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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
December 12, 2005
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By Jules Langert
"DAZZLING NEW MUSIC FROM FRANCE," proclaimed the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players' Monday evening program cover. Inside Herbst Theater, a sizeable audience prepared for bedazzlement, while reflecting, perhaps, on the old adage about “all that glitters” and the Players' recent tilt toward consistently programming style over substance.
As such things go, much of the dazzle was reserved for the last half of the concert, especially the final work, Philippe Leroux's VOI(REX), for vocalist, six instruments, and electronics, both prerecorded and live, interacting with the performers onstage. Most impressively, the young soprano, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, had to speak, sing, recite, intone, and produce an incredible range of bizarre vocal sounds, often in breathtaking succession, many of which were amplified and electronically altered. That she managed all this with poise and precision was itself a reason to be dazzled. In addition, the chamber ensemble and the elaborately colorful prerecorded electronic components were well mixed and synchronized, with everything combining to form a kind of avant garde sound collage of real dexterity and verve.
The concert presented four works dating from 1995 to 2002, and among them the most engrossing was Philippe Hurel's Tombeau in memoriam Gérard Grisey (1999), for piano and percussion, in four movements. It was inspired by Grisey's Vortex Temporum, for solo piano with mixed chamber ensemble, which is a large-scale work in several movements, composed shortly before Grisey's death at 52 and heard on one of these concerts in 2003. At that time its brilliantly scored piano part was performed by Julie Steinberg, who also played in Hurel's Tombeau.
In this performance Steinberg and percussionist William Winant were as exciting to watch as to hear: Their individual parts were so closely intertwined that a cumulative sound often emerged, flooding the hall with sparkling figuration and strong, forceful rhythms, especially in the opening and closing movements, which had much in common. There was also a slower movement, with long, single notes shared by both players, lending a meditative, melodic feeling to the music while the scherzo-like third movement tossed distinctive harmonies and rhythms back and forth between the two performers. This piece, though reminiscent of Vortex Temporum, definitely exerted its own dynamic presence. The concert opened with François Paris' 12 préludes pour quatre pianos imaginaires. There were four electronic keyboards, all differently tuned, sounding like one gigantic composite instrument. Every prelude seemed to emphasize a different textural device, like repeated notes, or chords attacked in various ways, or a rising chromatic figure imitated and extended in multiple voices, occasionally recalling Conlon Nancarrow's player-piano pieces. Past a certain point, however, the limitations and uniformity of the electronic sound took a toll. This was the only purely electronic piece on the program, and the effect of its ingenuity was sapped by a medium that notably lacks the vitality and richness of live instruments. Perhaps a smaller sampling from the preludes would have been more satisfying. Pascal Dusapin's Cascando, for eight instruments, mostly winds, replicates the instrumentation of Varèse's Octandre, from 1923, which it resembles in some ways, using ostinato patterns and alternating passages of rapid repeated notes with slow, sustained harmonic episodes. Dusapin was drawn to Varèse's music early in his career, and perhaps this piece is a kind of homage. In its beautifully balanced writing for woodwinds and brass it contributed its own share of dazzlement to the proceedings. An announcement by conductor David Milnes credited CNMAT, the Center for New Music and Audio Technology at U.C. Berkeley, with substantial help in setting up the electronic components for this program
(Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.)
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