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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW Monumental Statement October 28, 2002
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By Jules Langert
Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time remains a remarkable testament to the composer's individuality, courage, and conviction and it was the main work on the Empyrean Ensemble's first concert of the season last Monday at Berkeley's Julia Morgan Center. Probably his best known piece, and famous for the fact that Messiaen composed it in 1940-41 to be performed by himself and three fellow inmates of a German POW camp, it remains a remarkable testament to the composer's individuality, courage, and conviction. In the first of its eight movements, "Liturgie de Cristal," a trance-like feeling pervades the music, as violin and clarinet present a string of short motives, like a mosaic of fragmentary bird calls, against a flowing, ethereal background of piano chords and cello harmonics. This movement is permeated by repeated patterrns, but Messiaen's use of irregular rhythms creates an effect of fluid multiplicity, and freedom from metrical constraints.
Though much of the piece is deeply meditative, the music can also be urgent and vigorous. The "Danse de la Fureur," for example, rockets along, propelled by its angular, volatile melody, with all four instruments playing in clamorous unison. The ensemble gave the quartet a sympathetic performance, with pianist Karen Rosenak bringing life to Messiaen's often accompanimental piano writing. Peter Josheff played the movement for solo clarinet with great beauty and inwardness, especially in several of its extremely quiet passages. Cellist Thalia Moore was a thoughtful but impassioned advocate in her big solo in the fifth movement, and violinist Terrie Baune was poised and effective throughout, though her coolly objective approach was less convincing in the music's serenely expressive closing movement.
Two other pieces were on the program. Joan Tower's single-movement piano trio, Big Sky (2000), started simply, with the three instruments in mid-register, dwelling intently on just a few intervals. Gradually their range expanded, the mood intensified, and the music grew more complex, but never enough so. By the time we reached the climax at movement's end, the piece wasn't all that far from where it had begun. The mood was serious and purposeful, but the composer was mostly plowing over the same ground. Both the journey and its arrival were in need of a richer context. David Sanford's Dogma 74 (2002) was livelier and more interesting. Charm, wit, and imagination were in evidence, as they had been earlier during the composer's brief introductory remarks linking the piece to memories and formative events from his childhood. Its three movements were colorful and inventive, especially in the writing for strings and piano, whose interplay spurred the music on, most notably in the ostinato-driven climax at the end of the piece. In its spirited but diffuse and episodic behavior, Dogma 74 could be seen to mirror the impressions left on the composer by childhood experiences after a gap of some twenty-eight years. It was commissioned by the Empyrean Ensemble and scored for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, and piano. The ensemble's co-director Yu-hui Chang conducted the performance.
(Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.)
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Empyrean Ensemble