One must congratulate the Quatuor
Bozzini on their total commitment to exploring the world of new music on our
behalf. It may be many years before concerts like these become less of a puzzle and
more of a treat. So be it, and more power to the Bozzini.
The Quatuor Bozzini has a motto that is also a
challenge: “New music was composed in the last 10 years. If it was composed more
than 10 years ago, it is old music.” It was definitely a challenge to listen to the
music they played at the 2 pm concert this day. First off was Nameless Garden (2003) by Thomas Stiegler
(1956-), a German, Freiburg-trained colleague of the Bozzini first violin Clemens Merkel. This is
a kind of ‘pictures at an exhibition’ piece, the pictures being by German painter
Otto Piltz (1864 — 1910), the music moving in short
sections as if from room to room. One’s first impression is of rhythmic
scratchings, squeakings, silent bowings and an oddly erotic whining rising to an
orgasmic climax.
The next two pieces were by Japanese minimalist composer Jo
Kondo (1947-) whose works have been performed by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. We heard
two of his mathematically constructed pieces. Hypsotony
published in 1989 — and so ‘old music’ — consists of a melodic line that is chopped
up and distributed throughout the piece. The sounds are like two-stroke koto
charnel-ground music. The ensemble makes much use of glissandos, crescendos and
decrescendos, producing a strong effect. The second Kondo piece, Oneiric Prosody, a string quartet commissioned by the Bozzini, had its
world premiere here this day. The predominant harmonies sounded like organ tones
and brought to mind a kelp garden alive with sea-otters swaying beneath the play of
tidal currents, relaxing, like breathing.
Next came Trip (2008) by Christopher
Butterfield (1952), once a student of Rudolf
Komorous and now on the Faculty of his alma mater, BC’s University of
Victoria. Despite an opening section that sounded a lot like the string quartet
tuning up, a rhythm began to assert itself and a nice bit of melody at the tempo of
a scherzo that devolved into some scratchy spooky parts before concluding with a
long, lazy, lovely passage. It occurs at this point to notice how often miminalist
music has the almost generic quality of being able to produced tones that defy
monotony and move the mind in the direction of a steady state of relaxation and
hold it there, again in defiance of monotony, by the strength of the hypnotic power
of repetition.
This afternoon’s concert concluded with two string quartets by Matteo Fargion (1961), an Italian who has made an international name
for himself collaborating as composer and performer in works for theatre and dance.
The Bozzini performed his String Quartet No 3 (1996 )— ’old
music’ —, and String Quartet No 4 (2003). Fargion’s music is melodic, polyphonic, energetic mixing sounds of
minimalism and pre-baroque. The overall flavour is of perpetual motion blended with
hoe-down fiddle-contest music. Very pleasant.
One must congratulate the Quatuor Bozzini on their
total commitment to exploring the world of new music on our behalf. It may be many
years before concerts like these become less of a puzzle and more of a treat. So be
it, and more power to the Bozzini.