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Free Play by the S.F. Contemporary Music Players

Jessica Balik on April 27, 2010

On initial consideration, some people might think of musical composition as an outlet for unbridled, free-flowing creativity. In truth, though, composing is inevitably conditioned and constrained by all sorts of factors, such as historical conventions and social expectations. Nonetheless, the contemporary French composer Philippe Hurel has spoken of finding room for individuality — “his own space of freedom” — within such frameworks. On Monday night, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players used Hurel’s words for the theme of a program featuring four pieces that variously relate to the idea of finding free space.

For example, the concert included the premiere of a work that alludes to the American civil rights movement: A Time to Break Silence, Speaking Truth to Power. Its Greek composer, Manolis Manousakis, wrote this bassoon solo specifically for Monday’s soloist, Rufus Olivier, who had suggested to him the civil rights theme. The title refers to a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., in which King had voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War. Although the work was premiered on Monday, it was composed in 2008, a year that marked the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination.

Manousakis is known for creating multimedia compositions, and A Time to Break Silence began with a short video introduction. Amid a montage of urban images, a line from King’s speech — “But we must speak” — resounded several times. A bassoon solo, rife with multiphonics, followed the video. At first, the multiphonics seemed to obstruct lyrical lines, but as the piece continued, they became integral to the piece’s expressivity. To me, it was as though the piece challenged its soloist to make peace with these obstacles, and to sing out in spite of them. Olivier certainly rose to that challenge.

Next on the program were percussion pieces by two Chinese-born composers. These composers, Tan Dun and Guo Wenjing, both grew up during the restrictive Cultural Revolution; they also both studied at Beijing’s Central Conservatory in the late 1970s when it reopened after Mao’s death. Given their similar backgrounds, both composers freely draw from Eastern and Western musical traditions, though the pieces and personal styles they create nonetheless sound dissimilar and unique.

Fresh Water Music

Christopher Baldini

Tan Dun has resided in the U.S. for the past 25 years, and is popularly known as the Academy Award–winning composer of the score for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He frequently seeks inspiration in elements of nature, and, as in several of his works, Water Music (2004) uses actual water as a sound source. The piece suited this program because, as the composer himself has observed, “Water is an element you can’t block.” The four percussionists who performed Water Music treated large punch bowls full of water as permeable drums. Using their hands as well as objects such as drinking glasses, the players struck the water’s surface. They also submerged objects into the water, and then struck at those. The resultant piece was both aurally and visually stunning.

Guo Wenjing’s Parade also incorporated a visual component. This piece is for three percussionists who play six Beijing opera gongs. The gongs were situated on a single communal table. A video camera suspended above the table captured live images of the players striking the gongs, and these images were projected onto a screen toward the rear of the stage. The more rhythmically complex and contrapuntally dense the piece became, the more carefully orchestrated the player’s movements also had to become, so that the performers could avoid inadvertently whacking one another’s hands. On Monday, I am glad to report, the players succeeded in striking only their shared gongs.

The final piece of the evening was by Hurel himself. Figures libres (Free figures, 2000-2001) is a chamber work for three strings, three winds, piano, and percussion. Christian Baldini, who conducted it, said that he understands that the musical lines of the first movement should grow freer in the second. Indeed, a rather hysterical and angular first movement led to a more relaxed, smooth, and sustained second. The work’s final movement, though, seemed to resist conforming to this narrative of increasing freedom that had been suggested by earlier parts of the piece.

In hindsight, I realize this concert referenced many different types of freedom: social and political freedom; freedom from conventional playing techniques; freedom from traditional, nonsoloistic conceptions of percussion; and freedom from regarding musical composition as an act that involves sound alone. This concert probably also helped to unfetter its audience from a few preconceptions about what music is and should be. For me, it also unleashed anticipation for the upcoming, new season of concerts by the S.F. Contemporary Music Players.