This outstanding release
contains the complete piano works to
date of Sir Harrison Birtwistle, performed
by Nicolas Hodges (no relation to me),
an outstanding pianist with a ferocious
focus on new music. Coincidentally,
just a few weeks ago in New York, I
had the good fortune to hear an excellent
sampling of Birtwistle’s chamber works
with the composer in attendance, and
in high comic form, and he continues
to surprise with his depth and range.
And the surprises continue
here. The title work, The Axe Manual,
is "a compendium of rhythmical
devices" according to the composer,
and is also a joking nod to Emmanuel
Ax, who commissioned the work. It opens
with a sort of surreal tango, with Hodges
and Claire Edwardes in perhaps a semi-lethal
embrace, but all highly entertaining.
Much of the score contains irresistible
drive, its rhythmic patterns alternating
between high energy and virtual stasis.
Like much of Birtwistle’s work, this
one well repays repeated hearings and
is, like much of the material here,
great fun as well.
Placed immediately
following the title track are three
short pieces, Oockooing Bird
(c. 1950) with its modal melancholy,
the pensive Sad Song (1971),
and the softly beguiling Berceuse
de Jeanne (1984), all just two or
three minutes long. These three form
a curiously interesting "mini-survey"
of the composer’s thoughts separated
by decades, and show him writing occasionally
in a more simple, pristine way, in marked
contrast to some of his more complex
statements.
Précis
seems like a huge stylistic jump, a
small experiment in forceful modernism.
It strikes me as unique, at least in
this context, a stepping-stone to some
of his later works. Hector’s Dawn
is short – slightly over a minute –
but enters like one of those brief nightmares,
when you wake up sweating and fearful,
still not quite sure that the terror
has passed. The Ostinato with Melody
is also from 2000 (apparently a fertile
year for Sir Harrison), and tickles
with Nancarrow-esque phrasing, like
his blues experiments. This is followed
immediately with more tango, this one
written for Betty Freeman and has a
mysteriously off-kilter feeling about
it. And the Saraband, which Sir
Harrison describes as "a bit jazzy
with some pretty sleazy harmonies"
indeed uses the traditional saraband
as a model, but he subverts the genre
by never repeating the initial figure
in the same way again.
And then we come to
the dazzling Harrison’s Clocks.
Each of its five sections begins with
the same loud descending rumble, aptly
characterized in the notes as a sort
of ritornello, or "something
like a clock striking." The first
section is a fiendishly difficult toccata,
like one of Bach’s two-part inventions
spiraling helplessly out of control.
The second keeps obsessively returning
to the same note, gradually slowing
down. The third could almost be influenced
by Conlon Nancarrow, the fourth has
an intriguing "chiming" effect,
and the last closes the piece down with
yet another toccata with a curious staggered
rhythm making the section appear to
be chasing itself.
This is all terribly
exciting music (not to mention exceedingly
taxing to play), performed by Hodges
with panache to spare. Some of the more
difficult passages – like the first
of the three toccatas in Harrison’s
Clocks – don’t seem to faze him
at all. Hodges also shows a bit of scholarly
creativity, with notes in the form of
an extended interview that he and Sir
Harrison completed with Jonathan Cross
in 2004. The thoughtfully produced booklet
includes reproductions of manuscript
pages that give even further insight
into Birtwistle’s thoughts. Including
score samples is almost always illuminating,
and I wish more recording companies
would do this, especially for unfamiliar
works.
Metronome’s sound is
spacious and detailed, showing Hodges
in the best possible light. He is one
of the most adventurous young pianists
on the scene today, with a great deal
of interesting material already under
his belt. His recordings of Michael
Finnissy’s work are excellent, and I
recently acquired his CD of works of
Salvatore Sciarrino, unlistened to as
yet. And he is a champion of the music
of Konrad Boehmer – ever heard of him?
Me neither, which is high praise. In
short, this is a thematic project that
is very well produced, and highly recommended
for Birtwistle fans, as well as those
tracking trends in 20th-century
piano music.
Bruce Hodges
Nicolas Hodges (piano), Claire Edwardes (percussion
on The Axe Manual), 
