Rzewski, Eastman, Furrer, Haas - London & Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festivals 2016

Still digging through some radio broadcasts that I never got around to using, so here's a pair of back-to-back episodes from BBC Radio 3's Hear And Now programme that aired in early 2017.

Covered first is the opening night of the London Contemporary Music Festival 2016, which was titled "In Search Of Julius Eastman".  The new music ensemble Apartment House turn in a great performance of Eastman's hour-plus, gradually unfolding Femenine - see below for the vintage recording that they used to help piece together the basic score.  It's paired in this concert with Frederic Rzewski's propulsive (then reflective) memorial to the Attica uprising, Coming Together.

At the Huddersfield festival, Klangforum Wien perform Beat Furrer's Intorno Al Bianco, a stunning, at times ear-splitting work for clarinet and string quartet.  Trombone Unit Hannover are also featured in Georg Freidrich Haas' subtle blending of multiple trombones, aus frier Lust... verbunden.  In between, the programme returns to London for a special setup to allow the London Sinfonietta to perform Furrer's epic FAMA.  Taking inspiration from Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the title refers to "a place where every sound in the world is heard", Furrer's sound-world simply has to be heard to be believed.

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pw: sgtg

Julius Eastman at SGTG:
Unjust Malaise
Femenine (live 1974) 
Georg Friedrich Haas at SGTG:
In Vain

Georg Friedrich Haas - In Vain (2003)

Hour-long microtonal-spectral masterpiece by Austrian composer Haas (b. 1953, Graz).  The liner notes of this 2002 premiere recording use a staircase metaphor for music in common intonation, working towards a comparison of this piece with M.C. Escher's famous engraving.  A good starting point, particularly in the most dramatic final quarter with its more animated series of downward spirals and percussive thunder.

Other than that, the mood is ominous, minimal and dark - quite literally in the performance instructions, which call for complete darkness on two occasions (at 5-10 mins in, and 40-50 mins as seen in this performance).  Quite a feat of memory for the musicians working their way through the extra-small gradations in tone, and a treat for the ears, especially in the dark as intended.  Almost like the night-time flipside of all the spectral sun-rays of Gerard Grisey's Espaces Acoustiques.

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