Scordatura, in musical terms, is the re-tuning of
strings to provide notes not normally available to the instrument
playing in its natural range. Most of the works on this disc
use the technique to provide natural tunings outside the normal
chromatic scale, and the results can be by turns fascinating
and infuriating. The opening piece, für Johannes Kepler,
takes as its starting point the great astronomer’s discoveries
of the various intervals produced by the ratios between the
orbits of the planets – also the subject of Hindemith’s opera
Die Harmonie der Welt – and sets a hymn of praise in
Latin to the Great God who has created these ‘celestial harmonies’.
The singer (Alfrun Schmid, who plays violin in the Scordatura
Trio on other tracks) and the viola (Elisabeth Smalt) play in
subtly different scales over a background provided by the third
player (Bob Gilmore on keyboard). All three are excellent here,
and the result is often very beautiful to listen to. Bob Gilmore
as producer provides a booklet note in which he capitalises
the first letter of the title, but the composer himself in his
own booklet note does not. The composer seems to have a liking
for these uncapitalised titles, like comme ses paroles
and catalogue irraisoné, so presumably this has a similar
purpose.
The next track on the other hand is definitely entirely in capitals;
BLANK, to quote the composer, is “based around a single
melodic line, moving at different speeds in three separate layers,
progressively unfolding to the point where its unitary identity
begins to disintegrate.” The result has the same sort of hypnotic
quality produced by the sound of an orchestra tuning up, and
produces a similarly queasy feeling that the instrumental intonation
is not quite right; the composer describes the harmony as “anarchic”
and that is certainly the sensation which is conveyed here.
The piece goes on far too long for its content – it could have
been halved in length to the listener’s advantage.
Where in für Johannes Kepler Fox treated the text as
a series of disjointed syllables, almost a vocalise for the
voice of Alfrun Schmid, in the Trümmermusik he sets
some often very moving texts based on the Berlin diaries of
Max Frisch. These recorded his visit to the city in 1947 and
his fury at the sufferings of the people while those who had
caused the devastation “sit in prison, comfortably detained,
well fed, safer than most, or in government departments.” The
setting was originally for voice and hurdy-gurdy, and the latter
instrument is also the instrument which takes a leading role
in the final song of Schubert’s Winterreise, depicting
a similar state of devastation at the end of the wanderer’s
travels. The music of that song is indeed quoted, in a naturally
distorted form appropriate to the hurdy-gurdy, in the second
of the songs here – the song from which the lines above are
cited. It is a very moving setting. Unfortunately Fox’s reaction
to the words elsewhere is often mechanical, and this is particularly
disturbing in the fourth song The weather is wonderful
where the writer’s pleasure “in this landscape of trees and
water” is given a rhythmically chugging setting over a continuous
ostinato on the strings. This brings to mind the worst sort
of superficial word-setting that we find in the less inspired
works of Philip Glass. Schmid does not have the chance to sing
here with the same rapt intensity that she achieves in für
Johannes Kepler. She doesn’t sound comfortable either in
some of the more rapid passages set in English translation.
This is a work of intermittent beauties rather than a sustained
contemplation of a ruined city and its people, odd from a composer
whose later choral works show a lively and idiomatic approach
to words.
The Generic Composition #8 examines, in the composer’s
words, “the changing interaction between sustained stopped notes
and open strings in just intonation.” It forms part of a cycle
“which form part of the ensemble installation Everything
You Need To Know” (the capitalisation here is again the
composer’s). Also apparently it has links to the catalogue
irraisoné which was reviewed on this site by Carla Rees
and whose words of commendation – “a highly engaging and fascinating
work” – are included in the CD booklet. “What interests me in
these Generic Compositions,” the composer goes on to
say, “is the extent to which the instruments seem to write their
own music when composers (players too?) let them.” The noise
which results may just possibly be ‘interesting’, but here it
is also thoroughly dislikeable. Incidentally this is the only
track to feature Scott McLaughlin on electric guitar, although
he gets lead billing on the sleeve.
Fox returns to the setting of words in Natural Science.
Here the poems by Ian Duhig are spoken and not sung (by Bob
Gilmore) to an accompaniment of viola solo. Some of these settings
are charming - an odd word to use in contemporary music, but
entirely appropriate to some of the texts here. That does not
apply to the grotesque A crippling jealousy whose unpleasant
story of genital mutilation is given an oddly upbeat treatment.
The playing of Elisabeth Smalt is perfection itself.
The final piece on this CD is the shortest, setting in canon
the name of the modern composer Aldo Clementi in celebration
of his 85th birthday. “It translates the syllables
of his name into sol-fa,” Fox tells us, “the syllabic lengths
of his name into durations (with double values for his family
name) and is played here in mean-tone.” The use of names to
produce musical ‘signatures’ has a long and honoured history
stretching at least from Bach to Shostakovich, and can often
result in music that is oddly characteristic of the personalities
concerned. On the basis of this one feels that one rather likes
Aldo Clementi, but we don’t get the chance to make his acquaintance
for long before the music abruptly stops almost in mid-phrase.
This is one occasion where one gets the feeling that Fox could
profitably have taken the opportunity to explore his material
at greater length.
The playing of the Trio Scordatura is excellent throughout in
what must be music peculiarly difficult to keep in tune, and
vulnerable to the slightest error. The recording enables one
to hear every detail. The recording is partially sponsored by
the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, and one thinks that RVW himself
would have enjoyed at least some of the music here.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Trio Scordatura; Scott McLaughlin (electric guitar)*