Yesterday night I went to a contemporary music and jazz performance organised as part of a mini-Russian festival here. The first (classical) half of the concert featured Tatiana Gridenko and Opus Posth and the jazz performance featured Vladimir Volkov and the Volkov Trio.
I enjoyed the classical performance more. I like chamber music and love strings. Favourite was the second piece by Vladimir Martynov, entitled "Autumn Ball of Elves". Gridenko introduces each piece before the ensemble plays it - I thought this excellent practice as it makes the piece more accessible to the audience, as compared to the rather "atas" expectation that the whole audience will understand what is going on through reading the programme notes. Martynov is a minimalist composer and he believed that the high point of music came in the 19th Century with pieces such as "Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream"; everything else is in decline. His composition certainly did not bring to mind Titiana and Oberon. Rather, I was reminded more of the Elves in Middle Earth. The piece opens with a rather charming, minuet-like theme which is then interrupted by short spiccato passages played by one viola and one violin. This is repeated several times with the main theme getting shorter and shorter with each repetition. The middle portion is played mainly spiccato; it is very rhythmic and reminded me of Frodo racing away from the Black Riders and the river rising up to block their passage. The last section is variations on the theme which is really rather pretty and recalls Rivendell to me. It ends on a slightly melancholic note. The composer was in the audience and Gridenko (the leader of Opus Posth) called him up to the front of house, next to the stage. As he was dressed in a polo t-shirt I don't think he was quite prepared for this public appearance.
The third composition was by Iannis Xenakis and this is supposed to be an "avant garde" composition. It is supposed to be "destructive" and indeed it sounded terrible. But it was far more interesting to watch! Could really see the players working to deliver the strange and distorted sounds the composer required. As the piece progressed I could see the bows shedding horsehair. The cellist in particular had several strands hanging off the tip of his bow. After the end of the piece everyone had to re-tune their instruments. Talk about destructive!
The jazz section was quite interesting altho' I didn't enjoy it as much. What made it enjoyable was the way you could see the Slavic soul coming out. The double bass player (Volkov) stood throughout the performance and his whole body moved in time to the music as he played. The guitar player flung his hair about and did some head banging but you would expect that of a guitarist. This expressiveness was also apparent (but less so) in the classical performance. I suppose it is a Russian thing; we had a word with the organiser of the event post-performance and she said that when she worked with the German ensemble they held themselves more formally whilst playing.
Whole Programme:
Philip Glass - The Company
Vladimir Martynov - Autumn Ball of Elves
Iannis Xenakis - Aroura
Pavel Karmanov - Green DNK (pronounced Denka - Green DNK is thus a play on Gridenko's name)
~ Interval ~
Jazz Improvisations
Read the review in today's ST. Apparently Martynov is married to Gridenko. No wonder he was in the audience!
ReplyDeleteNice review...I liked the jazz better. not that the classical wasn't superbly performed as you've highlighted so well, but I just loved the combination of the double bass with the electric guitar and drums. I thought it was a highly unusual combination even for a jazz band and it worked very well.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like so much that they played so hard and fast so much of the time. Too much testosterone I figure: young males just seeing how fast they could go as virtuosos sort of thing. But I loved when they slowed down a little and the mellow bits were very mellow indeed.