Erbe
Sampo HAAPAMÄKI (b. 1979)
Heritage (2016) [16:04]
Martin SMOLKA (b. 1959)
Wooden Clouds (2017/18) [19:08]
Carola BAUCKHOLT (b. 1959)
Voices for Harry Partch (2014/15) [23:37]
Ensemble Musikfabrik/Sian Edwards, Clement Power
rec. 2015/18, Klaus-von Bismarck-Saal, WDR Funkhaus am Wallrafplatz, Cologne, Germany
Texts for Bauckholt’s work included
Edition Musikfabrik 17 - New Works for Harry Partch Instruments
WERGO WER6870-2 [59:03]
Back in January I reviewed
another Wergo disc, one devoted to German provocateur Enno
Poppe’s analog synth homage Rundfunk, a noble experiment
in music technology which didn’t work out for me, at least. Here’s
another attempt, involving the exquisite collection of instruments manufactured
by the one and only Harry Partch. Before instruments there were period
instruments. After instruments there were Harry Partch’s instruments.
That’s one approach to identifying the chronology of modern (Western)
musical sound. Amplification, analogue and digital might constitute
the sequel.
One could, I’m sure discuss the coloristic greyscale and timbral
limitations of the modern symphony orchestra ad infinitum but
the names of those individuals who have created completely novel instruments,
tuning systems or notational methods from scratch are few and far between.
The most famous example is Harry Partch, the some-time hobo who cheerfully
rejected received musical wisdom and tradition and basically did his
own thing. As the note accompanying this disc makes clear, Partch was
very much with the ancients in as much as he considered the way a sound
looked was every bit as important as the way a sound sounded (see article);
accordingly he took quite as much care in naming them as he had done
in constructing them, conjuring exquisite nouns such as ‘Cloud-Chamber
Bowls’, ‘Blue Rainbow’, ‘Chromelodeon’
or possibly best of all ‘Spoils of War’. Each of these (and
many more) feature on the present disc.
I’m sure Partch would be aghast at (and moved by) the esteem and
reverence in which his name is held by young composers and performers
nowadays. Listening to this disc is a salutary lesson in becoming aware
of timbral gaps you never knew existed. Indeed the biggest challenge
in reviewing it has been a linguistic one; music writers have an established
vocabulary for describing conventional instruments (rustic horns, metallic
pianos, grainy violas and the like) but some of Harry Partch’s
creations truly defy description; indeed it puts me in mind of an anecdote
shared by an old friend who was a philosophy student during the 1960s
(at Bristol University). He confided that one of his final year exams
included a version of the following question: “How would a human
being explain to a Martian what a cup of coffee tastes like?”
The three pieces on the new disc each require Partch instruments, Sampo
Haapamäki’s Heritage (which lends its name to the title
of the disc) exclusively so; all were composed in the last five years.
It makes an apt contribution to Wergo’s Edition Musikfabrik
since the Cologne-based contemporary group are unique in having a full
set of Partch’s stringed and percussion instruments. These were
lovingly recreated during the 2012-13 season by a team led by Ensemble
Musikfabrik’s original percussionist and renowned instrument builder
Thomas Meixner. The musicians then had to learn to play them, and subsequent
seasons have featured a number of newly commissioned works incorporating
their use; among these are the three substantial examples on this disc.
The assertive bell stroke which launches Haapamäki’s Heritage
represents a call to arms for the musicians. Variegated strummings,
chimings and tappings ensue in a kind of primitive microtonal mass communication.
Given that one of this Finnish composer’s main preoccupations
is microtonality the challenge of writing for such an unconventional
ensemble must have been a blessing, and the collisions of the tactile
sounds of these sixteen instruments with their strange flutterings,
drones (presumably the melodica-like chromelodeon) and pipings produce
an invigorating sonic collage. Primal grunts, vocalisations and war-chants
prick these unfamiliar strains. One’s preconceptions about tuning
are swiftly obliterated. The pungent crashes that occur throughout Heritage
act as waypoints. Some of the sounds get close to those produced by
melodica, zither or Jew’s harp. In the last three minutes, pared
down fibres all too briefly reveal themselves before another din builds
to a huge communal chant.
Haapamäki’s is arguably the most abrasive of these works; I wonder
if this somehow reflects the fact that he is twenty years younger than
both Martin Smolka and Carola Bauckholt who in relative terms are veterans
of the contemporary scene. Smolka’s Wooden Clouds comprises
five short movements. The stately, angular melody presented by the winds
at its outset is modulated and adorned, but in each of its initial manifestations
it subsides on a strange descending glissando. The melody recurs
at various points elsewhere in the piece, shorn of this gesture. In
the first panel it alternates with hypnotic strikes of what sound like
temple bowls, which fade into meditative, significant silences. The
wind and brass chords which clash at the start of the next section are
dramatic and project the tang and austerity of Messiaen’s Et
Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum. Smolka presents more gamelan-like
strikes and in this way melds atmosphere with astringency. The third
section involves fragile string figures which dissolve into each other
in haunting compounds which are challenged by sustained brass notes
and in due course by cimbalom agitation. The subsequent movement is
very brief and based upon a variant of the initial stately theme which
is now pared down to a single string. The more substantial conclusion
builds inevitably toward a final encounter with the original theme,
whose chords by now have been weathered into something which hints at
sadness or resignation. In Wooden Clouds Smolka makes a little
go a long way and pulls off the neat trick of producing a work which
is surprisingly melodic and elegant given the potentially unwieldy combination
of traditional and Partch instruments at his disposal.
In Carola Bauckholt’s fascinating Voices for Harry Partch
the vocal elements at its core are most unexpected, even in this unusual
context. As the booklet note confirms, a boy reads out a text “…in
a Rhineland dialect about carp bones and fishing in the Fühlinger See”
(the system of lakes close to Cologne). The other ‘voice’
is that of Harry Partch himself, abstracted from an old recorded interview
in which he riffs about the ‘blue haired ladies’ who tended
to populate concert audiences throughout the twentieth century at the
expense of younger enthusiasts. Around these two elements Bauckholt
weaves a beguiling musical tapestry in which the singular colours of
the Partch instruments come into their own and blend naturally with
their traditional instrumental counterparts. Sawing and bowing textures
yield to the plangent tones of what sounds like an adapted flute. The
boy’s voice fits neatly into quirky little interlocking motifs.
There are further cimbalom sounds and mandolin flavours. The sounds
of low brass that emerge at 7:12 intertwine with Harry Partch’s
own voice- the spirit hovering between the grooves of this disc emerges
tentatively and syllabically. Bauckholt’s ornate writing for individual
instruments is skilful and particular. One of the cornerstones of her
music is a fascination for getting instruments to mimic natural sounds
(It is a feature of her superb violin piece Doppelbelichtung
which I reviewed
in February) and here single brass instruments effect remarkable impersonations
of Partch’s gnarled speech. Later in the work melodic sequences
in conventional instruments are shadowed playfully by the Partch counterparts
and vice-versa, while a low flute mimics the boy’s deadpan voice.
Voices for Harry Partch is limpid, mysterious and substantial.
Bauckholt impresses and delights one’s ears with each new piece,
and much as I liked both couplings on this disc Voices is the
standout.
Ensemble Musikfabrik represent a byword for commitment. It seems that
all of these players here have taken on completely new roles involving
completely different instruments in the context of a professional live
concert. Their versatility emerges in these performances as both joyful
and fulfilling. The recording is sufficiently detailed to render the
most jaded ears alert and attentive. Those who have fallen for the unique
sound world of Harry Partch will want to hear his extraordinary instruments
in these strange new contexts.
Richard Hanlon
see also Harry
Partch A Just Cause by Paul Serotsky - a three part article
and use our search engine to find much more
