Contrary to popular myth,
most composers aren’t egomaniacs in hermetically sealed garrets,
writing music too pure to be adulterated by the world. Some
of them are real, live human beings. What is wonderful about
this Ideale Audience Juxtapositions series
is that it features the whole spectrum of creativity that
goes into music, from composition to reception. Art doesn’t
happen in isolation. Understanding the process by which music
happens can enhance the way we learn to appreciate it more
fully.
The
first of these two films is a documentary in which the composer,
Georges Aperghis talks about the ideas which inspired him,
and then how those who perform his work feel about it. It
revolves around the music, so you can hear the interaction
unfold. Aperghis is a “polyphonist”, says a musician, who
writes “a bouquet of voices converging or not, which overlay
or connect … each voice adds a little thread which requires
great rhythmic precision, because if one is not totally tuned
in, it unravels”. This is music that happens in “realtime” as
they say, because its sheer simplicity calls for exquisitely
sensitive playing. A cellist and a zarb player - it’s an
African drum, beaten by hand - demonstrate. The cello has
a wider grammar than the drum, yet the two are so well integrated
that it’s hard, on first hearing, to remember how basic the
zarb is technically. The dialogue between the two musicians
is so intimate that one instrument complements and challenges
the other.
Then
there’s a vocal ensemble where the three voices weave in
and out and around each other at a furious pace which leaves
no room for sloppiness. Amazingly,
the distorted call and wails still found, recognisably like
speech, since the connection with expression isn’t lost. Lionel
Peintre, the tenor for whom Aperghis has written so much
says that the piece wasn’t a composition “but a kind of living
being that lashed out at me, the wildest animal I ‘d ever
had to face, and quite a nasty one, too.” Living and powerful,
like a wild beast? An accurate description indeed, of a piece
so visceral and instinctive. Aperghis explains that he wanted
to create a piece with the spirit of the cave paintings at
Lascaux, the most ancient human art of all, because they
expressed a sensitivity and sophisticated understanding of
the animals they portrayed, showing their powerful energy.
With a few simple tools, the cave painters took advantage
of the unevenness of the rocks on which they painted, using
the space available to them to help shape what they created.
In the darkness, a bison’s solid body, emerging from a protuberance
in the rock, must have seemed magically alive. Aperghis writes
music theatre and opera, so he knows what it means to integrate
performance with physical surroundings.
Peintre
says that a “phoniatric specialist” once came up to him after
a performance and said that everything he was doing was “dangerous” from
a phonetic point of view and that it defied all that was
taught about vocal chords. Yet it was that very “danger” he
found so exciting.
Another
singer says that she’s always shocked by a new score, wondering
how on earth she’ll manage it. Yet, she says, she lets it
inhabit her, and couldn’t live fully without the emotional
effect it has on her life. As Aperghis says, meaning may
be too deep to grasp, but it’s there, somewhere. “The mind,” he
says “must constantly be asking: what’s going on? and listening”.
To
illustrate this approach, we’re treated to excerpts from
the opera Avis de Tempête (2004). A storm unleashes
the wildest forces of nature. It’s dangerous and unpredictable,
torrents of rain, followed by thunder, wind and crashes of
lightning. A storm, says Aperghis, symbolises “the loss of
logic or construction as decided by human forces”. That’s
what gives his music such powerful energy, and what inspires,
almost literally, electric performances from his musicians.
This is shatteringly intense music, performed with extreme
commitment.
The
second film recreates the fairy tale Little Red Riding
Hood as if it were a story within a story. ”A group of musicians
climbed into a box” goes the voice-over, in order to create
the story. “For all we know, they are in that box still” it
adds. “If they are alive at all!” This sums up a lot of the
ethos of Aperghis’s work. The composer isn’t the only auteur.
It’s almost a joint effort, reborn with each performance.
Thus the lines blur between those wearing red hoods and those
wearing wolf masks. Sometimes the little red hat “dances” by
itself. Of course it’s invisibly manipulated by someone holding
a stick while hidden behind the piano, but while we watch,
spellbound by the mysteries of this ancient tale, we no longer
need logic or causation. As the moral of the story makes
clear, how stupid can a girl be, to get into bed with a wolf
and not expect to get eaten? In this pared down yet extremely
vivid form, the fairy tale becomes Greek drama, or a kind
of medieval mystery play. Or not. Because with Aperghis and
his musicians, there’s too much inherent subversion and inventiveness
to fit any formula.
Anne Ozorio
A film by
Catherine Maximoff [59:16] 
[102:00] 
