Colin Currie plays Xenakis, Nørgård, Stockhausen and more (recorded live, Friday 17 July 2020)

Solo percussion from Scottish performer Colin Currie, previously featured on this blog in one of his earliest recordings.  This recital, performed in an empty hall in Glasgow with the stage strewn with instruments (and kitchen utensils), was broadcast live as one of Radio 3's Lunchtime Concerts, and takes in seven composers in a breathtaking hour.

There's the sonically powerful material that you might expect from a solo percussion showcase, not least in the closing Rebonds B by Iannis Xenakis and in Kevin Volans' Asanga, but also pieces of wonderful subtlety, and even elements of both in the brilliant opener I Ching: Fire Over Water by Per Nørgård.  From the mellower end of the spectrum are the Dessner, Aho and Hosokawa works for marimba, and the Stockhausen piece for vibraphone.  All of it ear-bending stuff from a master of his arsenal of instruments.

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pw: sgtg

bonus concert - Sofia Gubaidulina's Glorious Percussion

Gubaidulina's spectacular work, which includes elements of improvisation, was performed by the Colin Currie Group and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in August of last year at the Edinburgh Usher Hall.  It was paired in this concert with music from Greig's Peer Gynt, performed by the orchestra.

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Sofia Gubaidulina - The Seven Last Words, Ruayat, Vivente-Non Vivente (1990 compi, rec. 1979-89)

detail from The Last Supper by Nikolai Ge, 1861

For your Easter weekend pleasure, an amazing work for cello, bayan (Russian accordion) and strings from a unique and uncompromising composer, Tatar-Russian Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931).  An envelope-pushing writer in whatever form she composes in, Gubaidulina is also an intensely spiritual individual, and this setting of the Seven Last Words of Christ (inspired by the texts used by Heinrich Schütz and Joseph Haydn) was written in 1982.  Her use of chromaticism, glissandi, microtonality and use of atmospheric open space are perfectly suited to the anguished text.

The first couple of movements establish the main instruments with a swirling drone advancing like angry hornets - or indeed like Kraftwerk via Zeitkratzer.  Melancholy pleading strings fill in the quieter moments, continuing into the third as the cello scrapes away and the bayan stabs in mortal pain (Mel Gibson, you missed a trick not using this as a Passion soundtrack!).  The longest section at the centre, the fourth movement, increases the anguish and urgency all round with chromatic spirals from the bayan and more choppy, frenzied cello and strings.  The sounds in the fifth movement are truly astounding - think it's the bayan making that buzzing drone?  Zeitkratzer have to do an interpretation of this.

The second work in this collection dates from 1969, and was recorded in '79.  Rubayat opens with unsettling percussion reminiscent of Bartok's Music For String, Percussion and Celesta, before the ensemble introduces the baritone singing ancient Persian verses.  For Gubaidulina, the choice of texts here was meant to convey the universality of spiritual longing - also apparently one of the reasons she liked all that rising and falling chromaticism, of which there's plenty in the orchestral passages.

Lastly on this collection we get to hear the composer herself operating the legendary ANS, the Russian photoelectric proto-synthesiser that reached many people's consciousness (including mine) in recent years via Coil.  Vivente-Non Vivente was composed in 1970, and the recording date given here is 1988.  The device's printed and scratched glass plates evoke an eerie, swishing and blooping dark ambience that sounds truly otherworldly, especially in Gubaidulina's hands.

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Luigi Nono - La Lontananza..... / Hay que caminar (rel. 1992)

Luigi Nono's final works before his death in 1990, these two epic violin workouts certainly aren't easy listening, but they're a uniquely rewarding experience to get lost in - ideally on headphones in a dark room.  Roughly translating as 'Nostalgia for a future utopia, viewed at a distance' (one of many renderings out there!), the 40-minute main work here was constructed by Nono, Gidon Kremer and Sofia Gubaidulina onto eight tapes in 1988 with the live solo part written the following year.  In performance, the soloist is instructed to walk between several different music stands in the performance space, playing against the tapes.

On an album, we obviously lose that theatrical element, but Lontananza is still a striking listening experience.  Waves of howling violin overdubs drift around like ghost trains passing in some vast abandoned station. Periodically a mournful or shrieking solo part will tell it's story centre stage, like a passenger emerging from the train.  Ambient sounds from the recording process were added to the tapes, enhancing the otherwordly atmosphere with occasional creaks, clicks and fragments of conversation.

Straight afterwards on this disc, there's a 20-minute epilogue-dialogue for the final two ghosts left on the platform - may as well extend the metaphor as "Hay que caminar" Soñando inhabits a similar sonic space.  Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Grindenko frequently play extremely high frequenices as if the two voices are crying out to each other, and at other times having a spirited, bruising conversation as they navigate their way through the piece.  The title of this work came from a motto that Nono had seen on the walls of a Spanish monastery: "there is no way to travel, there is only the journey" - ideal words to have in mind when digesting a great, unique album like this.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Tape works