Aleksander NOWAK (b.1979)
3 x 4 + 8
String Quartet no.1 (2008-09) [14:50]
*Quantemporette, for clarinet, trombone, cello and piano (2008) [11:50]
String Quartet no.2 (2011) [17:02]
+Ulica Spokojna 3 (3 Peaceful Street), for eight cellos [12:07]
Silesian Quartet *(Arkadiusz Adamski (clarinet), Tomasz Hajda (trombone),
Stanislaw Lason (cello), Piotr Salajczyk (piano); +Warsaw Cellonet Group
rec. Concert Hall, Karol Szymanowski Music Academy, Katowice, Poland, 27-29
June 2012, 10 March 2012*; Polish Radio, Warsaw, 31 March 2012+. DDD
CD ACCORD ACD 180 [56:00]
A two-second-long sampling of the opening of Aleksander Nowak's String
Quartet no.1 makes it clear that this programme is not going to be a relaxing
or foot-tapping listening experience. Fast forwarding to the second track,
Quantemporette, offers little reassurance. Nor indeed is there any
solace to be found in the accompanying booklet. In his notes, Marcin Trzesiok
asserts that in the 20th century "we bade farewell – definitively it
seems – [...] to beauty, metaphysics, high style, reason, narration, expression,
even to the very idea of an author's statement." The diagnosis
for contemporary music and poetry is even worse, as it has "mostly been
about [...] struggling for breath" for the last several decades. Could
this disc be an antidote to contentment?
In fact, Trzesiok's statements are simply the kind of polemical thing
about which academics love to write reams, and perhaps from their ivory towers
that is how affairs really do appear; it certainly gives them something to
write about to justify their posts. Nowak would, like any other composer working
today, doubtless carry on writing music even if his mother were the only person
that would listen to it. In other words, contemporary music is doing well,
as it always has done. It is the wider culture that has decayed to the extent
that it can no longer understand music that lasts more than three minutes,
lacks a thumping beat or is not hummable.
Nowak's atonal, microtonal quartets, often dense and insistently dissonant,
will self-evidently struggle for audiences in such an environment. That does
not affect the intellectual or emotive power of his music, at least as long
as there are companies like CD Accord and artists like the Silesian Quartet
to support it. In any case, Nowak is astute enough to work quieter, more reflective,
more approachable passages and movements into his quartets. The contrast with
whatever white-noise screeches and drones he may incorporate heightens their
narrative effect.
The excellent Silesians recently gave a five-star performance on CD Accord
of the collected string quartets to date of Zbigniew Bargielski, Nowak's
older compatriot, and a somewhat mellower modernist (review).
The Silesians commissioned and premiered Nowak's opening First Quartet,
which throws the listener right in at the deep end. The title of the second
work Quantemporette is, according to Nowak, an amalgam of 'quantum',
'temporal' and 'quartet(te)', which may or may
not be helpful information. The clarinet and trombone bring a certain cheery
smile to the work, peppering it with comical jazzy moments, and the piano
later contributes its own minimalist riff - perhaps an easier starting point
than the First Quartet. The Second Quartet too has more of a tonal air about
it, perhaps due to its being commissioned by Pro Novum, a Polish engineering
company that also sponsors the CD.
The tranquillity of the curiously titled 3 Peaceful Street, an imaginary
address, performed here by its premiere-givers Warsaw Cellonet, does not last
long. Within five minutes a kind of motoric pandemonium briefly reigns. That
central episode, coupled with the title and the unusual scoring for eight
cellos, makes this an especially memorable work. That said, there is much
throughout the disc to challenge, invigorate and impress.
Incidentally, two of the performers of Quantemporette, cellist Stanislaw
Lason and pianist Piotr Salajczyk, are members of the sterling Lason Ensemble,
who also record for CD Accord. Their recent 'Polish Piano Quintets'
disc is well worth consideration (ACD 178).
Sound quality here is good, if very bright. The Polish-English booklet notes,
as related above, are provocative in their way. The translated English does
have a slight foreign accent and occasionally goes over the top with punctuation,
but these, like the shortish running time, are minor quibbles.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
Much here to challenge, invigorate and impress.
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