Volume 24 Issue 6 - March 2019

Stas Namin – Centuria S-Quark Symphony
London Symphony Orchestra; Lee Reynolds
Navona Records nv6200
(navonarecords.com)
!!
In his liner notes,
Stas Namin refers
to “clashes between
individuals, societies,
countries,
ethnic groups –
and ultimately the
crash of civilization…
the concept
of my symphony came to me… as a kind of
prophecy… reflecting the discord present
in each person and consequently in
each society.”
Namin (b. Anastas Mikoyan, 1951) is a
Russian arts icon, a superstar rock band
leader, songwriter, film and theatre producerdirector,
photographer, painter (including the
CD’s cover image) and classical composer.
Despite Namin’s comments, there’s
hardly any conflict or dissonance in his
47-minute, one-movement Symphony
(2016). Instead, I counted more than a dozen
brief episodes expressing ever-changing
moods including nostalgia, playfulness, celebration,
uncertainty and brash assertiveness,
each colourfully scored, highlighting
different instrumental combinations. One
episode suggested to me a rustic square
dance, another a comical circus procession.
In fact, the entire symphony, highly theatrical
and rhythmically energized, is essentially a
brilliant ballet score begging to be choreographed,
with episodes appropriate for solos,
duos and ensembles.
Rather than illustrating current or futuristic
discord, Namin’s engaging melodic mix
of late-Romanticism and neo-classicism
recalls music of the 1920s and 30s. Namin
never sounds like anyone else, though – not
until the final three minutes, the first truly
dissonant section, a crescendo of pounding
percussion reminiscent of Mosolov’s Iron
Foundry and the finale of Stravinsky’s Sacre
du printemps. The apocalyptic climax is
followed by a plaintive solo violin, described
by Namin as “a new thread of life.”
Highly enjoyable throughout!
Michael Schulman
The Privacy of Domestic Life
Architek Percussion
Centrediscs (LP) CMCV 10418
(musiccentre.ca)
!!
Founded in 2012,
the “quirky, virtuosic
and thoroughly
engaging”
(Bachtrack.com)
Montreal-based
quartet Architek
Percussion has
performed across
Canada specializing
in percussive experimental, multi-disciplinary,
minimalist music, sometimes embellished
with electroacoustic elements. It has
commissioned over 40 works by Canadian
and international composers, and appears on
five albums.
On the LP The Privacy of Domestic Life
Architek performs scores of three Canadian
concert music composers in their 30s who
are well on the way to establishing international
careers: Adam Basanta, Taylor Brook
and Beavan Flanagan. All three of their works
were commissioned by the group.
Brook’s Incantation transforms the metallic
sounds of cymbals and bells and what sounds
like clay pots into finely tuned microtonal
textures and sonorities, drawing on both his
Western composition and Hindustani classical
music performance studies and practice.
The title cut is the most substantial work
here at 19 minutes. It “is a reflection on the
domestic life, delivered in three interconnected
movements,” writes Montreal-based
Basanta. “I imagined a daily universe in
expansion, with unique sounds that come
to life: discreet noises amplified, amalgamated
rhythms, and unwanted sounds,”
such as repeated cellphone interruptions.
Furthermore, Basanta effectively exploits the
interaction between human musicians, on
percussion instruments, and enigmatic electronic
sounds.
On one hand the music on this album sets
out to explore thresholds between temporal
stability – in terms of regular pulse, rhythmic
continuity, metre and groove – and instability.
For the listener, the sonic journey here is
equally full of the thrill of discovery and the
mystery of the unknown.
Andrew Timar
Concert notes (Montreal): April 5: Architek
Percussion and Le Vivier present "Projet:
Objets" featuring new works by Fredrik
Gran, Gyrid Nordal Kaldestad and James
O’Callaghan. April 27 and 28: Architek
Percussion and Musica Orbium present
Stravinsky's Les Noces and Orff's Carmina
Burana. May 21 and 27: Architek Percussion
and Accès Culture Montréal presents
"Marimba Plus" featuring works by Eliot
Britton, Christos Hatzis, John Psathas
and others.
Steve Reich – Drumming
Kuniko
Linn Records
KD 582 (linnrecords.com)
!!
The celebrated
mallet percussionist
Kuniko is
equally comfortable
in sound
worlds as diverse as
Baroque, electronic
and minimalist.
Having performed
Bach with as much ease as Xenakis she
approached 2018 with a startling interpretation
of Steve Reich’s Drumming, a work
inspired by Ghanaian Ewe drummers. While
Kuniko might have taken her mallets to vibraphone
and marimba in the course of other
musical challenges, this recording comes
with particularly vexing challenges: how to
overcome challenges of tone (relating to the
metallic sound of the glockenspiels) and the
fact that she overdubs the parts of up to nine
percussionists that Reich had in mind?
The obvious answer was to use her hypervirtuosity
on anything that can be struck
with a mallet. And thus we are treated to
music that develops from the stuttering first
notes to a veritable cascade of melodic sounds
redolent of a kind of tintinnabulation that
virtually transforms a typically Afro-centric
drumming into an extraordinary world of
melodicism. Reich’s composition, Drumming,
is divided into four (unequal) Parts and
Kuniko embellishes each with her percussive
arsenal that also includes marimba, glockenspiels,
piccolo and voices.
The result transforms what minimalist
refuseniks might toss aside here as repetitive
into a piece that Kuniko builds as if into
a moving soundscape of broodingly percussive
tumbling grooves that begin to ripple and
glitter as she adds cascades of notes from the
marimbas and piccolo, topped up by highsprung
pristine vocals towards the work’s
conclusion.
Raul da Gama
Phill Niblock: Baobab
Quatuor Bozzini
QB CQB 1924 (actuellecd.com)
! ! Montreal-based
Quatuor Bozzini
has released 28 CDs
of contemporary
music since their
founding in 1999,
covering disparate
international
composers from
Aldo Clementi to John Cage along with a host
of Canadians, and in the process becoming a
preeminent string quartet in contemporary
music circles. This recording of two works by
American minimalist Phill Niblock testifies to
their willingness to take on challenges to find
new musical ground.
They play two similar pieces here, each
recast from earlier orchestral versions,
Disseminate (1998) and Baobab (2011).
Niblock has reconceived them as works for
five string quartets, the founding Bozzinis
(cellist Isabelle and violist Stéphanie) along
with violinists Clemens Merkel and Alissa
Cheung overdubbing themselves to 20 instruments.
They’re precisely notated, microtonal
works, with long, even bow strokes themselves
influencing the exact pitch. The result
in each piece is a hive of sound, bow strokes
determinedly disappearing until the massed
quartets approach the constancy of a bank of
thewholenote.com March 2019 | 83