SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL CONCERT REVIEW
 

“Musica Universalis”: Talea Ensemble, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York City, 8.7.2010 (BH)

Alex Mincek: Nucleus (2007)

John Cage: Etudes Australes: Book 1, Nos. 7 and 8 (1975)

Beat Furrer: A due (1997)

Karlheinz Stockhausen: from Tierkreis (1975/2010)

“Cancer” (arr. Anthony Cheung)

“Aries” (arr. Alex Mincek)

“Capricorn” (arr. Steve Beck)

“Libra (arr. Mario Diaz de Leon)

Mario Garuti: Il demone meridiano (1997, U.S. premiere)

 

Stockhausen’s output doesn’t always cause warm, fuzzy feelings, but after the Talea Ensemble presented four parts of Tierkreis at the Tenri Cultural Institute, the friend with me exclaimed, “Heartbreakingly human!” Each of the twelve sections (for the signs of the Zodiac) is a simple melody, with the performers invited to repeat the theme as many times a desired. Originally designed to be heard on music boxes, the set can be played on any instruments, and here, four composers—each adopting one of the twelve—enlisted piano, viola, saxophone and percussion. Anthony Cheung turned “Cancer” into a mildly louche jazz club, accented with soft thwacks of wood blocks. In the hands of Alex Mincek, “Aries” sounded like a fairy tale raptly told by birds, chirping the story with high frequencies. The group’s pianist, Mr. Beck, gave Ms. Weisser a rhapsodic solo in “Capricorn,” and Mario Díaz de Leon turned “Libra” into a tableau of frozen, twinkling stars. The players, clearly enjoying themselves, included Eliot Gattegno (saxophone), Steve Beck (piano), Elizabeth Weisser (viola), and Alex Lipowski (percussion).

The program began with Nucleus, an intriguing piece for saxophone and drumset by Alex Mincek. The opening rocks back and forth, with the saxophone in tiny, pitched breaths; the percussionist replies with tightly controlled brush strokes. But soon we realize Mincek has been setting us up for the work’s more explosive sections. Mr. Gattegno was up to the challenge, able to produce the outsized, expressive honks called for in the score, and Mr. Lipowski, at home with all manner of percussion, was at times a one-man rock band. Mr. Beck followed with the spare textures of two of John Cage’s Etudes Australes, notable for being relatively chordless, with individual notes often framed by silence. As Mr. Beck’s hands criss-crossed each other at seemingly every turn, he somehow nimbly transformed these into an elegant palate cleanser before the demanding remainder of the evening.

Beat Furrer’s A due begins with the piano in a blitz of sputtering octaves, while the viola offers its own sparkling counterpoint, a gentle rainfall of pointillist gestures. The alluring results are much more difficult to play than it might initially appear. But if there were any fearful moments in this high-energy performance by Mr. Beck and Ms. Weisser, neither one showed any signs of fatigue.

The program closed with the United States premiere of Mario Garuti’s Il demone meridiano. Born in Modena, Italy in 1957, Garuti now teaches in Milan, and has written a restless collage of vivid effects for saxophone, piano and vibraphone, from crunchy clusters to delicately placed individual notes, occasionally interrupted by some stormy outbursts. In the latter, Mr. Gattegno’s powerful, virtuosic wailing would have done Coltrane proud, coupled with Mr. Beck’s eloquent piano surges, and Mr. Lipowski’s quietly demonic work on the vibes, sometimes adroitly tapping the surfaces with his hands instead of mallets.

Bruce Hodges

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