Jürg Frey - Ephemeral Constructions (EWR 1709)

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I have been listening to Jürg Frey’s music intensively in the last few months. I first became aware of  Frey’s works in 2010, around the time when I discovered Wandelweiser composers’ works and became deeply immersed in - first Michael Pisaro’s prolific series of pieces, then more works from Antoine Beuger, Manfred Werder, Radu Malfatti and Jürg Frey.

In the last three years, my taste for music has shifted toward older classical music, often attending concerts performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, as well as listening to numerous older classical music recordings - mostly of Romantic composers. What triggered me to dig into this older classical music was Mitsuko Uchida’s Mozart Piano Sonata CD (1984), which I found in my late father-in-law’s substantial collection of classical music CDs. Deeply touched by Uchida’s delicate, sorrowful, contemplative piano tones in Mozart Sonatas and Rondo in A minor, I further dug into her Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven and Mozart Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra, then into other orchestras, composers, pianists, and an infinite number of classical music recordings up to the present. I used to eagerly listen to Baroque music in my teens, then early music and Renaissance music (and some Mozart) in my 20’s, but listening to Romantic composers’ works so intensively was a completely new and exhilarating experience.

During this time, I did not listen to current experimental music pieces as much as I used to do, since I found a difficulty in loving these two very different genres and eras of music at the same time. However, Wandelweiser music was in a unique position. It was when I came to listen to Webern after going through the Romantic period, when I sensed a similar texture in Webern’s silence which instantly reminded me of that of Malfatti’s silence and Frey’s silence. Perhaps Webern’s silence was rather closer to Malfatti’s than Frey’s (although the hint of Romanticism was closer to Frey’s), and the moment of the two ‘silences’ overlapping in my mind brought me straight back to Wandelweiser music again. There were of course other composers who explored significant meanings of silence during the two eras, but Webern’s silence - which still had a lingering air of Romanticism - was a revelation to me to connect two separate pieces of the puzzle together - Romantic music and Wandelweiser. It broke down the wall between these two worlds, both of which I have been deeply fascinated during the last eight years. Also, after obsessively listening to old classical music for three years, the music of Wandelweiser composers started to reveal more layers and a depth that I did not notice before. Sometimes I find similar aesthetics and structures in Wandelweiser composers’ works - especially in Frey’s - as those of Renaissance or Romantic composers’ works, although there are of course distinct differences in the concepts and styles. Further listening to Frey’s recent works has deepened the connection between these two separate eras of music. I love the way both Frey’s music and some Renaissance or Romantic composers’ works sound coherent with no conflict to my ears transcending genres and eras, even though the atmosphere and textures of both are quite different.

Occasionally in my life, I have been intensely drawn to some specific music, ending up immersed in the music for quite a long time. It does not happen so often, but when it happens, the irresistible beauty of the music occupies my mind like a storm to the extent that it brings me a heartache or a torment - with words and images welling up in my mind, haunting me all the time with the sounds of the music. The only way to be free from this torment is to write down all those words and images in my text, trying to give verbal shapes to the spell of the music which enthralled me. It happens only once in a while, only when the power of the music is tremendous, and it was very hard when I was very young since I did not know how to get out of the spell of the music then. For instance when I was 13, I fell into a whirl of Pachelbel's Canon in D, and could not get back to the reality (my normal school life) for several months. My brother had a mix tape of Baroque music, and I became to be drawn to the fragments of the music occasionally heard from his room. But he did not let me listen to his music collection when he was home, so I sneaked in his room when he was at school, listening to the mix tape with his headphones while I was alone. There were music of J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann and Pachelbel on the cassette tape, but the music which captivated me most was Pachelbel's Canon in D. It was mesmerizing in spite of its simple structure and short length - three violins and a baseline of basso continuo, simply repeating eight bars of music for 28 times, slowly and gradually growing into more complex developments of the theme over the course of seven minutes or so (the version I was listening to then was Jean-François Paillard’s). I was fascinated by the way a simple phrase slowly and organically develops toward the ending, evoking different landscapes of different colors in my mind. Now when I listen to this piece again, I am surprised with the fact that this is only five or seven minutes piece, since when I was 13, it felt like much longer - like 30 minutes or so.  There was a hypnotic power in the cycles of this music, and I was completely addicted to it. I tried to follow every subtle change in every repetition of the harmonies, to figure out why this music is so touching. I started to skip school just because I wanted to listen to this Canon with my brother’s headphones while he was not at home. It was the first time when I was captivated by the spell of the music so overwhelmingly, to the extent that I could not relate to reality so well - like sinking deep down into the sea without knowing how to float back to the surface. (Eventually, I started to play and sing music myself in a youth choir and a recorder ensemble, and these involvement with musical activities certainly helped me to get connected to the healthy reality again. I do not play music now, but I found that writing helps me in a similar way.)

Canon is such a powerful form of music, and although it looks so simple and plain in the structure, the accumulated (silent) power with momentum gained from circling and repetition has almost a magnetic (physical) effect on me. Also, the repetitivity of a canonic form seems to resonate with our familiar cycle of living everyday life, while the seemingly indefinite loop of the music echoes with our desperate wish for the eternal. I find a similar compelling, magnetic power of repetition in Schubert’s sonatas, too. I was just thinking about these things when I was listening to Frey’s Circular Music #7 on 'Ephemeral Constructions' (EWR 1709) the other day, which captivated me with its haunting beauty - like Pachelbel's Canon in D did to me before - but in a more peaceful way.

Frey has been releasing his Circular Music series since 2013 - some of them are titled ‘Extended Circular Music’ - in his four recent albums including this one. He also recorded a composition titled ‘Canones Incerti’ in 2013 and 2014, which is more abstract and less simpler than the later Circular Music pieces, seemingly the early canonic piece in his catalog. Each of his Circular Music pieces have a different structure, texture and duration, and some of them are unforgettably beautiful - like Extended Circular Music No. 2 and 3 performed by Tamriko Kordzaia (piano) and Petra Ackermann (viola) on Frey’s 2014 CD ‘Untitled’ (Musiques Suisses).

Frey talked about his other canonic piece Circular Music #2 and how his interest in composing canons or circular music has grown in his later works in his interview on the ddmmyy site, which is quite interesting to read.

“I started to write the first canons in the late 90s. It was more a coming from outside. A curator in Sweden was asking me for pieces who was interested in counterpoint and canon. I thought ‘I should write something for him which is connected with canon’.”

“Well in this piece (Circular Music No.2), I think it was first the idea of being circular. There is a long story behind this because earlier in my career if someone would have told me that circular things could happen in my music in this way, I would have thought it impossible! I always had the impression that I had to place every chord. I have to take it with my hand… It’s not a circular mechanism. So this was very far away from every idea of mine. My idea is that I have to touch every note, every sound, I have to pick it up and put it in the right place for the right duration. It took a long time before I started to write canons or circular pieces. It was a discovery!”

“My first canons were most of them ‘pauses in canons: little single notes and the rest was silences so that you don’t hear any kind of ‘canon’, because there are such long breaks in between the notes. This was the first step. Then slowly I developed more canonic and circular techniques and at the end of this process I learnt that when you take the right notes and the right silences it’s so lovely because it creates something that I was looking for all the time: it goes by itself! The music goes by itself! I don’t touch every note but I let them go. The idea from Feldman of letting notes go. They go by themselves. It took such a long time before I learnt.” (Jürg Frey)

 

Ephemeral Constructions

'Ephemeral Constructions’ contains Frey’s three recent pieces from 2015 to 2016, performed in the spring of 2016 by the University of South Carolina Experimental Music Workshop under the direction of Greg Stuart, and three musicians - Erik Carlson on violin, Jürg Frey on clarinet, and Stuart on vibraphone and percussion. The first 40 minute piece Ephemeral Constructions (2015-16) and the third 24 minute pieces Circular Music #6 (2015) were performed by the three musicians and the Workshop ensemble together. The middle piece Circular Music #7 (2015), a little less than five minutes, was performed by the three musicians - Stuart, Carlson and Frey.

The first track, Ephemeral Constructions, begins with quiet, dispersed sounds of objects performed by the Workshop ensemble. The sounds of objects - something like lightly hitting wooden blocks and glass material - sparsely appear sporadically in a silent room, evoking flickering lights or raindrops falling onto a floor. These sounds of objects come from all directions, near and far, left and right, creating a spacious feel and a clear sense of perspective with great acoustics. At first, these sounds of the ensemble feel like random abstract sounds, but soon I noticed that there is a hint of cyclic rhythms in the way these sounds appear - though very vaguely. Around 6’24”, two single tones of a vibraphone appear softly at a regular interval, evoking faint warm lights emerging in the middle of the empty spatial room. A husky tone of a clarinet appears as well, followed by a violin with a similar quiet tone, both playing thin, prolonged passages. The two layers of the sounds happening in the space - one is the vertical, cool, realistic sounds of the ensemble’s hard objects, and the other is the horizontal, soft sounds of the three instruments - create a stereoscopic soundscape with a unique contrast of the textures, emphasizing the warm, organic feel of the three instruments. The ensemble’s sparse object sounds gradually increase their volume almost imperceptibly, clarifying the air of the room with the cool echos. Around 18’56”, the three instruments (vibraphone, clarinet and violin) play short phrases in minor scale in unison, bringing a hint of tonal music in the vague, abstract soundscape. In the last half of the track, fragments of faint melodies and chords of the three instruments appear and linger like a trail of a cloud, sharing the same meditative stillness as silence - which evokes of the listener’s contemplative mind. Near the end of the track, some short phrases of melodies and harmonies begin to take more obvious forms, though being still half abstract. It is like watching fine particles of a music emerging in the air gradually drawn to each other, almost forming a tonal music.

The second track, Circular Music #7, begins with a unison performed by the three musicians (violin, clarinet, vibraphone/percussion), slowly repeating a canonic cycle in eight bars for six times in a very quiet, prolonged manner. The previously heard sparse fragments of melodies seem to become one to create a seamless flow of music in this piece. The melancholic, blank tones of the violin and clarinet create a gray atmosphere in minor key, while the warm tones of the vibraphone in the last bar sound consoling. The lethargic melody of this five minute canon is unforgettably poignant, though very simple and short.

The third track, Circular Music #6, is performed by the Workshop ensemble in a similarly sparse, abstract soundscape as the first track, again evoking a large empty room. The sounds of three instruments (clarinet, violin, vibraphone/percussion) emerge softly and vaguely in the stereoscopic raindrops of various object sounds, trailing like a translucent cloud in the meditative silence. The dreamy tones of the three instruments evoke in me a shadow or a mirage of the previously heard short canon (Circular Music #7), floating in the room like a hologram image. The sounds of the three instruments move in a cyclic pattern, slowly increasing their presence as they repeat for several times, then diminishing into silence almost imperceptibly in a prolonged way.

I like to listen to these three pieces as one long composition - the first piece as a prelude in which a special 'room' is set up for small fragments of a canon to emerge, the second piece as the heart of this album: a short-life canon (Circular Music #7), and the last piece as a room where a shadow of the canon lingers like a hologram. The open feel of the space created by the great acoustics can be likened to the listener’s mind (or subconscious), too, where Frey’s canon is organically formed and heard, leaving the residual image in. The simple, quiet presence of Circular Music #7 contains the hypnotic power of a canon, but does not shake my emotions overwhelmingly like Pachelbel's Canon in D did to me long ago.

When I was captivated by Pachelbel's Canon in D when I was a kid, the beauty of the music filled my mind with tremendous joy, but also brought me a pain with a sense of loss afterwards, making it hard for me to reconnect to the reality again. I had a similar experience recently, when I saw John Eliot Gardiner conducting Monteverdi’s trilogy of operas: L'Orfeo, The Return of Ulysses and The Coronation of Poppea in NYC in three nights in October. It was one of the most divine, marvelous, powerful, soul touching live music experiences I have ever had. Gardiner’s straightforward, simple approach highlighted the pureness of Monteverdi’s music, delivering the essence of human emotions with restrained elegance and humbleness. I was deeply moved by the perfectly nuanced, poignant, rich musical expressions, which brought out the epiphanic beauty of the early 17th century librettos vividly. The period instruments of the English Baroque Soloists delivered the subtlety of each phrase with rich, warm, translucent overtones that filled the hall with the celestial beauty. The dynamic range of the sounds from pianissimo to fortissimo was delicately nuanced with precisely timed rhythms and perfectly pitched harmonies. The ceaseless flow of Monteverdi’s music wrapped me in intense emotions over the three days, blowing my mind like Pachelbel’s Canon did to me when I was a kid. But when the three nights of sublime music were done, I felt somewhat lost and depressed - like facing a dead end - seized by deep sorrow with a sense that I may not be able to experience such celestial beauty again for the rest of my life. Some tremendous beauty was experienced, shaking the deepest part of my soul, but when it was gone, the door was closed. The open space, which I used to cherish in mind, felt somewhat to be lost. It was like the ‘perfectness’ of the live performances of Monteverdi’s operas dominated my mind with its stormy power and irresistible beauty, putting my mind to a halt as it receded.

Music from Renaissance and Baroque periods often has this overwhelming power over me, mesmerizing me while the music is on, then closing the door when it is over. Unlike that, Frey’s canon - or circular music - does not draw me into a closed place, though moving me deeply with a similar essential beauty to that of Renaissance or Baroque music, yet in a much calmer way. To me, Frey’s canon ‘Circular Music #7’ is more magnetic and haunting than Pachelbel's Canon in D, because it has an elemental power and because it has an openness for the listener. Both canons are similarly short - about five minutes - but the atmosphere and the effect on the listener of each piece is quite different. Not like pulling the listener into the closed world of music by the force of composition, Frey’s canon lets the listener be synchronized with the music naturally, and lets him/her stay in the music without giving a sense of loss afterwards. I can feel the quiet presence of his Circular Music #7 in my mind even after the music ends, knowing that the door is still open, my mind half overlapping with the reality where I live in.

I often feel that Frey’s music has two layers - one is Frey’s composition performed by the musicians, the other is an open space (often found in silence or in a quiet, sparse soundscape) where the listener’s mind can assimilate into without losing touch with reality. The beauty of this album ‘Ephemeral Constructions’ lies here, in this double layer of ‘construction’ of sounds and silence - one layer is actually heard from the CD, the other layer is formed in my memory. This uncertainty - or a half-formed ambiguity - imprints a long-lasting image in my mind, perhaps since it involves my own imagination to be a part of constructing this music.

Each of Frey’s Circular Music works has a uniqueness in its atmosphere, colors and duration, leaving a different impression behind while sharing a similarly simple, cyclic pattern. It also reminds me of the ways people meet people, being apart after sharing some moments together for a while in a dreamlike half reality - some are peaceful and calm, some are sorrowful and poignant - but all moving in repetition in the transient moments of life. These moments are fleeting and diminishing like a short-life canon, to be destined to disappear into silence, but are so beautiful and unforgettable - since they are ephemeral, since we are living it - not like observing from outside.

 

 

 

Jürg Frey - Collection Gustave Roud (at115x2)    

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'Collection Gustave Roud' is a double CD of Jürg Frey's recent works from 2007 to 2016. All five pieces of this album are closely connected with the works of the French-Swiss poet Gustave Roud, who has been a profound influence on Frey’s compositions in the last decade. I have been listening to this album over the last month, deeply immersed in the astounding beauty of all five pieces. Time seems to stand still when listening to this album - being lost in contemplation - but in fact, time begins to move forward and a vast expanse of space starts to unfold in my mind when the music begins. A truly rich, warm, open, imaginative experience of beauty and sensitivities is found inside the stillness of the gray landscape of Frey’s music - beyond this dry reality.

Frey explained the close connection between his music and the works of Roud in his recent interview on the another timbre site. “I first encountered Roud’s work more than 10 years ago, and the impact of his work on my music has been profound. I feel a close relationship to a poet whose mode of operation and sensitivity make a precise resonance in me. It’s a unique poetry that speaks from beginning to end of searching for the essence. I would like to compare his mode of work with that of a painter. Every day he went out, not with an easel, but with his notebook, and he wandered through the landscape as a flaneur, observer, writer, laying the foundations of his work with his notes. For me his work constitutes a kind of ‘field recording’, not with a microphone and sounds, but with his soul and body, recording his environment in the broadest sense. He perceived existential dimensions in the finest nuances of the weather, the landscape and its inhabitants, and made it the basis of his work.”

This album intrigued me to learn more about the life and the works of Roud, and I found this great post on a French blog 'de paysage en paysage', which explained the life of the poet and some of his famous poems and journals, along with the blog author's in-depth discussions. (I read this page via Google translation.)

Roud grew up in a family-owned farm in Carrouge, in the countryside north of Lake Geneva, and lived there with his sister throughout his life - as a poet, not as a farmer. He studied classical literature in high school and in college, maintained numerous friendships with artists, musicians, poets, and other intellectuals. His oeuvre is relatively small, but he left prolific writings in his correspondences and journals which showed his deep commitment to literature and art. His style of writing is rustic, simple and contemplative, tinged with a surreal atmosphere and solitary shadows, profoundly resonating with the stillness of the landscapes in his monochrome photographs. (In recent years, his works as a photographer have also been more and more recognized.) Wikipedia describes, “his poetry was dedicated to the landscapes of the Haut-Jorat where he lived, to reach a perception of an ‘elsewhere’ or of a lost paradise.”

In the above-mentioned blog, I was particularly fascinated with the excerpts from ‘Landscape and French Poetry’, a study on Roud by Michel Collot and Antonio Rodríguez (excerpt is in the next paragraph). Rould dwelled in two worlds paradoxically - ‘the real’ and ‘the spiritual space’ - both of which closely resonate with Frey’s music in this album. The real (or the landscapes Roud saw in his external vision) gave rise to his poetic inspirations, which allowed him to communicate with ‘spirits’ of nature intimately “in a closed and harmonious space where a depth of reality and an ecstasy of the subject take place together”. Although he had lived a solitary, closed life as a “fugitive” from the real world, with his homosexuality being considered to be sinful in the rural area at that time, he did not entirely seclude himself from the reality into his imaginative inner self. Instead, he found his own “closed and harmonious space” where the two worlds meet halfway, which became unique landscapes in his works.

“Sometimes the two moments - rapture and distance - take place almost simultaneously: paradoxically, the real is offered in the singularity of its presence - and moving evidence is needed as it holds us a language, or it plays music - then withdraws into its absolute otherness. Humans, animals, but especially flowers seem to open up to exchange and communion, to reveal their intimate truth, before closing immediately in the silence.” (from ‘Landscape and French Poetry’ by Michel Collot and Antonio Rodríguez)

During his solitary walks, Roud encountered the 'spirits' in nature - which vaguely formed a language or a music in his mind - and he captured the fleeting moment of a rapport with them in his poems and journals.

“... with the elements of the landscape in which he lived: hills, groves, trees, flowers had become for him entities with a certain form of life and spirit with which he could dialogue and to whom he lent human forms and feelings. During his long solitary walks, his exacerbated sensitivity made him constantly listening to them and deeply felt the presence of these spirits in his whole being.“ (from the blog 'de paysage en paysage') 

 

CD ‘Collection Gustave Roud’

In Roud’s poems and journals, some musical terms often appear - like unison, melody, harmonies, cadence, symphony - to describe what he saw in the landscape, as if he were hearing distant music or the sounds of instruments (brass, percussion, orchestra, piano, etc.) in the nature. This reminds me of how Frey has composed music utilizing field recording materials in his six hour piece ‘l'âme est sans retenue I’ (1997/98), in which small fragments of the field recordings sometimes sound like forming faint echoes of orchestral music. In this Collection Gustave Roud, Frey seemed to embody the ‘inner music’ that Roud might have been hearing in the landscapes he admired, in a more clearly visualized, magnified, tonal way than what he has done in his ‘l'âme est sans retenue I’ - by using actual musical instruments.

The first piece, Paysage pour Gustave Roud, begins with soft tones of piano and clarinet which evoke a transparent presence of the wind, with the image of a vast expanse of the sky and the ground. Everything moves slowly, sometimes unrecognizably quietly, in a surreal flow of time. The landscape in which the music unfolds - a cloudy sky and a rustic, rural landscape - feels like a very personal, quiet solitary place, but there is also a wide openness with which anyone's contemplation can synchronize. The soft tones of the piano throw thin rays of sunlight, with a hint of warm colors, while the dry texture of the cello (Stefan Thut) increases the shadow in the gray landscape. The fragile tones of the clarinet seem to reflect the slightly insecure, contemplative mind of the poet, who was perhaps once standing in the solitary landscape, gazing at a thin ray of hope. When the sounds of the three instruments overlap in unison, the soul of the poet and the landscape blend together in one entity, opening the door to Roud's two worlds - the rural landscape in his external vision and his inner world.

The second piece, Haut-Jorat, is a series of six short pieces for violin, clarinet, and piano. Frey described this piece, "Haut-Jorat is the name of the countryside where Roud lived. The six pieces are like six photographs: sensations of air, light and landscape."

This piece begins with a dry, matte tone of violin, which evokes a monochrome drawing of a rustic landscape. While the sounds of the three instruments are extremely subtle and quiet, each tone has a rich, substantial texture and depth. Listening to this series of short pieces makes me feel like slowly walking on the trails where Roud used to take a solitary walk in contemplation.

The third piece, La présence, les silences, evokes a vast expanse of a monochrome landscape, and simultaneously the unspoiled beauty of the soul of the poet, apart from secular noises. 

The fourth piece is Farblose Wolken, Glück, Wind, performed by soprano (Regula Konrad), trumpet (Stephen Altoft), cello (Thut),  percussion (Lee Ferguson), harmonica and piano (Frey), and sound samples from CD. This is another beautiful, compelling piece in this album, one of the greatest compositions among all of Frey's works I have heard.

In this piece, Frey used his German text - a list of words (meaning 'stone', 'shine', 'leaves', 'death', 'happiness', 'wind') - read by soprano voice. Some of these words also appeared in his 2015 release '24 Wörter' (Edition Wandelweiser), sung by the same soprano singer Konrad, and are seemingly the essential keywords of the Roud’s journal which inspired Frey for this piece. (The excerpts of Roud's journal and Frey’s list of words are included in the CD liner notes.)

If Frey's 'Weites Land, Tiefe Zeit: Räume 1-8' (b-boim) is a silent micro symphony composed of numerous, almost unrecognizable subtle changes and moves of extremely quiet sounds, then this 'Farblose Wolken, Glück, Wind' can be called a silent micro opera - unfolding in the listener's mind, not on stage. The transient appearances of soprano voice, trumpet, cello, percussions, piano and harmonica humbly emerge from silence and retreat into silence, with a floating-in-the-air lightness and fragility. The lyrics which the soprano sings with a haunting melody are the French narrative from Roud’s journal, conveying to us the tremors of joy and awe that Roud cherished in his intimate relation with nature. The emotional expressions are minimum and subtle in this Frey’s song piece, not obviously dramatic like conventional operas, but if you listen carefully, magnifying the micro world consisting of subtle shadings and wavers of the trembling voices of soprano and instruments that are sparsely dotted in silence, you can see (hear) the extraordinary beauty arisen from the deepest part of the human heart. The translucent tones of the soprano in this piece also remind me of the celestial beauty of Monteverdi's operas (very quiet scenes), which seep into my heart with the similarly simple, understated manner and straightforward approaches to the essence of pure beauty.

Frey's song piece is not a strong music full of vital energies like Monteverdi's operas, but the quiet presence of the music has a different power (and a different path) to reach the listener's mind. The two are very different or opposite in a way: while Monteverdi's operas are solidly structured with a ceaseless, determined flow of precisely timed sounds with a clear sense of the beginning and end, Frey's music seems to be rather blurred, uncertain, half-formed, indirect, not being anchored in one solid place or time, with almost imperceptible molecular changes of shades and long stretches of silence. The subtleties of the quiet sounds activate the listener's ears to be more sensitive, while the sparsity and uncertainty leave a wide open space for the listener's contemplation, so they can hear the extended stretch of music in the silence  - where poetry forms in music. It reminds me of Romanian pianist Radu Lupu’s semi-transparent pianissimo tones, which must arise from his very personal world a bit far from reality, but also deeply resonate with the listener’s inner world - like a door to another dimension (or contemplation) is opened in the passages of the distant tones.

Supposing that this Frey’s Farblose Wolken, Glück, Wind is a silent micro opera, I divided this 48 minutes piece into several scenes as below (mostly based on my imagination evoked from the music).

The inner world of the poet and the outer world he was watching (the landscape) slowly emerge (0:00)

Very subtle, feeble but keen tones of high-frequencies appear quietly, flickering a faint light on the edge of the silence, evoking an extremely sensitive, vulnerable soul of the poet. The soft sound of a trumpet comes in, gradually unfolding the landscape where the poet was immersed in, with its spatial sounding. The soprano voice appears, trembling but in a forthright tone, singing about Roud’s intimate feelings for the nature hauntingly while closely tracing the words of Roud’s journal.

The ethereal tones of the soprano leads the listener to the mystical place between reality and the other world, where the soul of the poet dwells. While the sounds of the soprano and the harmonica appear close, the trumpet appears in the middle, and the bass drum appears  far away, the cello creates a mood of disquiet behind them. The thin edge between discord and accord shows the swings of the poet's sensitivities, who sometimes seeing a faint ray of hope and happiness, but sometimes sinking deep down into a sorrowful, solitary void. The fragile but earnest soprano voice is a prayer of the poet, staying slightly off but not out of balance, reflecting the shadows of the poet’s mind. All the sounds move slowly, revealing the inner world of the poet and the expanse of his outer landscape simultaneously.

The other world, where the poet’s spirit floats in, or his closed life distant from the reality (7:02)

Faint sounds of a piano are heard in the soundscape of the soft, distant tones of a trumpet, hoarse, low sounds of a cello, a percussion (a heavy bell rolling), and weak sounds of a harmonica. These subtle sounds sparsely dotted in the thick silence create a mildly spiritual atmosphere, evoking the world after death. (This section reminds me of the mystical air of the third act of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, when Orfeo sings 'Possente spirto' while crossing the river that divides the mortal world from the world of the dead, in which the obscure sounds of trumpet evokes the other world along with a short phrase of a violin, trumpet or harp following each passage of the song.)

Unison, harmonies, a faint ray of hope into the shadow of the poet’s soul. Brightness of the first spring sunlight shines in, transient moments of happiness knock the poet's heart  (16:16)

After a silence, the soprano and all the instruments sing and play in unison softly but earnestly, with short intervals of silence. Every time they form harmony, a faint light of happiness shines in the dark. The contrast between the high range and the low range of the sounds of instruments evokes the extremes of the poet’s mind, longing for hope on one hand, sinking into a dark melancholy on the other hand.

Suddenly, the positive, crisp sounds of percussion come in, blowing the melancholic air away with the brightness of a sunlight, clarifying the following silence. Again, a faint harmony of soprano, trumpet and cello come back, slowly increasing the brightness of the air. Trembling with hope for transient moments of happiness, the poet sees the first sunlight of the spring which reinvigorates a life in nature, although very transient.

Soprano voice reads Frey's text (a list of words), spring brings inspiration into the poet’s mind via the spirits of nature, softly and warmly (22’20”)

In the middle part of the piece, a soft voice of soprano appears repeatedly between short silences, evoking a voice of a night bird, deepening the air. The soprano voice quietly reads the words of Frey’s text one by one, accompanied by the sounds of heavy bells rolling, the dry tones of a trumpet and a cello in the background.

The sounds of percussion gently knock on the door to the closed mind of the poet. As the thin streams of high-frequencies and a harmonica come in and gradually become stronger, the soprano voice increases its warmth and brightness as if it were pouring in enduring strength to a fragile life. The soul of the poet wakes up in the ethereal tranquility, listening to the words echoing in the air.   

Bright sounds of trumpet and percussions cleared the air, the arrival of spring, awakening the poet’s half-asleep soul, deepening and clarifying the following silence (33’00")

After a long silence, a powerful high-pitched sound of the trumpet comes in out of the blue (you will be blown away), reverberating in the silence like a messenger of the arrival of spring. Intense emotions - joy, surprise, excitement - suddenly fill the poet’s mind, drawing him back to the grand reality from his half-asleep dream. Percussive crisp sounds join with the sound of the trumpet, spreading the bright lights of spring throughout the space. After the following silence - which was deepened and clarified by the absence of the powerful tones of the trumpet, the extremely quiet, trembling voice of the soprano comes back prayerfully, synchronized with a thin stream of a high-frequency sound. Here, the clear contrast with the powerful sounds of the trumpet brought out the semi-transparent, fragile beauty of the soprano voice more strikingly. Grand nature (trumpet) and the poet’s frail mind (soprano) alternately appear, coming back and forth in the state between sleeping and waking, evoking the poet’s mind which swings between joy and grief, reality and the other world.

Immersed in the moment when his two worlds married - the nature and his inner world - in a peaceful silence (37:23)

In a slow repetition of a slightly irregular beat of the percussion, the trumpet sound and soprano voice sparsely and alternately appear, very slowly and gradually, diminishing into the peaceful silence. The two worlds - the nature and the poet’s inner world - are peacefully married in a meditative silence.

The beauty of this song piece is breathtaking -  evoking vague, dreamlike images of the soft sunlight and shadows, reflecting on small pebbles, flowers and leaves in the poet’s view, bringing out faint images of the spirits of nature. The thoughts of the poet, who was once watching the same landscape with awe, are still lingering in the wind quietly blowing through the scene. His sensations of happiness and pain, softly covered by the thin veil of oblivion, come back again transiently in the fragments of the nature scene that Frey was watching. The fleeting spirits that dwelled in nature - which only poets can see - were once captured in Roud’s writings, and now in this piece of Frey’s. With his cloudless inner eye and the extreme delicacy close to the sensitivities of Roud, Frey scooped the trembling, fragile soul of the poet with his careful, warm hands into this incredibly beautiful, embracing song piece - or a silent micro opera.

 

The last piece of the album is Ombre si fragile, a short piece for violin, cello, and piano. In this piece, very quiet, subtle sounds of violin, cello and piano appear, moving very slowly, then disappearing into silence. Extremely thin, dry textures of a violin and a cello (evoking the rustles of dead leaves) reflect the extremely sensitive, fragile soul of this poet who lived in solitude. Soft tones of a piano come in with the naturalness of the air, like a stream of the faint light momentarily coming into a dark room. The low contrast in the hollow sounds, which is as tranquil and solemn as the silence, creates an uncertain atmosphere in the gray area between the reality and the other world.

At the end, the sounds disappear imperceptibly like an unfinished sentence, assimilated with the last silence. This piece evokes in me a fleeting light that the poet might have seen in his diminishing mind in the very last moment of life - the translucent beauty that he had been desperately holding to - which long remains in the silence after the music ends.

 

My new essay on Jürg Frey's L'ame est sans retenue composition series

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“It’s about how ‘normal’, ‘regular’ things are transformed - by the work of composing, by decisions, by intuition, by the ear - to an art work.” - Jürg Frey (8/16/2017)

 
My new essay on Jürg Frey's L'ame est sans retenue composition series has been published online in the issue 4 of surround journal.

Borders Disappear - Jürg Frey's L'ame est sans retenue composition series (9/22/2017)

"Inspiring, among others, a profound and meaningful piece about L'ame est sans retenue. Thoughts about this piece and the connection of my music to art and poetry by Yuko Zama." - Jürg Frey


Jürg Frey - L'ame est sans retenue I (ErstClass 002-5)
http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/EC002.html

The New York Philharmonic perfomed Salonen, Rachmaninoff and Sibelius under Paavo Järvi w/ Leif Ove Andsnes

October 12, 2017 (Thurs) @ David Geffen Hall - 7:30 PM

On Thursday, the first half of The New York Philharmonic concert under the baton of Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi opened with Esa-Pekka Salonen's 1998 composition Gambit (revised in 1999), the NY premiere of a nine minute piece for a large symphony orchestra of overture character. In this short piece, a few archetypes emerged in various different formations and circumstances to unfold thrillingly intertwined layers of sounds. It began with soft sounds of simple tones on the pentatonic scale, penetrating the air like fine rays of light to create a serene atmosphere, gradually growing into a translucent mixture of colorful chords. Järvi brought out clear sounds with a brisk tempo from the orchestra with his fresh approach. The vivid, sharp-pointed contrast in the passages between pianissimo and fortissimo was striking - evoking in me a sparkling northern European sunlight swiftly changing its brightness and softness while reflecting on the vast water surface of the Baltic Sea (which mesmerized me once when I saw it from the Kiel harbor). The rich sounds of the string and the brass sections conjured the fullness of the water of the sea - filled with vital spirit, evoking lively dances of cheerful water nymphs. The imaginative power in this nine minute piece of Salonen's was dazzling. The surging waves of the bright sounds expanded vigorously in several passages, but not with heaviness or massiveness at all - instead with a light clean texture with Järvi’s clear-cut conducting, which elegantly united the entire piece into a silky flow.

The Salonen's piece, which swept through the hall with its northern European coolness, was a perfect overture for Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes' performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4. Crystal-clear tones of Andsnes' piano highlighted the cool, translucent texture of the orchestra's sounds with natural touches. His rhythm and tempo were as sharp as Järvi's conducting, creating a perfect chemistry with the orchestra throughout the piece. His solo in the second movement was breathtaking - so intimate and unpretentious that it felt as if he was playing the piano for his close friends at home. After the coolness of Andsnes' piano sounds breathing in the ethereal air, in the last movement, the orchestra swelled up to a vast expanse of music with a poignant coda which reminded me of Shostakovich's symphony, surging toward a spectacular ending.

In Sibelius's 5th Symphony, in the last half of the concert, Järvi surprised me with a fresh liveliness which I did not expect from this rather unpopular Symphony. His fast-paced conducting brought out crisp and vibrant sounds from the New York Philharmonic, blowing away all the extravagant phrasings and old-fashioned soundings from my memory like an exhilarating sea breeze. It sounded completely different from the past recordings of other conductors/orchestras I had heard before. The brass instruments’ solos were incredibly graceful, reminding me of the polished, silky tones of the brass section of the Orchestre de Paris - which I heard before with Järvi’s conducting on some CDs. While changing the textures of sounds from extremely delicate nuances like in the slow movement of Mozart to uplifting beats like in the scherzo of Beethoven’s symphonies, Järvi navigated the orchestra freely with his pliable, precise conducting, and the orchestra responded to him briskly. The resulted music was deeply compelling with the essence of the piece directly touching our hearts, filled with earnest intensity and sincerity of the conductor and the musicians. In this performance, Järvi and the orchestra liberated this Sibelius' 4th Symphony from heaviness and excessiveness of the old era, while extracting the maximum lyricism of the Romantic music very clearly.

Although these three pieces are rarely heard at classical music concerts, the program of the day was one of the most exciting sets of music that I have experienced live. Salonen's nine minute piece cleared the air and filled the hall with a cool breeze, accentuating the contemporary freshness of the two subsequent early-modern compositions of the Romantic composers. The birth of music does not mean just the moment when a composition was made by a composer, but also the moment when a fresh interpretation of a conductor and a perfect realization by the orchestra stun us with its freshness - like Paavo Järvi and The New York Philharmonic did on this day.

 

FOR/WITH: Works by Christian Wolff, Ashley Fure, Annea Lockwood, Michael Pisaro (9/29-30) @Issue Project Room, NYC

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Successful interaction of composers and improvisers

The trumpeter and composer Nate Wooley organized a two-night mini-festival “FOR/WITH” at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on September 29th and 30th, featuring four iconoclastic composers—Christian Wolff, Ashley Fure, Michael Pisaro, Annea Lockwood—each of whom have been breaking new ground in contemporary classical/experimental music scene with unconventional approaches. Wooley commissioned each of the four composers to write a piece, and two of those commissioned works (of Wolff's and Pisaro's) were performed at this event. Five performers—Nate Wooley, Ross Karre, Jessica Pavone, Megan Schubert, Kristin Norderval—played compositions and improvisation in various forms of ensemble and solo, together with the composers in some of the sets.

Wooley—as a distinguished improviser who also composes for his works—organized seven sets over the two nights featuring compositions and improvisations in various forms. The seven sets were:

1) Wooley played solo trumpet on Wolff's commissioned piece For Trumpet Player, partly with improvisation
2) Karre played solo percussion on Fure's piece Shiver Lung 2 (2016)
3) Two composers Wolff and Pisaro played pure improvisation
4) Four performers (Karre, Schubert, Pavone, Wooley) and two composers (Wolff, Pisaro) played Lockwood's piece Bayou-Borne, for Pauline, partly with improvisation
5) Norderval played solo soprano voice on Lockwood's piece I Give You Back (1995)
6) Wooley played solo trumpet along with Pisaro's sine tones (pre-recorded) on Pisaro's commissioned piece Stem-Flower-Root
7) Two performers (Wooley, Norderval) and two composers (Wolff, Pisaro) performed Wolff's piece Exercises, partly with improvisation

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Christian Wolff: For Trumpet Player – Nate Wooley (trumpet) (25’)

In the first set of the first day, Nate Wooley played solo trumpet on Christian Wolff's commissioned piece For Trumpet Player. This 25 minute piece has an open space for a solo performer to add free improvisation gestures within the composed structure. Wooley cut in fragments of short trumpet notes sharply from various geometric angles, with short silences in between. While the vertical complex of hard trumpet sounds delivered an intense, dry, direct impression of the composition, Wooley added soft textures to the piece as improvisational elements with his muted sounds of trumpet and his own voice, which created a sense of perspective with a realistic, immediate connection between the music and the performer with human touches. The elements of improvisation Wooley inserted in a few spots seemed to add a fresh body and character to the composition, seemingly expanding the dimensions of the music to reach a personal level of listeners' minds.

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Ashley Fure: Shiver Lung 2 – Ross Karre (percussion) (10’)

In the second set, Ross Karre performed Ashley Fure's 2016 piece Shiver Lung 2 on percussion. On the table in front of Karre on stage, there were a pair of bowl-shaped percussion instruments resembling a pair of lungs, rapidly spinning. There were also several objects and chains near the percussion instruments. Karre picked one of them (necklace-like chains first), holding it with both hands symmetrically, and slowly lowered the chains so they made contact with the thin edges of the spinning percussions. Very subtle frictional sounds came out from both sides of the speakers, or from a single speaker in turn. Karre changed objects from one to another, creating an ominous atmosphere, and gradually increasing its intensity and explosive energy toward the end.

In this piece, the performer did not make sounds by actively adding his gestures. Instead, he let the percussion instruments make sounds with his careful attention to the moment when the object touched the percussion instruments, being extremely alert to avoid excessive contact which would cause unexpected chaos, in order to place the sounds within the frame of the composition. In a way, 'listening' and ‘expecting (predicting)’ the possible outcome of the contact seemed to be the most crucial key in this performance rather than just 'performing', and this alertness and intensity of the performer seemed to heighten the tension of the music. This method, utilizing gravitational force and the different textures of objects to contact the percussion instruments, reminded me of Michael Pisaro's 'rice fall (1)' in which the sounds of rice falling on various objects created an organically composed music with extremely delicate control of the percussionist Greg Stuart, utilizing the difference of intensity in falling rice and various objects of different textures to receive the falling rice. In Fure's piece, the music contained more vigorous energy inside, gradually swelling up to the maximum loudness by the end. The way it reached a climax in the end had a similar impression as the raw, explosive energy of free group improvisation in the 60's, but this piece had more restrained, sophisticated balance and meditative calmness within a precisely structured composition.

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Christian Wolff / Michael Pisaro Duo – Wolff (small percussion, melodica), Pisaro (electric guitar, melodica) (15’)

Christian Wolff and Michael Pisaro have performed improvisation as a duo on their 2016 CD 'Looking Around' (Erstwhile 080), but this was the first time for them to play as a duo at a live concert. In this set, Wolff played melodica and small percussion instruments, while Pisaro played electric guitar and melodica. Both of the two played quiet, sparse sounds in a horizontal flow with a substantial component of silence. The vertical ripples of sounds that Wolff occasionally cut in gave the flow a sharp, wide awareness. Pisaro was keenly attentive to the sounds and silences Wolff created, responding to him naturally with no forceful effort. The sounds of the two melodicas, which were closely connected to the performer's breathing, added human elements to the improvisation with their organic textures. The balance between the duo was exquisite with a perfect chemistry, making it feel like one performer was playing.

Seeing (and listening to) this duo's improvisation was very interesting. These two composers seemed to trust each other's aspirations for perfection regardless of whether it was composition or improvisation, both minds deeply rooted in the concept of ‘composition’ (which has a structure), knowing each other's philosophies for music with respect. I was not sure if either of the two was consciously trying to play 'improvisation' outside a frame of composition, but what I felt in their performance was that the duo was 'composing' something profound in a certain 'frame' (structure) with immediate, simultaneous and spontaneous approaches with keen attentions to the space and time of the 15 minutes, without suffocating a sense of openness of free improvisation. With the close interaction of two extraordinary composers' inspirations and their intensity, the duo seemed to open even another dimension in the time-space of the room, making their performance feel like 30 minutes or even longer, with a sense of connecting to somewhere infinite.

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Annea Lockwood: Bayou-Borne, for Pauline - Christian Wolff (melodica), Ross Karre (percussion), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Michael Pisaro (electric guitar), Megan Schubert (soprano voice), Jessica Pavone (viola) (20’)

The last set of the first day was Annea Lockwood's Bayou-Borne, for Pauline (20')—dedicated to the late Pauline Oliveros (1932 - 2016)—performed by six musicians: Christian Wolff (melodica), Ross Karre (percussion), Nate Wooley (trumpet), Michael Pisaro (electric guitar), Megan Schubert (soprano voice) and Jessica Pavone (viola). The score is based on a map of the six bayous converging near Houston, Texas, and each of six musicians was assigned to play his/her instrument, keeping one of the bayous' route in his/her mind. The timing of each musician beginning to play or entering was precisely written on the score, but the last three minutes were open for free for the musicians to decide when to stop with fading out.

In this 20 minute piece, six performers played each instrument - two of them (Pisaro on guitar, Karre on percussion) on stage from the start, the other four began to walk, slowly circling around the audience in a discreet manner, playing their instruments (Schubert singing). The mixtures of the six musicians' soft sounds reverberated ethereally in the large high-ceiling room and wrapped the audience within a peaceful, serene atmosphere. Performers were listening to the each other's sounds and the reverbs in the room carefully, keeping the delicate balance between them without any particular instrument standing out. It was a great piece to be performed by taking advantage of a remarkably high ceiling of the Issue Project Room, which naturally created a phenomenal acoustic effect, evoking a solemn wind slowly ascending in a whirl toward the sky.

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Annea Lockwood: I Give You Back – Kristin Norderval (soprano voice) (8’)

The first set of the second day opened with Annea Lockwood's eight minute piece I Give You Back, performed by Kristin Norderval (soprano voice). Norderval, whose repertoire spans from Renaissance to downtown New York avant-garde, began to sing narrative-style lyrics, acutely but softly going up and down an octave while echoing her calm but intense voice throughout the room. The lyrics of the song, stating existence of a past violence a woman had experienced before, were sung in an unemotional, matter-of-fact way (despite the lurid details), finely controlled at the absolute edge between sanity and insanity. The heart-wrenching lyrics were wrapped in the dream-like translucent, impassive tones of Norderval's soft soprano voice, paradoxically highlighting the chill of the story.

 

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Michael Pisaro: Stem-Flower-Root – Nate Wooley (trumpet) and Sine Waves (30’)

The second set of the second day was Michael Pisaro's commissioned work for trumpet and sine waves, Stem-Flower-Root, performed by Nate Wooley along with Pisaro's recordings of his sine tones. In this 30 minute piece, the sounds of trumpet and sine tones moved forward slowly sometimes in parallel, sometimes precisely with the same frequency as each other - together expanding the music in a quiet manner. Although they were basically simple linear sounds, very subtle changes of the closeness between two different sound sources increased and decreased harmonic overtone, adding roundness to the music with mysterious microtones inducing a feeling of floating.

While Wooley played his trumpet part adhering strictly to the notes written on the score, he also created a distinguished contrast against the round, glossy textures of Pisaro's sine tones, with rather thin, dry, distant sounds of trumpet. This contrast gave a unique perspective to the music: the direct, acoustic sounding of the trumpet evoked a realistic human voices emerging on the surface, while Pisaro's sine tones evoked a hidden inner voice powerfully reverberating in the heart of a human being with elastic, soft and warm textures. When the two sound sources overlapped with each other's frequency, the gap between the outer world and the inner world seemed to be bridged - just like a strong stem connecting a flower (surface) and a root (inside) of a plant. In this piece, Pisaro's sine tones were especially captivating, as if they were unfolding a spacious, profound world prevailing under the ground where the roots are supplying a vital life to the plant—like a soul of a human being.

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Christian Wolff: Exercises – Nate Wooley (trumpet), Christian Wolff (small percussion and melodica), Michael Pisaro (electric guitar), Kristin Norderval (voice) (20’)

The last set of the second day was Christian Wolff's piece Exercises, featuring Nate Wooley (trumpet), Christian Wolff (small percussion and melodica), Michael Pisaro (electric guitar and melodica), and Kristin Norderval (voice). This 20 minute composition offers some freedom to the performers to play improvisation. Each performers made vertical, angular sounds with brief silences between, intertwining with each other like four different human voices intensely moving a thrilling conversation forward. In this set, the intimate and natural communication between Wolff's melodica and Pisaro's melodica was particularly memorable. 

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Roundtable Q&A - Ashley Fure, Christian Wolff, Annea Lockwood, Michael Pisaro, Nate Wooley

The idea of mixing composition and improvisation (or composers and performers who can also improvise) in this mini-festival showed Wooley's current interest in exploring a new ground of music—some new form of music that does not fully belong to either improvisation or composition. When an improviser performs composed music—like Wooley performing Wolff's piece and Pisaro's piece—the music seemed to obtain some notable spontaneity and immediacy which the improviser gives off naturally. All the other performers, not only Wooley, were skilled improvisers as well as classically trained performers of compositions. These performers, who have virtuosic improvising skills as well as great ears, infused new breath and vivid life into each composed music, opening a wide open space for the development of the music in an organic flow. It was a different experience from more conventional performances of contemporary classical compositions which often give me a rather rigid impression, or some of the old-style improvisation which has a total freedom for the performer but not so much structure in music. On the other hand, these approaches taken at this mini-festival were refreshing: improvisers played compositions with a free open frame of mind as improviser, while composers played improvisations with comprehensive knowledge and experiences in composing music with structures (frames) in mind, with the same intensity and a care for details they put into compositions. These approaches that Wooley and the composers/performers tried to embody in various combinations in this two-day festival seemed to be a successful presentation of how the elements of composition and improvisation can interact thrillingly with each other in a state of harmony.

Jürg Frey - L'ame est sans retenue I (ErstClass 002-5)

Jürg Frey - L'ame est sans retenue I (ErstClass 002-5)



Jürg Frey's L'ame est sans retenue I (ErstClass 002-5) is officially released from Erstwhile Records today (10/6). This is so far my favorite package I have ever designed. The cover art was inspired by Jürg Frey's first composition/artwork Stück (1975) #36, which has the same design except with a German sentence instead of the French title of this 5 CDs. (You can see Jürg's original artwork here.)


 


PRESS RELEASE (Oct. 7, 2017)

 

Jürg Frey - L'ame est sans retenue I (ErstClass 002-5)

Swiss composer Jürg Frey's six hour long electronic tape piece L'ame est sans retenue I was recorded and assembled in 1997/98 and is now being released for the first time. It is the longest piece Frey has ever composed in his over 40 year career.

In this piece, Frey utilized the sounds of field recordings he made in Berlin in 1997 as the source materials, alternately inserted between long stretches of silence. Frey was particularly focusing around that time on how the dynamic relation between sound and silence can affect our perception of the silence in a frame of space and time. By using the environmental sounds of field recordings and silence as materials, which was an unusual method of composing music at that time, Frey created a subtle but captivating flow over the six hours in which nearly imperceptible pitches, rhythms, dynamics, textures, overtone - all emanating from the natural environment - are faintly consonant with each other. “It’s about how ‘normal’, ‘regular’ things are transformed - by the work of composing, by decisions, by intuition, by the ear - to an art work.” (Jürg Frey)

The title “L'ame est sans retenue I” is a quotation of a single, isolated sentence from French poet and writer Edmond Jabès’s book Désir d'un commencement, Angoisse d'une seule fin (Desire for a Beginning, Dread of One Single End). The simple clear-cut structure and slightly enigmatic, ambiguous air of Frey’s L'ame est sans retenue I echo with the world of Jabès’s book, in which a large portion of white space (silence) is distinctly present between blocks of sentences and a list of evocative keywords create introspective, silent, distant atmosphere.


5 CD set: $42 plus shipping ($30 for lossless digital DL file)
http://www.erstwhilerecords.com/catalog/EC002.html


More info on Jürg Frey
http://jurgfrey.blogspot.ch
http://www.wandelweiser.de/juerg-frey.html

Opening Gala Concert of NY Philharmonic 2018 w/Jaap van Zweden

On Friday, in the first half of the Opening Gala Concert program, The New York Philharmonic under its new music director Jaap van Zweden, along with pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, performed the NY premiere of Philip Glass's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.

The opening movement of Glass’s concerto began with brisk, rhythmic sounds from the orchestra and the pianos, evoking a series of silvery white lights arising vertically from the stage in a clean structure. While maintaining crisp tones, there was also a pliable texture both in the sounds of the orchestra and the pianos. The same short melodies were repeated like a pulse, gradually transforming in a seamless flow, creating a positive energy, which evoked the throb of New York City and its people - like watching a fast-forwarded film of the decades passed by in the history of the city.

Although there seemed to be a slight discordance between the rhythms of the orchestra and the pianos at the very beginning of the first movement, soon the music came to the right timing between both. The rest of the performance was in a perfect rhythm, starting to express the subtle, silky transformation of sounds and a stereoscopic effect. The Labèque sisters' pianos were humbly in tune with the orchestra, adding sensitive touches to the music without obscuring the clean sounds of the orchestra. In the last slow movement, the music took on an ethereal feel, lending a hint of nostalgic lyricism to the air.

Giving a solid body to the clean structure of the concerto, van Zweden led the orchestra and the pianos to a natural flow, while breathing life into the music. The subtle but noticeable freshness in every moment when the texture of the sounds changed quickly was memorable. The pureness of the sounds was constantly maintained throughout the piece, while the crisp repetitions of simple short phrases created vigorous energies. All the elements in this concerto felt so natural. After the performance, the conductor, the orchestra, the pianists - and the composer - were greeted by a standing ovation. It was thrilling to see a contemporary classical piece so favorably received by such a large portion of the audience who filled the entire hall.

In the second half of the Friday night, The New York Philharmonic under van Zweden performed Mahler's 5th Symphony - and they performed it splendidly. The sound structure was simple and lucid, yet so moving with deep human warmth with the right amount of a poetic touch - exactly how I would like to hear the performances of Mahler's symphonies. The subtlety of van Zweden's conducting in the moments when the textures or the flow changed (and also at the very end of each movement) were even more breathtaking than his conducting in the previous Glass piece.

In the past, I did not have so much luck in experiencing good live performances of Mahler's 5th Symphony (often they tend to be too heavy or too emotional for my taste, or too chaotic with messed up timings), but Jaap van Zweden's Mahler 5th on this night was simply touching - blowing all those negative impressions away. It maintained a great tension and a seamless elegant flow throughout the piece, precisely timed with clear-cut sharpness, while being warm and compelling with deep, solemn reverbs, but never being overdriven or falling into a heavy mass. The balance between lyricism and coolness was exquisite. It was like Bernstein was singing Mahler elegantly with the moderate tempo in a clean structure of Boulez's conducting. Every moment was moving and refreshing - as if I were hearing this great symphony for the first time. It was definitely one of my favorite performances of Mahler's 5th Symphony, among all the live concerts and recorded versions that I ever heard in the past. I will definitely check out future concerts of The New York Philharmonic under van Zweden this season.

ニューヨーク・フィル・オープニング・ガラコンサート

2017年9月22日(金)@David Geffen Hall - 8PM   

ニューヨーク・フィルハーモニックの2018年シーズンの開幕となったオープニング・ガラコンサートに行ってきました。演目は、フィリップ・グラスの新曲「2台のピアノのための協奏曲」(NY初演)と、マーラー交響曲第5番。今回は、知人の音楽評論家の招待で、なんと1階中央のプレス席で聴くことができました。周りには、NYタイムズなどニューヨーク周辺のメディアの音楽評論家やライターの姿もちらほら。

同行した知人の話によると、1階のオーケストラ席の中央通路沿いにプレス席がある理由は、その昔、ニューヨークの活字メディアの記者達が、〆切(夜11時頃)までに音楽評を書き終えるために、演奏の最後の音が終わるか終わらないかのうちに立ち上がって急いで通路を走ってホールを出て、自社オフィルに戻ることができるように(周りに気づかれず速攻で出口まで走っていける場所ということで)、このエリアがプレス席になっていたらしい。長い演奏の時は、最後まで聴いていたら〆切に間に合わないので、当時のNYでは、ワーグナーのオペラを最後まで聴き通して評を書いた評論家は一人もいなかったのではないか…というジョークもあるとか。今はもう昔ほど原稿の〆切は切迫していないので、記者達も公演後に急いでダッシュしてホールを出なくても良いそうだけれど、往事の伝統が何となくそのまま残されていて(というかたぶん今さら別のセクションに移すのも面倒なので)、今も同じエリアがプレス席になっているらしい。

ということで、前半は、ミニマル・ミュージックの巨匠フィリップ・グラスの新作「2台のピアノのための協奏曲」(2015)。指揮は、2018年シーズンからNYフィルの音楽監督に就任するヤープ・ヴァン・ズヴェーデン。2台のピアノの演奏は、カティアとマリエラのラベック姉妹。ヤープ・ヴァン・ズヴェーデンがNYフィルの音楽監督に就任して初めての公演ということで、満席の会場には、期待感が立ちこめている。

 オーケストラと2台のピアノから、白銀を思わせる澄み切った音が、リズミカルに交錯しながら次々と生まれ、小気味良くクリーンな曲構造を立ち上げていく。白銀のイメージといっても硬さや冷たさはなく、しなやかで柔らかい質感の音には、清々しく明るいポジティブなエネルギーが宿っている。リズミカルに反復される短いフレーズが、滑らかに繋がりながら徐々に変容していき、ニューヨークという街で脈打つ鼓動の力強さと、この街に生きる人々のポジティブなエネルギー、繰り返しの日常の中で少しずつ変容していく街のイメージと、うっすらと重なっていく。冒頭部では、オーケストラとピアノのリズムが若干噛み合っていない違和感もあったけれど(あるいはそれも作曲の狙いだったのかもしれないが)、第1楽章の中盤からはオケとピアノ2台のリズムがぴたりと合い、フィリップ・グラスらしい滑らかな音の変容と立体感が美しく表現されていた。オケのクリーンな響きを損なわない控えめさで、透明感あふれる繊細な音色を出していたラベック姉妹の息の合った2台のピアノもとても良かった。

ズヴェーデンの指揮は、見通しの良いクリーンな曲構造の中に生命の瑞々しい息吹と温もりを吹き込み、控えめな丁寧さで自然な流れを生みながらも、手応えのあるしっかりした肉付きを与えていく。音の質感がすーっと変わる時の、さりげない変化もとても新鮮だ。澄み切った音色の中にほのかな詩情とノスタルジーが漂う緩徐楽章では、ガラス窓越しに流れる静かな風景を思わせた。

演奏後は、会場総立ちのスタンディングオベーションに「ブラボー!」の声が飛び交う。前半部の現代音楽曲の後にこれほどの歓声が上がるというのもすごい。私が90年代頃にフィリップ・グラスを聴いていた頃は、ミニマルな曲という印象が強かったけれど、20年以上経った今聴くと、ミニマルというよりは普通に音楽として楽しめる曲だと思った。旋律や和音、音の強弱やテンポの変化が生み出す効果で聴き手の心を動かすというよりも、音そのものの純粋な響きの透明感や質感の微妙な変化、シンプルなフレーズの反復から湧き出すように生まれる自然なエネルギーが、この音楽の魅力だと感じた。

           (休憩時間) 

 後半は、マーラー交響曲第5番。第1楽章の冒頭では、トランペット・ソロの澄んだ豊かな音色のファンファーレが、清廉な空気の中に響き渡る。高らかに響く金管の音色に打楽器と低弦の重厚な響きが厳かに重なり、静けさの中に不穏な空気が生まれるこの部分は、過去に他のオーケストラで聴いた時には、音程や縦のリズムが若干ぐらつく気がすることが多かったのだけれど、今日のNYフィルは、しっかりした音程とリズムで見事にこの部分を演奏してくれた。この不動の安定感は素晴らしい。弦楽器の合奏の憂いのある旋律がゆっくり始まると、その深く潤いのある豊かな歌心に、以前観たドキュメンタリー映画のワンシーンでバーンスタインマーラーを指揮していた時の姿が重なって見えるような気がした。

オーケストラの一つ一つの楽器が、濁りのない澄んだ音色で丁寧に音の層を重ね、音楽に奥行きと深みを与えていく。清々しさと深い憂いが同居するニューヨークフィルの響きは、重すぎることもなく、あっさり流れていくこともなく、聴き手の心に深い刻印を押していく。複雑な音の層でホールを圧倒的な響きで満たした直後に、ヴァイオリンの静かな合奏部へとすっと切り替わる時や、各楽章の最後の音が消える瞬間に、はっとさせられる新鮮さがある。(余談:周りの席の音楽評論家達が、そのたびに「はっ」と耳をそばだてる気配が感じられたのが面白かった。)ズヴェーデンの指揮は、この音楽の「質感」が変わる時の繊細で丁寧な処理が、息を飲むほど美しい。そして、情緒的になりすぎないぎりぎりのラインで、たおやかに歌心を織り込んでいく手際に、ズヴェーデンの指揮者としての際立つセンスを見た気がした。

マーラー交響曲第5番は、過去に何度か他のオケで聴いた時には、感情移入されすぎて重く感じられたり、楽器の各セクションのリズムが(特に後半に)ばらばらになって緊張感が失われたり、緩徐楽章の旋律があまりにも耳に馴染みすぎていて新鮮さが感じられなかったり…などの理由で、実は今まで気に入ったライブ演奏に巡り会えたことが一度もなかった。でも、今回聴いたズヴェーデン指揮ニューヨークフィルのマーラー5番は、冒頭から最後まで一瞬たりとも緊張の弛みを感じさせず、オケの各パートの縦のリズムがずれる瞬間もなく、終始ぴたりと合うタイミングで、たおやかにひとつの大きな「音楽の流れ」を生み出していた。聴き慣れたはずの5番という曲が、まるで初めて聴く音楽のように新鮮に聴こえ、あざとさのない素直で自然体の演奏の奥から、マーラーの魂の真摯な声が聴こえてくるような気がした。アダージェットでは、マーラーの妻アルマへの愛情が感情や感傷を超えた崇高な次元まで高められ、永遠の領域へ運ばれていくのを見つめているような、透明な美しさに包まれた。

 公演を聴き終わってから24時間以上たった今も、マーラー5番の曲中のあちこちのフレーズが、ふとした瞬間に、ふわっと鮮やかに頭の中に蘇ってくる。バーンスタイン時代のニューヨークフィルの演奏は、もしかしたらこういう歌心を湛えていたのではないかとか、ブーレーズ時代にはこんな風に澄み渡った音を響かせていたのでは…など、いろいろ想像を膨らませてくれる演奏だった。

 まさに、ブーレーズの指揮の見通しの良い明晰な音の層の中に、バーンスタインの人間的な温もりや深い哀愁が宿ったかのような、静かにそして深く心を打つ演奏。それがズヴェーデンの指揮の魅力かもしれない。そのどちらの個性とも深く関わってきた伝統のあるニューヨーク・フィルだからこそ、ズヴェーデンの指揮の持ち味を素直に受け入れて、今後様々な名演を残していってくれるのではないかと期待している。本当に、まるで長年共演を続けてきた指揮者とオーケストラのように、一分の隙もなくぴたりと呼吸のあった演奏で、オケと指揮者の「相性が良い」というのは、まさにこういう関係のことを言うのだなとしみじみ思った。

 今回見たズヴェーデンの指揮の印象をまとめると、オーケストラのチューニングや全パートの縦の線が終始乱れず、きちっと合っていたこと、曇りや濁りのない透明感のある明瞭な響きが出ていたこと、弱音や音の始まりと終わりの処理がきわめて繊細で丁寧だったこと、狙いすぎない控えめなメリハリで新鮮な息吹を随所に吹き込みながら、継ぎ目を感じさせない滑らかな曲線で自然な音楽の流れを作り出していたこと、そして懐の深さや人間性の豊かさを感じさせる素朴で哀愁に満ちた歌心に溢れていたこと。ニューヨーク・フィルの伝統とも言えるマーラーを演奏するのに、まさに理想的な指揮者という気がした。

前回、火曜日の初演ガラコンサートの日のレビューを読むと、演奏が勢いよく疾走し過ぎて、丁寧さに欠ける演奏だったという酷評もあったようですが、その反省(?)からか、2回目のこの日の演奏は勢いに走りすぎることは全くなく、非常に落ち着いた、クールさと熱さのバランスが秀逸な名演だと思いました。

 (余談ですが、リンカーンセンター内のホール入口は、今シーズンからセキュリティが強化されて、空港のセキュリティチェックのようなゲートができて、開演前に長い列ができていました。今後コンサートに行く人は、早めに到着して列に並ぶ方が安心かもしれません。あと、1階の中央席で聴いた印象は、マーラーなど大編成のオーケストラの時は特に、各楽器セクションの音が鮮明に分離良く聴こえて、音楽の流れや質感の変化がクリアに感じられるように思いました。ただ、ピアノの音は、1階で聴くより2階席以上の上方で聴く方が、倍音の広がりが豊かに聴こえるような気がします。)

※追記:次回のズヴェーデン指揮のNYフィル公演は、来年3月のストラヴィンスキー春の祭典」と、ユジャ・ワンとのブラームス「ピアノ協奏曲第1番」を聴きに行く予定です。

 

My Year-End List of 2016

Favorite Releases of 2016 (classical + experimental genres)


1. Keith Rowe - The Room Extended (ErstSolo)

2. Michael Pisaro/Reinier Van Houdt - the earth and the sky (ErstClass)

3. Mitsuko Uchida - Mozart Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major / Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major (Decca)

4. Toshiya Tsunoda - Somashikiba (edition.t)

5. Jürg Frey/Quatuor Bozzini - String Quartet No. 3/Unhörbare Zeit (Edition Wandelweiser)

6. Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Concertus Musicus Wien - Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 (Sony Classical)

7. Seong-Jin Cho/Gianandrea Noseda/London Symphony Orchestra - Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 and Ballades (Deutsche Grammophon)

 

8. Michael Pisaro/Christian Wolff - Looking Around (Erstwhile)

9. Khatia Buniatishvili - Kaleidoscope (Sony)

The Cleveland Orchestra (Franz Welser-Möst) perfomed Shostakovich - Symphony No. 4

2016年1月17日(日)7:00PM開演 @カーネギーホール

The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Franz Welser-Möst

PROGRAM:
Hans Abrahamsen - let me tell you (NY Premiere) by Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
Shostakovich - Symphony No. 4

クリーヴランド管のライブ公演を聴くのは、昨年7月にリンカーンセンターのエイヴリー・フィッシャー・ホールで、ベートーヴェンの「田園」をフランツ・ウェルザー=メスト指揮で聴いた時以来の二度目。今回は、特に響きの良いカーネギーホールでの公演だったので、このオーケストラ独特のクリーンな響きの美しさを堪能できたように思う。その公演の感想を2回に分けてTwitterで連続投稿したものを、記録として以下に転載します。

 -------------------------------
1月17日(日)

クリーヴランド管、 何てすごいオーケストラなのだろう。カーネギーホールがこんな清浄な空気に包まれたことはない。先日他界したピエール・ブーレーズに捧げられたという今日の公演。もしブーレーズショスタコーヴィチを指揮していたら、こんな演奏だったかもしれないと思わせる透明感と凄みのある演奏だった。どちらの曲も演奏が終わった後、ウェルザー=メストがそのままの姿勢で指揮棒を15秒くらい下ろさず、ブーレーズへの思いをその場にいた全員で共有するように、沈黙の中でじっと静止していた。今までにカーネギーホールで体験した、最も深く濃い沈黙の時間だった。

(・・・と、帰宅途中のプラットホームでここまでツィートして、あまりにも興奮していたので思わず逆方向の地下鉄に乗ってしまいそうになり、慌てて気づく。帰りに逆方向の地下鉄に乗ってしまいそうなほど感動したコンサートは、昨年6月のサンクトペテルブルク・フィルのショスタコーヴィチ5番を聴いた時以来。ショスタコーヴィチには、磁場を狂わすパワーがあるのか。以下は、帰宅後のツィートから。)

最初の演目、ハンス・エブラハムセンの新作「let me tell you」(NY初演)では、演奏後、割れるような拍手が長い間続いていた。菅と弦とソプラノが、同じ高音を出している時の、絹のような音色の驚くべき一体感。しんと静まり返ったホールに響く、高音ピアニッシモのヴァイオリンの合奏部では、柔らかな質感の透明な衣が優雅に舞いながらホールの空間に広がり、客席を包み込んでいくような、この世のものとは思えない妖艶な、それでいて清らかな美を醸し出していた。

バーバラ・ハンニガンのソプラノの濁りのない澄んだ歌声と、ヴァイオリンやフルートの高音の柔かな響きが、どちらが声でどちらが楽器の音がわからないほどの均一な質感と同じ繊細なニュアンスでひとつに溶け合っている。普段はメインの前の前菜のようにあっさり聴かれがちな現代作曲家の作品で、これだけ会場が静まり返り、広いホールが濃密な空気で満たされ、最後に割れるような拍手喝采で観客が沸いたのを見たのは初めてだった。翌日の「NYタイムズ」紙の評でも、この時の観客の反応のことが特筆されていた。

 

現代音楽曲の新作の指揮で大きな拍手喝采を浴びるのは、通常はヴァーチュオーゾと呼ばれる巨匠指揮者だけだが、日曜のカーネギーホールでは、クリーヴランド管を指揮したフランツ・ウェルザー=メストが、ハンス・エブラハムセンの新作「let me tell you」のニューヨーク初演の後に、まさにその拍手喝采を浴びていた。(NYタイムズ紙 1/18/2016)

 

次のショスタコーヴィチ交響曲第4番では、エブラハムセンの作品の演奏とは打って変わって、冒頭から水しぶきをあげて突き進むような鮮烈で切れの良い音で始まった。作曲の構造の隅々まで見えてきそうな理知的で精緻な演奏なのに、冷たさは全く感じさせず、澄み切った明晰な音の連なりや重なりの奥に、生き生きとした躍動感と力強い生命力を感じさせる演奏だ。

一つ一つの楽器の音の分離は驚くほどクリアなのに、オケ全体の音色が一つの線となって進んでいくような一体感がある。一本の細い弦の音色かと思ったら、弦楽器全員で演奏しているのを見て驚くことも何度かあった。金管からハープのソロへ、そして弦の合奏へと、違う楽器間でパートが受け継がれていく所も、あたかも一本の線上を流れていくように、音質の違う楽器でありながら同じ音圧で継ぎ目なく繋がっていく。誰がどの音を出しているのか、近くで見ていてもわからないくらい均一な音で、誰一人突出することがない。

昨年リンカーンセンターでクリーヴランド管のベートーヴェン「田園」を聴いた時は、音響の悪いとされるエイヴリー・フィッシャー・ホールで、しかもステージからかなり遠い席だったにも関わらず、今日と同じようなオーケストラの音色の統一感と透明な空気感、弱音の繊細なニュアンスまでもがリアルに伝わってくるのに驚いた。

今回は、ステージのほぼ左真上から見下ろすような席だったので、演奏の直接音がよく聴こえ、オーケストラの奏者一人一人の動きがよく見えたのも良かった。このオーケストラは、楽器の音色の一体感だけでなく、弓の動きなど奏者の動きまでもがぴたりと統一されているのが凄い。渡り鳥の群れが美しい編成の形を自在に変えながら優雅に飛行していくかのように、ひとつになって演奏するクリーヴランド管弦楽団。それを導くウェルザー=メストが、神のように見えた。オケ全体のチューニングと各楽器の音程がぴたりと正確に合い、最も純度の高い濁りのない音色で演奏されると、これほどまできれいにホールの隅々まで音が届くものなのか。ブーレーズが作り上げようとしていたオーケストラの音の世界というのは、こういうものだったのかもしれない。

今日のクリーヴランド管の演奏の、全く濁りのないピュアな響きの純度は、ブーレーズクリーヴランド管のマーラーストラヴィンスキーベルリオーズのCDを聴いた時の音と同じ印象だった。数本の光の線が平行して進み、近づき、重なり合い、遠ざかっていくのを眺めているような、透明な音の層の美しさ。弦の合奏や管の合奏の時に、何本もの透き通った光の柱が並んで立ち昇っていくのを天から眺めているようなあの美しさは、ちょっと通常はカーネギーホールでも体験できない現実離れした世界だった。クリーヴランド管、何というオーケストラだろう。

あれだけ近い席で聴くと、オケによっては金管の音などが響きすぎて耳に痛いことがあるのだけど、クリーヴランド管は、打楽器総動員でシンバル鳴り響き状態の大音量で演奏していても、音が塊になってぶつかってくる感じは全くなく、迫力は十分あるのに風通しの良い音が抜けていくという清涼感があった。低弦やファゴットコントラバスバスドラムなどの低音も、濁りがなく、分離の良さと切れの良さに驚いた。

冒頭の写真は、ショスタコーヴィチ4番の終演後、4度目のカーテンコールの後のウェルザー=メストクリーヴランド管。この後も長い間、拍手が鳴り止まなかった。

--------------------------------------------
1月18日(月)

昨夜は、クリーヴランド管の演奏の凄さに圧倒されて、興奮のあまり帰宅途中から始めた連投ツィートの後、9時間も熟睡してしまった。昨日はクリーヴランド管の演奏の印象について主に語ったので、今日はショスタコーヴィチ交響曲4番という曲について思ったことなどをつらつらと。

この4番という曲は、他の指揮者とオーケストラのCDで聴いた時には、あちこちに飛ぶ曲調の変化と、繋がりの唐突さに戸惑って、途中で気が散ってしまうことがあったけれど、クリーヴランド管の昨夜の演奏は、一瞬たりともゆるみのない緊張感と流れの自然な美しさに引き込まれて、冒頭から終わりまで耳が釘付けになった。

ショスタコーヴィチ交響曲第4番は、5番以降の交響曲に比べると、政治的な要素や恐怖などの心理的な要素がそれほど強く現れていないので、「交響曲」というものの構成の面白さを純粋に楽しめる曲なのだなと、昨日のクリーヴランド管の演奏を聴いていて思った。まさに交響曲(響きが交わる曲)の異なる楽器の音の層が生む響きや、その響きが与える純粋な音響的効果、そして楽器から楽器へと音の響きが受け継がれていく時の流れの妙など、音そのものの響きの美しさを楽しめる曲だ。そして各楽器の響きの純度が高ければ高いほど、オーケストラ全体のチューニングと演奏者の音がぴたりと揃えば揃うほど、その効果を大きく感じられる、聴きどころが満載の曲だと思う。

そうしたショスタコーヴィチ4番の魅力でもある複雑な音の重なりや連なりが生む構造の美しさを、あたかも澄んだ水底をのぞき込んでいるかのような透明度と明晰さで見事に見せて(聴かせて)くれたのが、昨夜のカーネギーホールでのウェルザー=メストクリーヴランド管の演奏だったと思う。

ショスタコーヴィチ交響曲の魅力は、和音や倍音が生む水彩画や油絵のような色合いの滲みの美とは違い、ロシアの構造主義美術のような、幾何学的な図形や線が各々に純度の高い形や色の違いを際立たせつつ、清廉と澄み切った空気の中で全体としての見事な調和を保っている、そんな音楽だと思う。そこでは、幾何学的な線や図形の接点に曖昧な滲みは生まれず、純然とした分離感を保ったまま、すっきりした全体の構図の中で完璧なダイナミクスのバランスが保たれている。ウェルザー=メストクリーヴランド管は、まさに、そうしたショスタコーヴィチ構造主義的な美しさを見事に体現していた。

そして、第2楽章までの機械的なリズムとテンポで緊張感溢れる演奏を繰り広げた後、第3楽章でパロディ的に挿入されるシュトラウスのワルツの一節を振る時の、ウェルザー=メストの指揮の優雅なことと言ったら。ウェルザー=メストの指揮のエレガントな側面が、きらりと光ったような瞬間だった。

昨年、同じカーネギーホールで聴いたサンクトペテルブルク・フィルの5番は、ショスタコーヴィチが当時のスターリン粛清下で、人間として芸術家として、ぎりぎりのところまで追い詰められた崖っぷちの精神状態の中に立ちながらも、最後まで譲れなかった人間としての尊厳と美への執着、逆境と批判と悲痛の中で精神が切り刻まれ自信を失いそうになりながらも、自分が創り出す作品の価値を信じる気持ちを失わなかったという凄みが、じわじわと伝わってくるような名演だった。一方、今回のクリーヴランド管の4番は、ショスタコーヴィチが純粋な交響曲の作曲に徹底して取り組んだ、その凄まじい「美への執着」が、ありありと伝わってくるような演奏だった。スコアの奥にあるショスタコーヴィチの美意識を、濁りのない明晰な視線で見据えて表現したウェルザー=メストはやはりすごい。

昨日の公演をブーレーズに捧げるというのは、おそらく後から決まったことなのだと思うけれど、それでもその気持ちが指揮者と楽団員一人一人の心にあったのか、実際にブーレーズの指揮の氷のようにシャープな明晰さと透過度を思わせる演奏だった。じっと耳を澄ませると、クリーヴランド管の団員たちが、皆ブーレーズのことを思いながら演奏しているのが伝わってくるような気がした。そして、演奏が終わった後の15秒あまりの黙祷の静寂の中では、それまで聴いていた演奏が、ゆっくりと深く観客の心の中に刻み付けられていくような気がした。

このクリーヴランド管のショスタコーヴィチ交響曲第4番の演奏の明晰さと透明度は、あたかも全身が光のシャワー(時には光の洪水)に包まれるような、カーネギーホールでもめったに得られない体験だった。いつかCDでも聴いてみたいので、ぜひどこか条件の良いホールで録音してほしい。(カーネギーホールは観客の咳き込みの音がひどいので、録音しても編集が難しそうですが…。)

* * * * *

余談ですが、カーネギーホールもようやく入口でのセキュリティーチェック(金属探知器とバッグの中身検査)が始まったようです。今まではあまりにも無防備で、チケットさえ持っていれば誰でも入れるのは危ないなあと思っていたので、良かったです。

それにしても、あのクリーヴランド管の、時として楽器の音とは思えない、光の洪水のごとくステージから発散されて聴覚とは違う感覚に飛び込んでくるような音は一体何なのだろう。特に、ヴァイオリンや金管の合奏部。ボストン響だったら、あくまでも楽器の集合体の音として聴こえてきそうなのだけど。時間が経った後にも、演奏の響きがいつまでも聴覚だけでなく視覚にも焼きついて残っているような、不思議な印象があった。

--------------------------------------------
【追記】1/19/2016

CD: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4(Bernard Haitink / Chicago Symphony Orchestra)


一昨日のクリーヴランド管の演奏を聴いて、ショスタコーヴィチ4番にすっかりはまってしまったので、ハイティンクとシカゴ響の盤をSpotifyで聴いている。すっきりした明瞭さで交響曲の純粋な響きを味わえる点や、大音量のパートが悲鳴や慟哭にならずに、澄んだ光のシャワーを浴びるような清々しさで聴ける点が似ているかも。これも4番の名演と呼ばれているそうですね。

http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail/2755711
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BBSE6Y/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_4SCNwb1M46451

Michael Tilson Thomas & San Francisco Symphony - Mahler Symphony No. 2 (SACD)

マイケル・ティルソン・トーマス指揮サンフランシスコ交響楽団マーラー交響曲第2番「復活」

マイケル・ティルソン・トーマス(MTT)指揮サンフランシスコ交響楽団マーラー交響曲第2番「復活」のハイレゾ音源をネットで入手したので、聴いてみた。これが実は大当たりのマーラー2番だった。

全体にゆったりしたテンポで、録音の音質も鮮明、澄み切った空気の中で展開する、譜面の細部が見えてきそうな見通しの良い演奏だ。ハイレゾということもあり、音の分離と空間の広がりが素晴らしく良い。音量をやや高めにして聴くと、楽器の音がクリアに分離したままどこまでも伸びていく感じで、ちょっと恐ろしいほどの迫力が出る。弱音部はこれ以上繊細に表現しようがないのではというほどに細く優しく柔らかく、強音部ではティンパニバスドラムや低弦の音が、風通しの良いすっきりした質感を保ちつつ、これ以上の凄みは出せないのではというほどの低音の沈み込みの深さと迫力を生む。弱音から強音までのダイナミックレンジの広さは、他に類を見ないほどクリアにバランスよく録音に捉えられている。底の見えない深い湖に巨大な塊がゆっくりと沈んでいくような低音の響きは、その後に続く深い沈黙を浮き上がらせる。

明快な音色で曲の隅々にまで光を当てるような透明度、楽器の音の切れの良さと濁りのない音、緻密に構成されたオーケストラの音の調和とバランスの取り方に、ティルソン・トーマスの極めて繊細な感性と突き抜けた美意識の高さを感じる。走り過ぎず、熱くなりすぎず、それでも決して淡白に冷徹になることはなく、マーラーの音楽への純粋な感動がその視線の奥にはある。第1楽章の最後の5分間の美しさと独特のリズムが生み出す緊迫感、漆黒の闇を思わせる沈黙の中に低弦の響きがゆっくりと傾れ込むように降りていく迫力は絶品だ。

第5楽章が特に素晴らしい。時には優雅な舞踏を思わせる洗練されたリズムで、時には地の底を真っ直ぐにのぞき込むような決然としたダイレクトな視線で、この音楽の終盤の、オーケストラの音と声楽のパートが明暗の光と影を揺らしながら一つになり、透明な天上の祈りへと静かにダイナミックに昇っていく様を、壮大なスケールで緻密に優雅に描いていく。第5楽章の中盤の、ティンパニの連打が静かに始まり急速に膨らんでいくところなどは、嵐が来るのかと思わせるような、スピーカーから地響きのごとく静かに迫り来る低音の凄みに圧倒される。このティルソン・トーマスの第5楽章を聴くと、この最終楽章の構成の美しさが3D映像のような立体感を帯びて浮かび上がってくるような気がする。

冒頭の一音から最後の一音まで、一寸の弛みもなく、透明な哀しみを含んだ大人の歌心が貫いている。音のため方や流し方、緩急と強弱の付け方が呼吸をするように自然なので、途中で飽きることがない。聴き始めると、歌うように滑らかな曲の流れと、美しく大胆に表情を変えていくオーケストラの演奏の機微に引き込まれて、つい最後まで聴いてしまう。聴き終わるたびに、その演奏の完成度の高さ(と録音の素晴らしさ)に、思わずスピーカーに向かって拍手をしたい衝動に駆られる。最後の音が消えた後に部屋に広がる静寂は、まさにコンサートホールでオーケストラの名演の迫力に圧倒された直後に感じる、あの一瞬の深い沈黙と同じだ。感情移入するのではなく、一貫して冷静な澄んだ視線でマーラーの曲構造を見つめつつ、その壮大な音楽美に深く心を打たれているティルソン・トーマスの感動が伝わってくるようだ。

この盤は、「Mostly Classic」のバックナンバーの2011年のマーラー特集(デジタル版)で、山ノ内正氏が優秀録音盤の1枚として推薦していた盤(SACD)なのだけど、私のニアフィールド・リスニング環境で聴いてもこれほどの感動があるのだから、もっと本格的なオーディオ装置で(大音量で)聴いたら、爆風に飛ばされるくらい感動しそうだ。できればハイエンドのパワフルなオーディオ機器で、誰にも気兼ねなく、ゆっくりじっくり聴いてみたいと思わせる名盤だ。

 

マーラー交響曲第2番ハ短調『復活』
イサベル・バイラクダリアン (S)
ロレーン・ハント・リーバーソン (Ms)
サンフランシスコ交響楽団&合唱団
ヴァンス・ジョージ (合唱指揮)
マイケル・ティルソン・トーマス (指揮)

録音:2004年6月(デジタル)
場所:サンフランシスコ、デイヴィス・シンフォニー・ホール

<参考>

ハイレゾ音源販売サイト「HDTracks」のティルソン・トーマス指揮サンフランシスコ響のマーラー交響曲第2番(24bit/96kHz)

米国AmazonのSACD

Spotifyのティルソン・トーマス指揮サンフランシスコ響のマーラー交響曲第2番

HMVのサイトの日本語の解説とレビュー