in FOCUS CD
Music by eight composers from diverse musical backgrounds and countries.
For us here in Australia the main interest in this fascinating CD emanating from London is in the music of the Melbourne composer, Andrián Pertout. Last year I reviewed his monumental piano work Luz Meridional brilliantly performed by Michael Kieran Harvey. That work enthralled me with its alternating movements of high energy and moments of crystal like clarity and on this new CD Pertout’s Here and Now for bass flute and electroacoustic tape, sampled from super low flutes, shows the composer to be a font of invention and to have a deep musical philosophy. The Melbourne flute legend Peter Sheridan is the ‘live’ flautist and the supplier of the samples.
Sheridan weaves subterranean gossamer of enchantment bringing the listener to a point of complete immersion in the composer’s musical thought.
Paolo Geminiani’s Sommessi Presagi is a work that would be a delight to watch in a small concert hall – that seems a long time ago! The music evolves ever so slowly and the inherent drama comes to the fore as the music/narrative unfolds. The Ascanio Quartet delivers a powerful performance and the music shows a composer steeped in late 20th century European modernist idioms who also has at the base of his music a lyricism that attracts the ear.
Heavy Metals for bassoon and electronics by Portuguese composer João Pedro Oliveira is a load of fun and it is easy to imagine young people more in tune with rock finding it enjoyable.
Technically wonderful the Ensemble MISE-EN played Grainne Mulvey’s Interstices as if it were a mere trifle whilst Ion Marmarinos’s hauntingly engaging The Horses was sensitively performed by soprano Harriet Burns and pianist Horacio Lopez Redondo.
I enjoyed the old-fashioned eclectic mixed composer approach that this CD provides. It reminds me of LPs I bought as a teenager in the early 1970’s and, as an example, discovering music new to me such as the electronic music of Cage, Berio and Ilhan Mimaroglu released on Turnabout Records. Maybe the variety is a little too much but the project ticks so many boxes and in a good way.
Alan Holley
COMPOSERS (in order of playlist):
Andrián Pertout – Australia
Ion Marmarinos – Greek composer based in France
Paolo Geminiani – Italy
Philippe Mathis – Switzerland
Joao Pedro Oliveira – California (originally studied in Lisbon then moved to the US)
Gráinne Mulvey – Ireland
Paul Kopetz – Australia
Rei Hamakawa – Japan
PERFORMERS (in order of playlist):
01. Peter Sheridan (bass flute)
02. Harriet Burns (soprano), Horacio López Redondo (piano)
03. Ascanio Quartet
04. Philippe Mathis (piano)
05. Diana Dias (bassoon)
06. Ensemble MISE-EN
07. Paul Kopetz (conductor)
08 to 10. Hirofumi Uematsu (piano)
