Phrenology with Phronesis (work in progress) : Watch yourself when the (cross-)rhythms kick in !

This is a review of a gig given by Phronesis at The Stables, Wavendon, MK

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18 May

This is a review of a gig given by Phronesis at The Stables, Wavendon, Milton Keynes, on Wednesday 18 May 2016 at 8.00 p.m.

Personnel (in surname order) :

* Anton Eger (drums)

* Jasper Høiby (db)

* Ivo Neame (pf)



This posting has been prepared from review-notes, made consistently with having to take them within blank spaces on Saffron Screen’s (@Saffronscreen’s) beautifully printed May / June programme, since a night off / out turned into a busman’s holiday… (One’s own fault, for going to The Stables (@stablesmk) and not realizing that wanting to write a review was inevitable - and, also, that its proportions would balloon beyond 'a mere sketch' of a review, which was intended 'to give the flavour' !)

At @StablesMK, @phronesismusic !

Sure both classical riffs and Latin / rock infusion influencing, here and there - Bartók in some piano ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 18, 2016

First set¹ :

1. Song For The Lost Nomads

2. 67,000 mph

3. A Silver Moon

4. OK Chorale

5. Stillness




By anyone’s standards, (1) ‘Song For The Lost Nomads’ was a pretty good opener : one might have been forgiven, at the very outset, for thinking that Jasper Høiby was just quietly touching the strings of his bass, as if to check, as string-players quietly do, that it was in tune (his is a standard double-bass with a pick-up²) :

Except that he was looking across to Anton Eger (on drums), with whom he had less need to tune than with Ivo Neame (piano)… [One is reminded of Ravi Shankar famously having said, at The Concert for Bangladesh, If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.]


Rather than with apparent tuning of any kind, (2) ‘67,000 mph’ had, if not a militaristic drum solo to start, then, at least, one that one sounded to be militarily informed. As one was to realize, from hearing the three members of Phronesis, both of the other instruments have their percussive aspect, and they rejoice in using it (please see below). Not that, just as Høiby later tapped out some rhythms on his bass’ case, one cannot, say, use the opening and closing of the valves on a tenor sax as an effect, but bass-strings, even when bowed (one can bounce the bow), can more easily lend themselves to relatively pitch-neutral sounding (and one need only look to Igor Stravinsky, or Steve Reich, for piano-tones that are embedded within ensembles).


For, Phronesis clearly does, at times, have a principle in working out an approach to compositions that uses blocks, whether of sections within the number, or bars over which it will increase or abate intensity and or tempi, and thus using the capacity of all players for ‘patterning’ the material in this way is an important aspect of the whole.

In (3) A Silver Moon, however, they perhaps felt a little more self conscious, at first, when introducing more elements of free jazz ? Before one felt that they had ‘got into’ the item, the impression was given of being a little more at a remove, and which was heightened by the seeming classical allusions as the theme became exposed. Of course, in jazz that deserves the name, it is by being improvisatory, and needing to be open to running risks, that it is alive (one does not stoop to referring explicitly to a jazz-gig where members of an ensemble around the size of a quintet exclusively played off the page), and, appreciating as much, it was fine that this central part of the set had made a little less impact.


No matter, as pianist Ivo Neame opened (4) ‘OK Chorale’, and we were into another of Phronesis’ elongated treatments, originating with his patterned (or repetitive) figurations [if there is a magic in styling it ‘Ok’, apologies to Jasper H. for having put the title into house-style] : unlike with a jazz-standard (or if one already knew the band’s discography or its members’ pedigrees), one is not – as is sometimes the case (Brad Mehldau maybe, or, more obviously, Keith Jarrett with his long-standing Standards partners) – waiting for the melody to emerge from where it has been submerged (though there is some element of that to Phronesis, too), but, as one might with formal sonata-form writing, recognizing / knowing the material that we heard earlier when it recurs.

That is as may be, but there had been a touch of holding back, from the strength in and of the first two items, in the third, and now we knew that the trio was really into it. Not, of course, just because we had a rocking, head-banging drummer before us in Anton Eger, but rather that, as we listened, and as he interleaved mini drum-solos into the texture, seeing him, and his face and expression, confirmed to us that he was on a feed-back loop with us – however that works for performers, be it seeing nods, hearing gasps or sighs, or perhaps even a sway in the front row... (It is not, one knows, only at the end, when the length and amount of applause is longer for this item than for its predecessor, that both we, amongst our fellows, and the performers come to grasp whatever might be what Russell Hoban (@russellhobanorg) liked to call the limited-consensus reality [apologies, Russ, if you likewise did not hyphenate...].)


The set closed with (5), in which Phronesis felt most free of all, and we heard Jasper H. bow his bass, even sawing with it at times, and then some low picked notes, which sounded very deep, as well as next going extremely high.

As we proceeded, perhaps another classical allusion from Ivo N., some strummed bass, and then what looked like – from the front – Anton E., playing his drum-kit with a pair of dinner-knives : metallic, anyway, and bringing that kind of timbre to cymbals and stretched surfaces alike, but just as part of that bewildering ‘build of sound’ that is Phronesis at its best, with symphonic proportions summoned by three instrumentalists.


They were lucky that we let them off the stage to take a break, though they had clearly taken much pleasure in playing (and so any need for rest came after a refreshing kind of work-out) !






Second set¹ :

6. Urban Control

7. Phraternal

8. Behind Bars

9. Kite For Seamus

10. Rabat

11. Just 4 Now



[...]



More to come soon...

Encore :



[...]



End-notes

¹ Set-lists by kind courtesy of Jasper Høiby of Phronesis (@phronesismusic). However, when the second set gets written up, there was clearly a segue that was wrongly interpreted (for reviewing purposes) as a change of mood / tempo of the sections within a number…

² But no ‘sock’, attached to the side, in which to stow the bow, which instead rested handily on the small stand by his right. One gathered that bowing the bass has come relatively recently - and also that its player does not play in a symphony orchestra (almost necessarily, the latter fact came before the former.)

(As agreed afterwards, such devices to carry the bow not only look like a holster (and how quickly does one need to whip out a bow ?), but they must also affect the sound and performance of the instrument.)


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Swinging it at Saffron Hall

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22 November

This is a review of an evening at Saffron Hall (Saffron Walden, Essex) with Britten Sinfonia, Eddie Gomez, Sebastiaan de Krom, and conductor Kristjan Järvi, on Saturday 21 November 2015 at 7.30 p.m.

Part I :

1. Igor Stravinsky ~ Tango
2. Improvisation by Steven Osborne (on material from Keith Jarrett)
3. Frank Zappa ~ Igor’s Boogie
4. Stravinsky ~ Ragtime for 11 instruments
5. Zappa ~ The Perfect Stranger


Before playing (1) Tango, and then an improvisation, pianist Steven Osborne told us that the latter was not going to be a reflection on the Stravinsky (as the programme said), but a reaction to having heard Keith Jarrett in a solo concert the night before, at the EFG London Jazz Festival (@LondonJazzFest) at The Royal Festival Hall (@southbankcentre) – something so beautiful from Jarrett that it had been with him ever since, and which he wished to share with us.

To Stravinsky’s Tango (1940), in its original form for solo piano, Osborne brought a slight holding-back on the off-beat in the second, companion bar of those with which it opens. Initially, he was quite measured, and, when it came the first time, let the chromatic writing speak for itself. However, this was as preparation for it to repeat, where he now let rip for a few bars, and then brought a charmingly smiling humour to the succeeding passages, of greater restraint : on its third appearance, even a feel of the strident, and then just enjoying the riffy rumble in the bass. The work does not end with bravado, and Osborne brought it to us unforced and placid.


Whether or not the first section of his (2) improvisation also derived from Jarrett (to begin with, one was a little reminded of Staircase, with its bassy, deliberative ascents), Osborne brought in elements of contrary motion. As, with time, he rose up the keyboard, his playing increased in note-richness, and spikiness of attack, to very high and piercing notes, which then unleashed a wild torrent of discords : with movement up and down the keys, they subsided.

A sustained note linked to what clearly possessed the serenity and beauty of Jarrett’s recent solo recordings, and with his simplicity and understatement : the theme rippled for a while, before a moto perpetuo developed under notes of longer value, and there was a very strong feeling that there was something quite incredible about how vibrant the chordal progressions were. With a subtle diminuendo, the piece died away, to end very quietly.


The (3) first Zappa piece was very short, foregrounded woodwind, brass and marimba, and, after coming to resemble a march, had a fanfare-like close. (Starting at this point, Kristjan Järvi was conducting Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) (and those who joined in with it later).)


Stravinsky’s (4) Ragtime (1918) has none of the concision or – for want of a better word – ‘moderation’ of his Tango, more than two decades later. Right at the start, beats on the bass-drum are part of the fabric, although they are used, as off-beats and in combination with harmonies that sound off (almost in a ‘sick’ sort of way), to create an unsettling effect. Alongside all of which, we soon hear the crazily energetic sound of the cimbalom, which creates a sort of unease (if not disquiet) of its own, as does the later use of the snare-drum.

The connotations of the title ‘Ragtime’ may have led us to expect something of a more easy-going nature, but the piece itself, in its origins in the ambiguous world of The Soldier’s Tale (1917), is loaded with questions, epitomized by the use of trombone, which, played with a mute, sounded sneering and sour, or by the ironic sound of the cymbals, or even a prominent slide-effect by Jacqueline Shave (on violin). The mood appears to require the instrumentalists to play a little sharp, but, in structural terms, the work is relatively straightforward to follow (unlike much of what followed¹), and so we hear a phrase passed from Joy Farrall (clarinet) to Jacqueline Shave, sounding as an echo. In this first longer piece, one could appreciate the precision of the ensemble, but also the way in which the named individuals, amongst others, were bringing a swing and a sway to their part.


Frank Zappa’s (5) The Perfect Stranger (1984) is written for a great diversity of forces, including two grand pianos (the pianists double on celestes), and three percussionists on either side of the stage and at the rear, each with an array that incorporates snare-drums, marimbas, and tubular-bells. String-players were ranged across the front (with principal cellist Caroline Dearnley on one end, stage left (and next to Clare Finnimore, principal violist), and her fellow cellist on the other, with Shave (as leader) in the middle (flanked by two other violinists). Behind them, and centrally in the ensemble, a harp.

A motif on tubular-bells opened the work (and later we could keep seeing the two or three percussionists, primed by their sets² to give us a chord or a pair of chords). When we heard twin marimbas with what sounded like a xylophone, the effect was, for a moment, almost Boulezian³, but his is not the sound-world that Zappa inhabits, because (early on) he had Shave playing Zigeuner style, and had written passages with an extreme, highly slurred form of legato, as well as a jerky type of staccato.

Some moments in the work jumped out, such as a lovely short passage for Sarah Burnett on bassoon, and when the harp (Sally Pryce) came in and out of prominence. Likewise, we suddenly heard from the three blocks of percussion on snare-drum, or doubled marimbas with tubular-bells. All in all, though, the work had a quirky moodiness of its own, revolving its material ruminatively, but with occasional bright – and seemingly uncynical – overlays of brass (or of overshadowing with it), and we seemed a long way from where the evening had begun.

* * * * *

Part II :

6. Claus Ogerman ~ Excerpts from the Second Movement of Symbiosis (1974)
7. Darius Milhaud ~ La création du monde
8. Simon Bainbridge ~ Counterpoints


At this point in the evening, Eddie Gomez first came on stage, looking assured and relaxed along with Sebastiaan de Krom : with Steven Osborne, they were to form a neat trio, stage right, on piano, bass, and Pearl drum-kit, respectively. (Gomez’ bass had a pick-up so that he could monitor himself.)

The piece by (6) Ogerman began with a piano statement, passed to the woodwind and strings, and which, as it continued to be played, started to sound to have oriental overtones. Eddie Gomez waited, holding his bass, and with one leg casually resting on the calf of the other at one point. Steven Osborne then made a shorter utterance, with which the Britten Sinfonia players joined in, and which reminded of Aaron Copland. On Osborne’s third utterance, Sebastiaan de Krom joined in, using brushes, and Gomez started quietly strumming, although, since this was a work that might have had an improvised element, he seemed to be closely reading his score.

As the movement proceeded, Gomez was playing very far down the finger-board, in a way that sounded somewhat agitated at times, and plucking very close to the bridge. After a repeated note, with quiet strings, the sound of Gomez on bass became more agitated, but with piano-textures underneath it. Towards the end, he employed a lot of tremolo, and the impression made by the Sinfonia strings was quite luscious : it concluded with piano, bass, and strings.


Having first looked at the evening’s programme, and somehow confused reading the title of Milhaud’s La création du monde (his Opus 81a) with expecting to hear his Le bœuf sur le toit, Op. 58, one was more than prepared, in one’s head, for the insistence of its rondo-like form (from more than three years earlier****, and before he had heard jazz for himself in the States).


In the introduction of (7) La création du monde, he uses saxophone, and a Spanish style to his trumpets, to create a stately air, but it was not to be long before a jazzy bass, snare-drum and trombone launched first Paul Archibald (trumpet), and then Joy Farrall, with a ‘kick’ and a swing on clarinet. All of which, with Milhaud, very soon gets out of hand, with a riot of woodwind and brass – or seems to, because he suddenly drops down, eventually to the more subtle forces of string-quartet and flute. At this point, Bradley Grant gave thoughtful emphasis to some idiomatic writing for alto-sax, with some smooth slides and sinuous passages, before horn and other instruments joined in, and became more prominent.

There is gusto in the quartet of string-players, to whom Milhaud resorts again (and it seems that he heard performances in New York City where a string-quartet adopted such a percussive role), adding in timpani, and building up to a swirling, Gershwinesque tutti. Again, he brings us down from there, to oboe (Emma Feilding), before developing into further lively writing for Farrall, and a pulsing sort of shuffle.

However, these are passages into which he has built what might be punctuations, but which sometimes feel like interruptions : with a tin-pan-alley section, what begin as clearly signalled developments grow into a sort of primaeval, if short-lived, cacophony, in which alto-sax (Bradley Grant) and bassoon (Sarah Burnett) have key roles. They continue to do so, as, initially with a slow rallentando, Milhaud closes the work : he evokes material from the beginning, but patterns it differently, for a brief last riff, before a quiet close.


For reasons that were not entirely clear, unless indicating that he had very much enjoyed conducting Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia), Järvi half-turned to the audience with a cheeky grin at the end of the Milhaud (which was not to be the last that we saw of such playful expressions).


At times, Simon Bainbridge’s (8) Counterpoints (2015) was musically quite bewildering, but it often came to resemble a one-movement Chamber Symphony (or Kammerkonzert). As has already been remarked**, in commenting on Zappa’s The Perfect Stranger, there was much going on to see happening, or about to happen, but here it would probably have been better heard, and not watched – as, for example, when a small gong was raised out of and lowered back into water ? One wanted to be able to be aware of such sounds in the whole (and maybe then peep out, to see what they were), not have one’s attention drawn visually to the mechanics of the sound-production : sometimes, less is more, because one may see eight double-basses on stage, but not hear the sound of eight instruments.

The work had a very quiet start, with strings and a ‘squeaky’ bass-effect from Gomez. More so than before in the concert, Kristjan Järvi was bringing piano or cymbals, say, in and out with very definite cues or strokes. As well as familiar pairings, such as of marimba and vibraphone, composer Simon Bainbridge used a variety of instruments, and so we had Gomez with the rarely heard bass-flute (Sarah O'Flynn), and we could sense, at times, that there was an underpinning beat to the whole concerto.

In one moment with Järvi, there was a strange face-off with Gomez as to whether he would play when directed. Then, as there were further games, and an encouraging gesture and grin from Järvi, it all seemed to have been in good spirits. A special feature of this part of the work was an extended section for oboe and soft bass. The concerto ended with downwards cascades of notes, finishing with Gomez.



End-notes

¹ Where one feels forced to give more of ‘an impression’, in more general terms, rather than describe the work and how it unfolded : completely unlike a fractal, where any part might give one the whole.

² It became especially true of the second half of the concert that being able to see so clearly what was happening was a distraction from listening (and so the opposite effect from hearing Colin Currie and The Colin Currie Group at this venue in an all-Reich concert)). The composition by Simon Bainbridge, which closed the evening, would actually have benefited from having closed eyes, had it not been realized too late.

³ This observation seems less unlikely, given that Jo Kirkbride’s programme-notes informed us that Pierre Boulez had commissioned the work, as one of three by Zappa that he recorded with The Ensemble Intercontemporain.

⁴ Apparently, according to Wikipedia® (@Wikipedia), Le bœuf sur le toit was originally to have been the score of one of Charlie Chaplin’s silent films (Cinéma-fantaisie for violin and piano).


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Morten and Eric

This piece is about Shining Night : A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen (2012)

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3 March

This piece is about Shining Night : A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen (2012)

Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen are huge names in the sacred choral music tradition in America.

To-day, on a Sunday afternoon, the latter is in Cambridge, conducting a rehearsal just now before a screening of Shining Night (2012), a new film about him at 4.00, complete with a Q&A with the director and him. (Later, the concert for which the rehearsal.)

There may be more relevant and compelling things to ask in the wake of the film, but my question, as presently envisaged, is:

If you agree that certain composers have a distinctive voice or sound, is it fair to characterize that as their harmonic language, and, if so, what are the elements in your harmonic language are of which you are aware, and, if not, how would you describe what makes your compositions yours ?


Michael Stillwater's film gave an affectionate appreciation of Lauridsen the man, the composer, and the participant in rehearsals where his work is being performed, as well as of Waldron Island in Washington, where he lives part of each year, looking across to Canada. Certain messages, apart from the power and cohesiveness of the work, came across very clearly :

* Lauridsen is almost a poet in his approach to composition, as well as a sociological and historical scholar in putting the texts that he sets in context

* Indeed, as he revealed in the Q&A, he reads poetry every day, and begins every class at university with a poem (and the opportunity for others to share poetry)

* He is quite aware of musical language, and so, in setting O magnum mysterium, says that he did not want anything to interpose itself between the text and the hearer

* He alluded to a wealth of notes 'discarded' to get 'the right ones'

* The natural world and the silence of where he chooses to live are supremely important to him

* The sense, as he later confirmed, of being a private person, but one who feels deeply for history, for those who will hear his compositions, and for those who sing them, having deliberately made Lux Aeterna within the capability of choirs of competent singers, rather than just highly skilled ensembles

* Having to pawn one of his two instruments or his typewriter to get by, he had not had things easy in early days


Initially, Lauridsen answered questions from two members of the music society at Queens' (his hosts that day).

When I got to ask a question, I asked whether being front of the camera and talking about himself had felt intrusive - in a very long answer, he was quick to say (and quite defensive in saying so) that he is used to talking in public as a university teacher. However, the fact remains that there was at least one moment that Michael Stillwater had caught on camera in his documentary where Lauridsen looked choked by what he was remembering or talking about.

What I had wanted to know was whether Stillwater had had to do anything to make the experience easier for Lauridsen, especially at those moments, but he wanted to suggest that he was not even aware of the camera.

He said that, when he had responded to Stillwater's approach to make a film, he had freely invited Stillwater to film him in rehearsals and performances, first in California, then in Scotland, but it sounded as though he hoped that he would not have to be filmed on his retreat in Washington, in an unquestionably beautiful location that Stillwater's cinematography showed to good effect (despite the limitations of the digital capture of certain qualities and characters of light).

Stillwater was equally clear that he had felt - rightly - that, in effect, the heart of the film would have been missing without Waldron. Good for overcoming both Lauridsen's reluctance, and for making the presence of the crew a happy one for other residents !

As for whether one is with those such as Giles Swayne who do not regard Lauridsen as 'a real composer', I believe that how one views his work is a matter of opinion, but that his conviction and integrity when it comes to what he views as important in life and in his work (inseparable as they may be) come across and deserve not to be denied.


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Performance in proposal: Bach's Mass in B Minor

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10 August

I heard much of the re-broadcast Prom in which this work was given at the weekend.

There, they took a break after the Gloria, and resumed with the Credo, but this afternoon proceeded with only a few words from the presenter folowing the applause at the end of what was its first half.

But, as I queried recently in an informal chat with one of the directors of a festival (which had done likewise), it may be the organizers' and the audience's idea, after around one hour of music, to resume after tea, wine, cake or strawberries, but is that best for the work?

I think not: I think that the Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) builds, and that, if people can turn up for a play and find that the performance runs for 90 minutes to 2 hours without an interval, they could and should with this work, rather than interposing the trivial things entailed in an interval.

With the St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) (I have a posting called Meditations on Matthew), however, I do not think so, because it is in two Parts, and anyway runs to longer than 3 hours - having heard it without a break, I would not wish to do so again, even if that means I am faint hearted: by the standard of Bach's day, I certainly am, where complaining that a sermon was longer than 20 to 25 minutes would have been ludicrous, and the Passion itself would have had worship, too, before, between and after each Part, plus that full-length sermon.


Elsewhere, I complained that Stravinsky's Mass, when - for once - it was broadcast live (or at all), had interpolations from the seventeenth century. For me, having an interval in Bach's masterpiece is alike unnecessary.


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Performance anxiety

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17 July

These words are sometimes thought of in another connection.

In the context of Richard Sennett's lecture at The Aldeburgh Festival, although he did not ever seem to suggest (in addressing his topic) how a well-designed place for the performance of music or theatre could lessen it, it meant the fear on the part of either some of the performers or members of the audience that something would go wrong with the performance, a necessarily inhibiting feeling.

When listening to The Menuhin School Orchestra play Mendelssohn's Sinfonia No. 1, the fears were lesser than when they started to play the more rhythmically and dynamically varied Apollon musagète by Igor Stravinsky, but they need not have been present in either case: the pupils' musicianship, as conducted by Malcolm Singer, never appeared to be in doubt, and they brought off this second work to great acclaim.


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Stravinsky's Mass

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7 July


Inserted amid this reconstruction of a 13th century English Mass are two parts specially written by Gavin Bryars. The old and the new intermingle in the work of this stellar vocal ensemble.


This is what early music typically does just at the moment, e.g. Stile Antico, in their new programme of works from the times of all of the Tudors, having the Kyrie (and, maybe, the Gloria, too) of a Mass by Byrd followed by a work, say, by Tye before going back to the Credo of the Byrd, and so on.

However, since 'everyone' seems to be doing it, the words that I have lifted (above)* - from Trio Mediæval's CD A Worcester Ladymass - are describing a common approach, one that I did not want to hear applied the other night (on said Radio 3):

Stravinsky's simple, late Mass I know well, but it is never given a live outing. Unlike these fifteenth- or sixteenth-century settings of the mass, which it may be rather artificial to hear as concert works in one run and which may benefit from the contrast of another composer's style or another period's approach to help us focus on what it is that they are, his work is very compact and scarcely lasts more than fifteen minutes.

Whether it was the point of contrast for the earlier composer's music that was sung on this occasion, or it was thought necessary to allow entry into Stravinsky's sound-world by performing works that influenced him, I do not know. I simply wanted to hear his Mass, and then some other things, perhaps.


End-notes

* And which I could almost imagine Sean Rafferty saying (he who, for me, is the one and only true host of Radio 3's programme In Tune).


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