Robin de RAAFF (b. 1968)
Atlantis (2016)
Marisol Montalvano (soprano), Mark Stone (baritone)
Saskia Rekké, Véronique Serpenti (harps)
Netherlands Radio Choir and Philharmonic Orchestra/Markus Stenz
rec. Tivoli Vredenburg, Netherlands, 23 September 2016
CHALLENGE CLASSIC S CC72808 [47.55]
The legend of Atlantis as recorded by Plato has held a fascination for artists over many long centuries: the moral tale of a civilisation overwhelmed by the wrath of the Gods and sunk beneath the waves. And this legend has gained new traction in the last century, with ongoing fascinating archaeological discoveries in the Aegean which demonstrate that the myths – like the fall of Troy and the deeds of King Arthur – have an origin in historical events. The volcanic eruption on the island of Thera in ca 1600 BC not only destroyed the civilisation on the island itself and its neighbouring empire of Crete, but also had widespread ramifications throughout Europe; mines as far away as Cornwall and Wales were abandoned when the market for their metals suddenly collapsed, and the development of western Europe was effectively aborted for over a millennium until the arrival of the burgeoning Roman Empire. Quite apart from these historical considerations, however, Plato’s lengthy and circumstantial account of Atlantis had already established itself in the bedrock of European consciousness as an allegorical fable; and it is in this latter sense that Robin de Raaff has constructed his large-scale choral work, viewing the myth as an analogy to the demise of modernism in music and as a ‘homage’ to the late Pierre Boulez, to whose memory the score is dedicated.
At least, that is the basic idea as set out in the booklet notes that come with this release of the first performance of the work as given four years ago in Utrecht. A video of this same performance has been available since 2016 on YouTube, but the appearance of the recording on CD gives both the chance to listen to the work together with the provided text and the prospect of a generally improved sound. It might perhaps have enhanced sales of this new release if it had been made available at the time of the première or shortly thereafter, but ours is not to reason why. Since the work, which sounds prodigiously difficult to perform, does not seem to have garnered any later outings and I have not been able to locate during the course of an internet search any reviews of the original broadcast, it may be that the intention of this somewhat belated release is simply to draw the attention of potential artists to the existence of the score – for which we should always be grateful.
But the selection of the text for this oratorio – for that is what it is – is nevertheless peculiar. The links to Atlantis – brief citations from Plato (in English translation) and comments from various modern individuals caught up in tsunamis and other floods – are peripheral at best, and the majority of the vocal setting consists of an extensive poem by Hart Crane on the initially somewhat unpromising subject of the Brooklyn Bridge. The poet takes the mechanical structure as a starting point on which he erects a long rhapsody in highly Whitmanesque terms – and indeed high-flown phrases such as “O thou steeled Cognizance“ lead the listener to expect perhaps a philosophical discourse on the lines of the final movement of the Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony, especially when the singing soloists are a soprano and a baritone. Such expectations would be totally confounded. The composer’s setting of the words is frequently completely incomprehensible, and without the text provided in the booklet the only audible phrases would be some of those supplied by Mark Stone. Some of the lines – such as “Sidereal phalanxes, leap and converge“ (at the end of track 12) are set in such a manner as to totally confound any possibility of hearing what is being sung. Other passages, especially those for the backwardly balanced choir, are overwhelmed by the barrage of sound emanating from the orchestra. The composer compounds the difficulties by occasionally repeating words and phrases without any very obvious purpose. At the end of track 6 I must admit that even with the booklet in front of me I found myself totally lost.
As I have indicated, part of the difficulty in hearing exactly what is happening is occasioned by the recorded balance. The composer indicates (wisely) that the two solo harps placed at the front of the orchestra should be amplified to ensure that their contributions are audible. However the recording engineers seem to have taken their cue from this to place their microphones immediately under the noses particularly of the wind instruments, with results that not only sound highly artificial but also defy credibility – as when the low clarinet sounds at the start of track 11 threaten to overwhelm the heftily projected voice of Mark Stone. We are told that the performers number a total of 150 but there is never any sense of a large body of players, or the acoustic space in which they are playing. The box is provided with an imitation sticker boldly stating “live performance” but it would be difficult to conceive of a studio recording which could not have sounded more realistic.
There are places in the score where the composer does manage to achieve a really effective and gripping texture – for example the subterranean heavings at “Obliquely up bright carrier bars“ (track 5) – but these are really isolated orchestral passages rather than part of a whole texture subsuming both singers and instruments. There is also an agreeable willingness to recognise tonal patterns, as the music progresses throughout three quarters of an hour from a sort of A major to a sort of A minor, declining steadily though imperceptibly through chromatic steps. I am not altogether sure that the dedicatee Pierre Boulez would have approved of quite so obviously tonal a structure, but the ending does achieve a sort of dramatic and musical synthesis. But even the often-exciting orchestration can turn unexpectedly trite: an idea which does have some sense of poetic imagery, such as the passage near the end which combines the extremes of pitch at either end of the orchestral spectrum, is bridged by a slow rising glissando on the strings which sounds ostentatiously and somewhat risibly mechanical, like a slowly receding tube train.
As may be gathered from my foregoing remarks, I found this choral work a disappointing response to a potentially very interesting subject; but at the same time the sheer effort that has gone into the performance must surely be recognised and saluted. Markus Stenz keeps the score on the move and certainly does not stint on dramatic contrast; Mark Stone manages to make even some of his less grateful vocal lines sound comprehensible; and Marisol Montalvano floats some superlatively delicate high notes even when comprehensibility flies out of the window. The orchestral playing is certainly brilliant and precise – the recorded sound makes sure that we are aware of that – and although the professional choir of some sixty singers could probably have done with double that number to achieve audibility, they seem to be well inside the idiom of some stupendously difficult music.
The presentation, entirely in English, gives us not only full texts and notes on the music, but biographies which for some reason appear not to mention the solo singers. On the other hand, the whole package comes in a totally unnecessary slipcase which simply repeats the information of the CD front and back covers; and the work is rather short measure for a complete CD, especially at full price.
Paul Corfield Godfrey