitting, cutting-edge nature of the works
here the sound is entirely appropriate, and as with all
such things the ear adjusts – I just found myself wanting
to be a bit closer to the piano, just a smidge.
The
programme book can’t make up its mind if Joe Cutler’s solo
violin piece is called re(GAIA) or (re)GAIA.
Either way, it is an energetic exploration of double-stopping
around open strings. The title and material spring from
an earlier work, GAIA for solo viola, and Cutler
describes it as depicting ‘a type of “earth-music” – an
imaginary ancient folk music.’ This is an apt commentary,
but the piece goes a great deal further than folksy roaming
around in first position, being a virtuosic showpiece with
which to open the programme.
Seven
States of Rain by Richard
Causton ‘invokes the poetry of rain in its various moods
and forms.’ Pizzicato notes from the violin are echoed
in the piano by prepared, dampened strings, invoking
immediate memories of John Cage, but effectively uniting
the violin and piano in a refreshing way. The piece’s
seven sections progress through more conventional bowed
violin and untreated piano strings, contrasting in nature
from violence through gentler reflection in an expressive,
if somewhat angular chorale. The elements are combined
and layered, and finally arch through a weighty climax
toward a solo piano chorale: ‘the endless, grey rain
of an afternoon.’
Joseph
Phipps’ Fantasia is another work of contrasts, ‘sudden
and dramatic changes of mood ... and alternation of mechanical,
repeated patterns ... with freer, quasi-rubato expressive
material.’ Indeed, but the result is fairly static, a result
of the brevity and relative discontinuity of these contrasts,
and extended passages of ‘cadenza’ like violin writing
over sustained chords in the piano. I like the sonorities
and expressive variety in this work, but if it was me I
would cut the whole thing by about three minutes.
Bryn
Harrison’s Listenings I has an immediate ‘Morton
Feldman’ feel to it. He describes the piece as a ‘kind
of meditation on a single musical gesture which is repeated,
mantra-like ... but each time subjected to a musical process
which allows the material to be subtly expanded, contracted
or displaced through octave transposition.’ The piano creates
sculptural shapes in its own, over-pedalled soundscape,
while the violins notes, sparing and limited in the extreme,
fly, swoop and hover overhead like some kind of irritable
bird of prey. Again, I love it, but as process music goes
it didn’t grab me by the balls and make me listen in quite
the same way as Feldman or Goeyvaerts. At over 17 minutes
I was ready to leave the room about half-way.
‘Intrecciata means ‘plait’ or
something woven together’, says Jonathan Powell about his
piece. Powell is an incredible pianist with recordings
of Sorabji under his belt, so the virtuoso piano writing
isn’t entirely unexpected. With no further commentary on
the work we are left with just the music, which may or
may not be a stampede of brilliance. It is intense and
convoluted, with a turbulent opening, quieter (but brief)
middle, rhythmic development and conclusion with breaks
and gaps, and a spare fading to almost nothing, capped
with a musical full stop. Like a certain newspaper, it
says what it wants to say and lets you get on with your
life, probably deeply unaffected by what you’ve heard.
So
to the title track. ‘Opera takes its title from
the 1987 film by the Italian director Dario Argento ...
(whose story) concerns a jinxed production of Verdi’s Macbeth.’ The
piece is inspired by the technical and atmospheric nature
of the film rather than commenting on it in a programmatic
way, ‘hopefully to capture some of that particular sense
of heightened awareness characteristic of Argento’s film-making.’ There
is a great deal to get your teeth into here, from the loneliness
of the opening lines, right though to the hobbling, uneven
rhythms of the ending. I’ve made the comparison before,
but this is one of those pieces which unfold like a short
story, except in this case you are never quite sure what
is around the next corner. The subjects and musical pictures
resonate on in the mind even after the final sentence or,
as the late Derek and Clive might put it, in pictorial
terms; ‘the eyes follow you around the room.’
Congratulations
to performers, composers and the NMC for giving us another
stimulating and variety-packed helping of brand new music.
You can play and listen to Brahms for the rest of your
life, but you can’t ask him to write you a new sonata!
Dominy Clements
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Darragh
Morgan (violin) 
