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By Joanne Sheehy Hoover
Albuquerque Journal eighth blackbird sears with intensity Everything about the contemporary ensemble eighth
blackbird is different, as its return engagement for 20th Century
Unlimited Saturday night in the St. Francis auditorium testified.
There is the name itself with its lack of initial capital letters.
Then there is the eccentricity of dress. On this evening the three
men, wearing pants and comfortable shirts, all different, could have
been on their way to a baseball game. One woman, the pianist, went
for the glamour of a long, blue velvet sheath with a slit up to the
thigh, and the other, the flutist, opted for the New York chic of
tight black pants and sleeveless gold brocade vest.
But the real
difference lies in its music making, almost all done from memory,
rare, if not unique, for a contemporary music group. And, above all,
its particular style. The searing intensity of the musicians' focus
is conveyed with a tightness of ensemble, an exuberant energy and a
fierce concentration unlike that of any other group. They are smart,
they are passionate, their sensibility is contemporary in the best
sense, they love their work and they know how to make others love it,
too.
And, as Saturday's concert demonstrated in spades, they are
gifted programmers. Written by five American composers, all still
alive, the music came from the last decades of the 20th century.
Three of the composers, Joan Tower, Charles Wuorinen and John
Harbison, are 64. George Crumb, at 73, was the oldest and Michael
Torke, at 41, the youngest. Though few, if any, are household names,
even among classical music fans, the evening gave a sharp sense of
the fertility of this country's musical minds.
The audience-friendly
program also underlined the fact that a lot of accessible and
well-crafted contemporary music has been written. The point was
immediately made with the opening "Petroushskates" of 1980 by Tower,
one of today's most active composers, male or female. The ensemble
brought vivid life to the energetic rushes of driving rhythms and the
contrasting passages of slow glides in Tower's witty, elegant spinoff
from Stravinsky's ballet "Petroushka."
Wuorinen's "Six Arrangements
of the Glogauer Songbook" of 1962, gracefully delivered evocations of
an intimate medieval world, served as a musical palate cleanser in
the middle of each half.
Crumb's "Voice of the Whale" of 1971
reminded of his links to Debussy and his steadfast exploration of
sound in the midst of the extreme post-World War II experimentations.
Scored for amplified flute, cello and piano, its delicate sonorities
seemed wondrously fresh, as the insides of the piano were exploited
and the flute was sung and spoken into while the cello emitted
ghostly slides.
Harbison's "Variations" of 1982 for flute violin and
piano reflected the thoughtful probing into material and the lyricism
characteristic of his writing. With unwavering focus and keen
insight, the players tracked its intense, 20-minute journey through a
variety of moods that ended with a dervish dash and an eloquent
epilogue.
Copyright 2003 Albuquerque Journal |
