Fernando Grillo - Fluvine (1976)

Only solo album by avant-garde double bassist Fernando Grillo (1945-2013), the man responsible for breathing fearsome life into Iancu Dumitrescu's early recordings of his writing for double bass.  This four-part suite from the mid-70s makes one wonder if Grillo perhaps provided the original spark of inspiration to Dumitrescu for wringing every possible unearthly sound from the bass, whether in percussive attack or in ominous creakings and rumblings.

The sound quality is a little muted - not sure if from the original recording, or just in the mastering of this reissue.  In any case, more than enough of the unearthly tones of the bass come through here to show how unique Grillo's approach to his instrument was.  Fluvine Due made me think of early Throbbing Gristle in their more subdued moments, if Genesis P-Orridge had been a virtuoso on the bass rather than just whacking it as a percussive sound-source.  Don't know what's going on in Fluvine Tre - is that tape manipulation making the squeedgeing noises, or is it all Grillo?  Lastly, the 22-minute Fluvine Quattro packs in all of Grillo's phenomenal technique into an epic journey into the sound of one instrument.

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Penderecki: "Christmas" Symphony / Bruzdowicz: Concertos (1989 compi, rec. '81 and '84)

Still working on something to post with an actual Christmas angle... how about Penderecki's 2nd Symphony - it has Christmas in the title, doesn't it?  Well, not really.  Symphony No. 2 might've been written over the winter of 1979-1980, but it doesn't have any official name, and only became informally known as the 'Christmas Symphony' due to the little snippets of Silent Night that Penderecki included, and can be most clearly heard about four minutes into each movement.

Being a big fan of Penderecki at his most fearsome, e.g. Threnody, De Natura Sonoris, Utrenja etc, the 2nd Symphony was initially a bit of a letdown for me, as was apparently the case for listeners in the early 80s - where's the nail-biting sheer terror?  Not to worry though, as soon as I gave it a chance I found out what a fine, full-bodied work it actually was. Enjoy.

That's only half the disc though, and the remainder is a real treat - one of the very few available recordings of any works by Joanna Bruzdowicz (b. 1943, Warsaw), with a star turn from 'Buddha of the bass' Fernando Grillo.  The Concerto for Double-Bass, here in its 1984 premiere, is a brilliantly choppy work that gives the great bassman free rein to saw, rattle and soar over a nicely unsettling ensemble backdrop.  Lastly, Olympia records (who are becoming a bit of an obsession for me at the moment, appearing to have been quite the reissue goldmine for Eastern European/Russian obscurities) very kindly give us another Bruzdowicz concerto; a single-movement Violin vehicle, and very good it is too.


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Costin Cazaban - Flûtes À Vide, Zig-Zag etc (1998 compi of works 1975-86)

Today's trip into the spectralsphere comes courtesy of Costin Cazaban (1946-2009), a native of Bucharest who ended up settling in Paris to teach, write (as a musicologist and critic) and compose.  No large-scale orchestral fireworks on this, the only release solely dedicated to his works; instead, there's an aural feast of mostly solo instruments being transformed by electronic/tape treatments.

Fernando Grillo's bass playing, for instance, is more sonically reined in here than with Dumitrescu (but to be honest, so are almost all composers on earth), as the basslines and bass-clicks/clunks of Zig-Zag (1974) slip around in the echoing ether.  Parisian flautist Pierre-Yves Artaud is layered in multiple fragments across the liquid landscape of Flûtes À Vide (1986), becoming more percussive around the halfway mark; look out too for some of that same stuttering staccato writing that contemporary Doina Rotaru employed for Daniel Kientzy.

On the remainder of this disc, there's a couple of interesting chamber works, and sandwiched in between them is a Naturalia (1975), a fantastically odd piece for piano, treated piano sounds and strange vocal noises.  This fascinating collection really does reward repeated listens; Cazaban seems to have a had a remarkable talent for shaping a whole sound-world from all the different treated sounds he could record from just one instrument.  Recommended.

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Iancu Dumitrescu - Medium III, Cogito etc (1991 compi of works '73-'85)

Couldn't resist more Dumitrescu for today's post - definitely my favourite music at the moment.  In the early 90s, Dumitrescu and fellow composer/wife Ana-Maria Avram started the Edition Modern label to release their music, with much of the early releases concentrating on giving digital re-release to Dumitrescu material that had appeared on LP during the 80s (or even pre-dated those records).

All of this first CD was devoted to such a mopping-up exercise - but one of such mind-bending sonics that it hangs together well as a double-album experience.  Not least because the first three tracks centre on the talents of avant-garde double-bassist Fernando Grillo, heard for the first 23 minutes of this disc with no other accompaniment.  Think that much solo bass could be a bit of a bore?  Let Medium III convince you otherwise, in a scraping, screeching masterclass that sounds like Xenakis' solo cello piece Nomos Alpha being reinterpreted by sunn o))) (Stephen O'Malley has in fact worked with Dumitrescu in recent years).

In the following Cogito (Trompe l'Oeil), Grillo is paired up with another bassist, Ion Ghita, and Dumitrescu's Hyperion Ensemble playing prepard piano, Javanese gong, crystals and metal objects.  Cogito makes full use of the frequency range, sounding almost electronic at times with a needling, feedback-like whine.  The third vehicle for Grillo (who died in 2013 at 67, in an apparent suicide) is Aulodie Mioritică, which fills out the sonic landscape even more with a percussive thunderstorm and slow-motion sheet lightning in the strings.  The CD is then rounded out by two older Dumitrescu works: Perspectives au Movemur, a nice scratchy, spectral string quartet from 1979, and an orchestral work, Apogeum.  This closing piece from 1973 (and the recording appears to be vintage too, sounding a little ropey in places) is worth waiting for, creating a wonderfully unsettling Scelsi/Ligeti-esque atmosphere.

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SGTG exclusive bonus track:

The 1987 German vinyl release of Medium/Cogito quoted Dumitrescu describing the solo piece as "the hidden, mysterious reverse of Cogito", and suggested that the two works could even be heard simultaneously, in those days presumably with two copies of the LP or with tape recordings.  Want to hear?  Of course you do.  (First two tracks on the CD, mixed together by yours truly. Thanks to a discogs commenter for the info.)

Iancu Dumitrescu - Pierres Sacrées, Harryphonies, Grand Ourse (1991, rec. '85-'91)

Speaking of 'can't believe I haven't posted this yet'...  If Stravinsky was my gateway drug to Pendercki, and Pendercki to Xenakis; then Xenakis was my gateway drug to Iancu Dumitrescu.  If there's a more unhinged composer still out there, I've still to hear them - hope I won't be waiting too long.  But for now, here's my first post of the grand vizier of Romanian spectralism.

If you think you've heard some of the most violent classical music ever written - Black Angels? Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima? Terretektorh? - then sit tight for Pierres Sacrées.  Inspired by a dream of exploding glass plates whilst dozing off on night-shift military service, this piece for prepared piano and 'metallic plates and objects' barely sounds like classical music in any sense.  The close-miked production and deliberate use of feedback and distortion pushes the 1991 work closer in sound to some of the electronic experiments you'd find on an early 80s United Dairies or Come Organisation compilation.

Elsewhere on this CD, there's two versions of Dumitrescu's Harryphonies (named after a percussion instrument of his invention); one more spare and menacing, featuring the late great avant-garde double bass player Fernando Grillo, and one more fleshed out with recognisable orchestral instruments, and ocean-submerged bells.  If you've got a handful of Xenakis or Scelsi works under your belt, this final track on the CD might be your logical starting point, especially in the writing for brass.  And don't miss Grande Ourse (also known by its Romanian title Ursa Mare), as sinister buzzings and rattlings give way to a mournful drone and clicking string bows; had Dumitrescu been heard on record prior to the early 80s, he might easily have made the Nurse With Wound list.

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