HAAS:
'IN VAIN'
Queen
Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London, Fri 6th Dec
Performed
by the London Sinfonietta
Though
a mere seventy minutes long, this work by contemporary composer Georg
Friedrich Haas carries such a dramatic and tonal range that it's hard
to frame, let alone analyse. No less a fellow than Simon Rattle,
writing in the programme, asks not at all rhetorically “how to
describe it?” In short, there's not much chance of comparing
this one to Question Mark and the Mysterions. I am
doubtless setting myself up to fail. But let's push on regardless...
Hass
is often described as a Spectralist. Like all genres of music, people argue over what precisely it might
mean. But a working definition for me would be blending the sonic
adventurousness of Modernism with the emotional heft of Romanticism.
Which seems pretty much win/win. Though this work apparently never
succumbs to such a thing a conventional tuning, it at no point feels
challenging or difficult, like being set a mental exercise. Many
times it feels richly melodic. In the same programme Jo Kirkbride
find it “grounded in a deeply Romantic tradition of swirling
sentiments and long, languorous lines.”
It's
chiefly famed for two things. First, written back in the millennium,
it was a riposte to the election of far-right politician Jorg Haider
in Haas' native Austria. (Which, alas, turned out to be a toehold for
his fellows boots to return to Europe.) And, perhaps not unrelatedly,
its known for the way sections are performed in total darkness.
(Where the musicians must surely play by feel alone.)
Absolute music is the general term for music which is
non-representational, the equivalent of abstract art. When such music
comes appended with a political message, we might want to ask where
it isn't just one big Rorschach blot? If we were told the message was
that New England is lovely this time of year, that the rate of profit
has a tendency to fall or that Everton have been playing rubbish all
season – would our brains reorient and our ears just start to hear
that?
Perhaps
not, because despite knowing the anti-Haider stuff my ears still
picked up quite a different sense from the piece. Rattle says “this
piece is all about opposition of all types, about light and
darkness.” Most obviously manifest in the literal light and
darkness, of course. (One of Haas' other pieces is performed under
constant darkness. Here the light is as much a symbol as its
absence.) My simple ears may merely have been reductive but what I
heard was an inherent dualism – the mournful, trailing fanfares of
the brass against the low murmurations of the strings, made up not of
individual notes but something closer to sound fields - something
almost on the edge of hearing.
The
structure of the piece also seemed to bear this out – which is
actually a kind of anti-structure. Despite the great musical variety
there's no division into movements, everything ultimately flows into
something else. Rattle's take seems to be that it visits the
primordial roots of music and climbs out again. Perhaps, but it
worked best for me not pinned to any particular dualism (the
seasons?, life and death?, creation and entropy?) but as more of a
universal statement. It's black and white is like the shifting
black-and-white of a yin/yang symbol.
Now
Haas, present in the audience, rose to take applause at the end. And
he seemed a most sensible chap. And I doubt he wants Haider and his
noxious xenophobe cronies to be part of some endlessly recurring
dynamic. He'd probably rather they were consigned to the dustbin of
history, just like the rest of us do. The political statement,
thereby, kind of went by the wayside for me.
But
then, does that matter? Beethoven's third symphony was originally
written about Napoleon, but we don't let that dominate our thinking
when we listen to it now. Hass may simply be more absolute in his
music than he knows. You're better off listening to it in the
metaphoric dark, letting your senses pick up on what they will.
Haider and his ilk will hopefully become a footnote of history, while
people still listen to this work.
You
can hear the whole thing on YouTube should you so wish. But let's link to a sampler for
now...
MIRA
CALIX: 'THE SUN IS THE QUEEN OF TORCHES'
Dome
Studio Theatre, Tues 10th Dec
I
first saw Mira Calix in this very venue several years ago, as part of
the sadly-defunct Loop festival. Her unorthodox approach to
electronics was almost indescribable and simply awesome. I later took
in the 'Brainwaves' piece, inspired by her taking
an MRI scan. Which was intriguing and highly inventive, but left me
mildly agnostic.
In
short, I've liked her less each time I've seen her.
This
piece chiefly involved her creating sound through what was presumably
a contact mike, either striking the floor or tearing at a black
curtain behind her. A violinist and dancer were also involved.
I
would concede I am not the most receptive person in the world when it
comes to contemporary dance. But I couldn't help but feel the other
two were there not to complement the performance but act as a kind of
fallback – to fill things out if the electronics didn't strike up
as well as intended.
Certainly
the high points were where the electronics did strike up, layers of
processed noise building into a kind of wall of sound - as if Calix
was playing the very building. And the violinist worked best when
complementing the elecroacoustics, and least when detracting from
their purity with conventional notes and melodies as if he'd ambled
in from some recital.
Dubbed
a “sculptural art performance” it did contain a cool visual
element. As Calix tore more into the backing sheet the stage lights
correspondingly dimmed, and thicker and thicker shafts of light
poured in from behind. Presumably this is where the title of the
piece comes in. I was reminded of the shamanic ritual where paint is
blown across a hand placed on a rock, then the hand taken away to
reveal the handprint as a negative image – used as a symbolic
gateway to the spirit world. And at it's best the performance did
have something of a shamanic feel, using as tools the very basics of
sound and sight but mixing them with modern technology. (There was
also a theme about the new technology of photovoltaic cells... well,
there usually is with this sort of thing, isn't there?)
But
overall the highpoints were not frequent, and the piece felt overlong
for it's contents. It was conceptual in the wrong sense, a vaguely
interesting idea rattling around in the hope it might at some point
land on something. In essence, it was differently successful.
No
vidclips of the night (and I doubt they'd display the better elements
of it anyway). So here's something more reminiscent of the first time
I saw her, 'NuNu', based around the amplified
sounds of insects and (IMHO) splendid stuff...
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