SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Aldeburgh Festival 2008 (7 and 8) :  Bach, Cage, Birtwistle, Stravinsky, The Arditti Quartet, The Maltings, Snape, Suffolk 27.6.2008 (AO)

and  

Hallaig : the poetry and landscape of Sorley McLean, a film by Timothy Neat

Aldeburgh Cinema, Suffolk, England 27.6.2008 (AO)

Irvine Arditti

Any Birtwistle premiere is an important event but this was specially interesting as he hasn’t written all that much for string quartet. Yet his Pulse Shadows (1996) was so remarkable that the prospect of more has been eagerly awaited for years. Irvine Arditti premiered the nine string movements in Pulse Shadows, and was behind the creation of Tree of Strings.  The Arditti Quartet premiered it at the Wittener Musik Tage in Germany on 27^th April this year.  Many in this audience were dedicated enough to have travelled up from London, and the turnout at Snape was perhaps equivalent to a sell-out at the Wigmore Hall.

Harrison Birtwistle and the Gaelic poet, Sorley McLean, were neighbours on the remote Hebridean island of Raasay in the 1970’s.  Birtwistle’s newest work, Tree of Strings refers to a poem by McLean. “The Tree of Strings” writes McLean, “is in the extremity of grief”.  Yet Birtwistle’s piece isn’t descriptive, for the poem is a starting point rather than a goal.  Like the movements in Pulse Shadows, the music for string quartet extends the songs, while existing as separate entities.  On first hearing, what stands out about Tree of Strings is the sense of movement.  The violins and viola act like points on a triangle, while the cello acts as a bridge between them.  There are snatches of quasi-melody, even a quirkily wayward section like a tipsy Charlie Chaplin  trying to dance.  In one of his few comments on the background to the work, Birtwistle mentioned that his home on Raasay had been near a house where pipers had come from far away to master the pibroch, bagpipe music.  When strict Calvinists took over, music was banned.  Yet as the film about Sorley McLean demonstrated, that didn’t entirely suppress private music. McLean’s grandmother sang him ancient Gaelic songs, and the spirit of song enriched his poetry.  Tree of Strings isn’t explicit, but perhaps its air of ambiguity connects to that irrepressible impulse.  “In the harp of Ruari, and the pipes of the Patricks, is the loved tree of my talk” writes McLean, “the serene, lovely music, the white crying music, the music of my love and talk”.

There are wild passages, such as when Arditti plays sudden, uninhibited flourishes, but the overall mood is understated and restrained, changing directions heralded by subtle intervals.  Birtwistle also gives prominence to the cello part which acts in acerbic counterpoint to the violin, reminiscent of the cello solo in Ferneyhough’s String Quartet No 5 (see review)  also an Arditti Quartet premiere. Towards the end, one player at a time leaves the unit, to play on his own at a distance.  Gradually they return, again one by one, and the ensemble is restored.

Philip Langridge said recently that Birtwistle writes “mathematically, in the way Bach writes mathematically, but with great emotion” so it was instructive to hear Birtwistle’s transcriptions for String Quartet of three parts of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge. Birtwistle keeps the lucid purity, even with four instruments instead of one. What he injects is the otherworldy mystery that atonality expresses so well. The adaptation of Contrapunctus VII was particularly beautiful and moving. By playing the first Bach transcription with Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet together, the Arditti Quartet created a seamless flow, each piece enhanced in relation to the others.

This year in Aldeburgh, minimalist aphorisms and free spirited “games” have been given full honours, so it was inevitable that the music of John Cage should feature.  His String Quartet in 4 Parts was written to celebrate silence without actually using silence, well before the notorious 4’33”. Far more consciously than Bach or Birtwistle, Cage used mathematical concepts to create the piece, yet ironically the effect is surprisingly moving.  Perhaps that’s because there are so many ideas at work that the imagination has lots to play with, and the Arditti Quartet expressesthem with such agility.  Minimalist this may be, but it articulates by implication, letting the listener fill in the detail in his or her own mind.

To read an interview with Irvine Arditti in 2006,  please click Here.

Anne Ozorio

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