Simon CHRISTENSEN (b.1971)
MANIFEST – But There’s No Need To Shout [72:18]
Birgitte Bærentzen Pihl (violin), Signe Madsen (violins), Mina Fred (viola), Sofia Olsson (cello)
rec. September 2014, Frederiksberg Castle, (Frederiksberg/Copenhagen), Denmark
DACAPO 8.226587 [72:18]
If you want your string quartets to sound like a perseverance-contest
among aspiring bagpipe players, this is decidedly for you. Simon Christensen’s
MANIFEST – But There’s No Need To Shout – Music
for string quartet (one movement, 72 minutes long) “wants to avoid going
up and down – wants to avoid going up and down, wants something different
than the omnipresence of fast moving notes and all kinds of all kinds –
wants something different than the omnipresence of fluctuating dynamics –
ends as a MANIFESTation for chord progressions going up and down… –
seeks a unique acoustic sound.”
I haven’t gone batty, in case you are wondering. I’m quoting the
self-description — the manifest of MANIFEST — from the booklet.
If you think you have an idea of the music already, I think you are probably
right. Well, since I can muster no appreciation for this music at all, other
than the subconsciously smug intellectual gratification of having listened
to it, I will quote more from the artsy, impractical liner notes; just about
the first time I don’t adore a cover/notes that Denise Burt designed
for Dacapo. In the re-printed appreciation the composer Jexper Holmen wrote
– presumably either to the venue or composer or performers or perhaps
as a letter to the editor to a newspaper. In any case he writes:
“[I] … would just like to say that Simon Christensen’s string
quartet MANIFEST – But There’s No Need To Shout, which
I heard this afternoon at Frederiksberg Palace Chapel, was a revelation. A
work that played for more than an hour without dramatic progression and without
ascending and descending motions. [Ed.: Sounds like reading a novel by Adalbert
Stifter! Except I find Stifter oddly enjoyable.] A work that exclusively used
the open strings of the instruments, retuned to micro-intervals. In addition
each string had a fixed rhythmic figure that reappeared each time the string
was used. The combination of the rich world of harmonics in the open strings
and the harshly and richly dissonant chords that constituted the work resulted
in a unique, dark, lustrous sound. The fixed rhythms gave each chord a pulsating
inner life. The absence of melody and dramatic effect provided rich scope
for absorption in this original universe. MANIFEST is beautiful in
a way music has never been beautiful before.”
Incidentally, I can totally get on board with this: The description is spot-on
and better than what I could have given. If this is beautiful, it is most
certainly a different beautiful than any other ‘beautiful’ before.
Reading this statement, I went simultaneously “Oy Veh!” and “Neat-O!”.
In the hearing, I fell down heavily on the side of “Oy Veh!”,
granted … perhaps for lack of patience, perhaps for not listening intensely,
intently enough. Alas, to me it sounds like aforementioned bagpipe-contest.
I’m not sure it’s quite as unique as made out to be, either, but
for lack of a good comparison off the top of my ears I won’t make that
claim too loudly. It would be the height of pretentiousness to say something
about the musician’s performance. Maybe only the composer knows how
superb (or not) it was. Braver souls than I shall venture forth and find enjoyment,
which is surely to be had, in some way, from Simon Christensen’s MANIFEST
– But There’s No Need To Shout.
Jens F. Laurson
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