Huddersfield (4)

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Radu Malfatti’s 12-hour installation and James Tenney’s “In a large, open space” were relevant to each other in their quietness, in the freedom of coming and going of the audience, and in their understated qualities. Knowing that the aesthetic world is similar on at least these surfaces, the differences between the pieces become all the more interesting.

The Malfatti installation took place in a room with couches, pillows, and floorspace available to listeners. One’s view was likely to be obstructed. It became apparent to me within a very short time that the idea was to settle in wherever I had landed and have whatever experience I was most inclined to have. The pieces being played, the performance styles of the players, and the overall situation were completely unobstructive to mental wandering. For those that needed it, it became an unexpected opportunity to rest.

It was inevitable that everyone would miss something. Even the performers (Cranc and Malfatti) took breaks. With a 12-hour installation, there was hardly a choice. I was there for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, until the need for a sandwich took hold of me. I went back for the last two hours. Returning to the installation was a way of making myself at home in Huddersfield. (It was my first day at the festival.) There were many wonderful sounds and arcs that I heard, but I am sure that I missed many of them. The whole situation led to a kind of sitting back, that felt very simple and natural.

Tenney’s “In a large, open space,” on the other hand, was all about sitting forward in one’s chair, getting up, and walking around. The players, who included many students and amateurs, were distributed throughout Bates Mill, and the audience was invited to move through the space during the piece. The instructions to the players changed over time, so whatever I was moving towards or away from might also be about to change. With all the motion, it was very hard to tell what was shifting in the sound, where, and when. Again I felt gently disoriented, but this time it was spatial, not temporal. My favorite point was early on, watching and experiencing the transition in the audience from passive to active observation. No one circulated until at least 5 minutes into the performance. Once a few people started, others got up and started tracing their own paths among the performers. It was a social experience, in the quietest of ways.

Huddersfield (3)

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EXAUDI‘s premiere of Christopher Fox’s Comme ses Paroles would have made my trip to the UK worthwhile in itself. It was a totally involving, intense experience. The piece began before I knew it. Anton Lukoszevieze seemed to be warming up on his cello, not even playing, but hitting pitches percussively on the fingerboard. This was all happening well before the official start time of the performance. Eventually the lights focused on him and the singers came out one by one to circle him and watch what he was doing. The voices started to match the understated, percussive articulation of the cello in very effective, unexpected ways.

Pairs of singers then faced each other in what seemed to be confrontations. I was interested in the diversity of vocal approaches, not only between pairs but within each pair.

The choir repositioned, and the articulation changed for both the cello and the singers. Fox wrote in the program notes that

each part of the piece finds new ways to make music out of words. Words are assembled from their sonic components, they are translated into a dance for the cellist’s two hands on the fingerboard, they are stretched beyond comprehension, intoned and melismatically elaborated.

During this section, the recording came into audible play, creating a massive layering of sound using only the voices of the choir in both past and present performance. (I learned after the concert that the recording had been playing even before 8pm, but it was not noticeable then.) As the presence of the recording became more and more audible, I began to feel submerged in it.

The articulations continued to change from one section to the next. You can hear it in March 7, when it will be broadcast on Hear and Now. (I’ll try to post something about that closer to the time.) The end was an unexpected as the opening. James Weeks, the conductor, went offstage, and members of the choir went offstage while still singing, and continued singing offstage, eventually stopping. In the end, only Juliet Fraser and Anton Anton Lukoszevieze were visible and, for a time, audible. After 70 minutes, the sound just sort of faded away, but left a very powerful impression. I didn’t know what to make of the piece, but I’m so glad to have experienced it live.

The Stroke That Kills

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Seth Josel has just released an electric guitar solo CD with New World Records called The Stroke That Kills. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on it once I’m back in the US. I’m most interested to hear Alvin Curran’s, Tom Johnson’s, and Gustavo Matamoros’s pieces, and I’m sure there will be something else on the album that grabs me, too. Seth really knows his way around the repertoire. (Take a look at Sheer Pluck, and you’ll see what I mean.)

The Huddersfield festival finished up two days ago, and I’m still much too tired to write about it. It’s like when you walk for hours, sit down, and only then realize just how tired your feet are. In any case, I’m very, very glad I went. There is a lot to say about it, and I’ll make a number of posts over the coming week.