Brian FERNEYHOUGH (b.1943)
Terrain [14:12]
No time (at all), for 2 guitars [7:25]
La Chúte D'Icare for clarinet and small ensemble [9:37]
Incipits, for viola and ensemble [11:08]
Les Froissements d'Ailes De Gabriel, for guitar and ensemble [17:47]
Graeme Jennings (violin); Geoffrey Morris (guitar); Ken Murray (guitar); Carl
Rosman (clarinet); Erkki Veltheim (viola)
ELISION Ensemble/Franck Ollu; Jean Deroyer
rec. no details supplied
KAIROS 0013072KAI [60:09]
Irvine Arditti is human! The proof is right here on the first track, Terrain.
It is one of the many pieces written by new complexity composers for Arditti,
at his urging but also presumably under the assumption that no mere mortal
would ever be able to play it, or even have the guts to try. But no, here
is a performance from somebody else - the violinist Graeme Jennings - that
does the music full justice. It is lively, precise and focused, a harbinger
perhaps of a new generation of Ferneyhough performers who are both willing
and able to take up the challenges.
In the following tracks, the prospects become even more promising. Every work
here is for a concertante instrument with small ensemble, and the playing
from both the youngish soloists and the youngish chamber orchestra is incredible
throughout. Performing Ferneyhough involves reconciling a paradox. He is a
composer who has repeatedly stated that his music should be precisely executed
rather than interpreted. Yet this music is full of life and energy, and as
much of it comes from the performers as from the scores. To express the impulsive
energy of this music, while always remaining faithful to the detail is quite
an achievement.
Timbre provides continual variety on the disc, both in terms of choice of
solo instruments and of makeup of the ensemble. The solo instruments are violin,
guitar duet, viola and finally solo guitar, while the instruments of the ensemble
include bass flute, E flat clarinet, soprano trombone and bass trumpet. None
of this eases the practicality of performance, but it does allow the composer
a sophisticated palette from which to divine his subtle textures. You won't
find much lyricism here, and most of the sounds are of the dull or mildly
abrasive variety. That doesn't make it sound very attractive, but the subtle
gradation of timbre between the instruments makes for endlessly fascinating
sounds. The solo clarinet in La Chute d'Icare is cast against type
to a certain extent, so used are we to hearing the clarinet as a lyrical voice.
But the choice of instrument, here and throughout the disc, is ideal.
no time (at all) is for two guitars tuned a quarter-tone apart. The effect
is reminiscent of the early micro-tonalists, particularly Haba and Wyschnegradsky,
for whom the quarter-tone piano was the instrument of choice, a sound which
the plucked strings of the guitars seem almost consciously to imitate. Ferneyhough
has written a number of works for guitar in recent years, and although I don't
know his motivations, it is an instrument that suits his music. The classical
guitarist is, after all, a performer who is habitually addressing musical
complexities with a minimum of means. The composer seems to have embraced
this onstage conflict between the performer and the dots, and to have upped
the ante with thrilling results.
Anybody who was unfortunate enough to have sat through Ferneyhough's disastrous
'opera' Shadowtime a few years ago may be relieved to hear that the
composer has salvaged something from the wreckage. The opera's main problems
were dramatic rather than musical, specifically that there isn't any drama,
just a few singers walking on in front of the orchestra occasionally to deliver
a soliloquy. The most frustrating thing was that the story Ferneyhough had
chosen, about the death of Walther Benjamin, is actually very interesting
and lends itself naturally to operatic treatment. Anyway, the last work on
this disc, Les Froissements d'Ailes de Gabriel, is taken from Shadowtime;
it is one of the extended interludes. The choice of guitar as solo instrument
may be intended to evoke Spain, the country Benjamin was fleeing to at the
time of his death, but Ferneyhough rarely goes in for anything that literal.
The piece is very bitty: long but made up of short, only tenuously linked
sections. Historical pastiche perhaps, alluding to Webern's contemporaneous
scores? Again, that's not really Ferneyhough's thing. The piece is the least
successful on the disc, but there is still plenty of interest here, particularly
the timbres and instrumental effects. In general, though, it seems that the
rambling incoherence and lack of structural focus that plagues Ferneyhough's
opera is as evident in the excerpts as it is in the complete work.
Gavin Dixon
Full of life and impulsive energy.