Another new name to me, Daniel Tosi is both composer and conductor
of some considerable reputation, having already obtained
the Prix de Rome and the Georges Enesco and
Claude Arrieu prizes awarded by the SACEM. He has directed the Perpignan Mediterranean
Conservatoire since 1989.
I have kept the French nomenclature in the heading, but should note that a vielle à roué is
nothing more or less than what we know as a hurdy-gurdy. This is a remarkable
medieval instrument with a circular ‘bow’ which drives its resonating
strings, some of which can be played with keys to obtain different notes. The
use of ancient instruments to create new sonorities in contemporary music has
been going on for ages, and a healthy collaboration between the departments of
early music and composition in conservatoires is often actively encouraged in
a comparable spirit of research and experimentation.
Daniel Tosi was asked to write this piece on behalf of the hurdy-gurdy player
who performs it here, Dominique Regef. The composer notes that “the score
was conceived to enable the hurdy-gurdy player, [orchestral] strings and percussion
to develop their trajectory in limitless landscapes.” The title refers
to the work of a poet, Jean de La Ville de Mirmont. The piece is divided into
nine sections, half of which deal with the composer’s individual memory
- ‘roms’, and “the sounds of the planet, accentuated, demonised
and excessively melodicised” - ‘rucks’.
The result is a high degree of contrast and unity within quite a substantial
piece. Without the notes I might have interpreted these ‘roms’ and ‘rucks’ in
entirely the wrong, opposite way. The opening ‘rom’ brings us in
through diffuse, spacey noises of light abrasion over the strings of the hurdy-gurdy,
creating peeps and overtone honks which strain to be unleashed. The strings of
the orchestra undulate and throw in little shafts of sound - something which
might be descriptive of cosmic chaos as much as nascent memory. The first ‘ruck’ is
Michael Nymanesque march - great fun, but with an air of cheesy banality which
would conjure more for me the repetitive desires and run-of-the-mill thoughts
of the human brain when allowed to its own devices rather than “the sounds
of the planet.” Never mind - the oompah basses are refreshingly tonal and
the hurdy-gurdy is allowed to soar over the top like an electric guitar at times.
Following these ‘rucks’ and we get the development of this kind of ‘excessive
melodicisation’, the second making the hurdy-gurdy sound like a kind of
Chinese folk instrument, with plunky percussion heightening the effect. The third
makes it sound more like Scottish bagpipes, skirling through a Purcell/Nyman
funeral procession. This converts into a bizarre waltz, with the hurdy-gurdy
playing a rhythmic musette on the drone strings before briefly taking over the
solo melody. Other variations develop a variety of rhythmic accompaniments in
the strings, allowing the soloist to develop improvisational lines. I’m
not such a fan of some of the laboured chugging which goes on in ruck 5 for instance,
and I fear the novelty begins to wear a bit thin by the second half or last third
of the piece - depending on your tolerance for this kind of thing, especially
after having a credibility shock from the sheer awfulness of the ‘happy-tune’ theme
in ruck 7.
I might be doing the piece a disservice by chopping it up like this, but it is
almost like dealing with two separate works. The ‘rom’ sections explore
more experimental aspects of both the solo instrument and the orchestra. The
less natural scraping sounds in the hurdy-gurdy often form a background of rough
texture, the strings are sometimes freed from tonality and rhythmic stability
though not always, percussion emphasises beat or adds colour. Moods can vary
from the almost frenetic in rom 4, which finishes with an impressive but
all too short hurdy-gurdy cadenza, fugal sounding strings in a number of ‘roms’ which
always give considerable energy to the music, and a cinematic feel of mystery
or threat all over the place.
The live recording of this piece is good enough, but not without clearly audible
effects of some kind of compression or limiting during the biggest tuttis. The
performance also appears to be very strong, although there is also a sense of
strings being pushed to the limits in terms of some of the more exposed moments
of tricky rhythm and intonation. I love the distinctive, pungent tones of the
hurdy-gurdy and admire the way in which Tosi has incorporated the old and the
new, giving both equal status. I also like the way the hurdy-gurdy is allowed
to transform its sound to a certain extent, suggesting other instruments as previously
mentioned. I do however have a strong feeling that, at over an hour, this piece
is too long for its own good. I would have dearly loved to have more extended
solos from the hurdy-gurdy and some more refinement in the composition - where
the yearning intonation of the solo instrument might have been set against less
busily cataclysmic or blockbuster orchestral writing. The chopped sectional ‘suite’ nature
of the music doesn’t help in terms of its staying power, and the sheer
banality of some of the music is more expressive of a kind of incessant madness
rather than the ‘stroll’ through different influences which the composer
describes in his notes. Call me boringly conventional, but three movements of
the best ideas, better integrated and more strikingly developed, would have made
for a more effective concerto in my opinion, rather than spinning it out into
an over-filled plateful like the ones you greedily make for yourself at the salad
buffet in Pizza Hut or La Place. Nearly 3 minutes of applause at the end shows
a nice enthusiastic response to the live experience, but isn’t fruitful
listening. This is a fascinating set of sounds and an intriguing new work for
an unusual combination, but to me lacks the magic its intention suggests it might
have achieved.
Dominy Clements
Dominique Regef (vielle) 
