I'm listening live and very much liking the fizz and variety in the often shrill, sometimes rattling first piece for the Arditti quartet, Olga Neuwith's In the realms of the unreal (somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes).
I can imagine that it will sound to some to alot of modern string quartet cliches but I found it really invigorating and sometimes lovely, even in its more brutal moments (though it absolutely doesn't sound like 'hostile' music, does sound like music lover's music to me).
I've noted hints of mandolin, tape effects, tearful drunken woodwind descents, raucous swoopings of swallows, glass-like ringing, overblown harmonicas. A quite (sorry!) Tipett-ian drive though with less melody; some woozy tenderness interrupted by a dance of chirps; now almost Xenakis-sy electronics, some grand gravellings, vocalisms of complaint, a last shrill of electronics, a snapped pluck and - applause.
Really good!
Mauricio Kagel's Les Inventions d'Adolphe Sax (UK Premiere) is for a choir and saxophone quartet. I like some of its saxophonic bobbings with the choir but the periods of instrumental music appeal to me more. Then, lo and behold!, there's a short section of soft sax and hushes from the choir. The more it goes on, the more the choir and the horns seem to blend and converge. I don't know Sax's music but this piece has a hint of Ravel and Poulenc (to an idiot like me) in its distinctly French-seeming music full of great effects and humour.
I can imagine that it will sound to some to alot of modern string quartet cliches but I found it really invigorating and sometimes lovely, even in its more brutal moments (though it absolutely doesn't sound like 'hostile' music, does sound like music lover's music to me).
I've noted hints of mandolin, tape effects, tearful drunken woodwind descents, raucous swoopings of swallows, glass-like ringing, overblown harmonicas. A quite (sorry!) Tipett-ian drive though with less melody; some woozy tenderness interrupted by a dance of chirps; now almost Xenakis-sy electronics, some grand gravellings, vocalisms of complaint, a last shrill of electronics, a snapped pluck and - applause.
Really good!
Mauricio Kagel's Les Inventions d'Adolphe Sax (UK Premiere) is for a choir and saxophone quartet. I like some of its saxophonic bobbings with the choir but the periods of instrumental music appeal to me more. Then, lo and behold!, there's a short section of soft sax and hushes from the choir. The more it goes on, the more the choir and the horns seem to blend and converge. I don't know Sax's music but this piece has a hint of Ravel and Poulenc (to an idiot like me) in its distinctly French-seeming music full of great effects and humour.
... and if you do manage to get up to Huddersfield this November, you can hear them with Ian Pace performing the complete Xenakis Chamber Music for Strings with and without Piano (St Paul's Hall, Fri 25th Nov).
Comment