CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music

Reinier van Houdt & Andrew Liles – AMBIDEXTROUS CONSTELLATION


On August 15 of this year, Reinier van Houdt and Andrew Liles released a new album titled Ambidextrous Constellation. With narration by Ash Kilmartin, Ambidextrous Constellation is a radio play that chillingly incorporates “…lists of gun specifications and transcripts of experiences of gunshot victims.” Although this album is entirely the work of European artists working in Rotterdam, it is sure to have an immediate emotional impact on those hearing it in America.

Reinier van Houdt studied piano at the Liszt-Akademie in Budapest and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and is a well-known presence in the contemporary music scene. He has performed premiers by Robert Ashley, Alvin Curran, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, and Charlemagne Palestine, among others, and has collaborated with luminaries such as John Cage, Alvin Lucier and Olivier Messiaen. Andrew Liles is a prolific solo artist, producer, re-mixer and studio engineer, who has been active in recording experimental music since the 1980s.

Ambidextrous Constellation consists of eight short pieces that run between four and seven minutes each. Each track is a mixture of electronic sounds with an overlying narration. The liner notes state that a gun is “A machine without morality or judgment.” and the electronic tones consistently support this. The overall feeling is devoid of any sense of humanity, excepting only the warm voice of narrator Ash Kilmartin.

My World opens the album with a series of electronic whooshes that could be abstract gunshots, followed by series of sinister bass chords. A menacing, matter-of-fact narration follows with no musical tones or singing: “In my world, everything is flat. Nothing moves.” The background sounds are sterile and mechanical with the only human presence being the spoken word. There is the description of a bullet flying towards a head. The electronic sounds now become a series of pulses, siren-like, mysterious and uncertain. We have entered a static world where: “nothing moves, nothing propagates.” My World ends quickly, without any resolution.

Iron Sights follows, and this second track is perhaps the most unsettling piece in the album. It begins with a strong percussive beat and electronic sounds that suggest the rapid firing of a weapon. The narrative description of an automatic rifle follows, deadpan and matter of fact: “L1A1, self-loading. barrel length, 20.4 inches. Rate of fire: 610 up to 775 rounds per minute.” Chilling in its dry, clinical description, the focus of the piece now shifts to the point of view of an automatic assault rifle. “Range 400 Meters. Muzzle velocity 940 Meters per second. Unit cost, 1,300 pounds. Aperture, Iron Sights.” Sustained electronic sounds fill the space between the words, adding to the alien and disconnected feeling.

Finally, a single tone is heard with fragments of unintelligible words that slowly fade into silence. The juxtaposition of cold, alien electronic background tones with the straightforward recitation of the assault rifle specifications make Iron Sights a powerful commentary on our fascination with such deadly weaponry.

Other tracks follow with a similar structure and pattern. The descriptions of the weapons get ever more intimidating. Body, Gas Operated, track 3, opens with mysterious bell tones and low rumbling sounds followed by faint, rapid gunfire in the distance accompanied by a rapid snare drumming. The narration begins “… 45 mm NATO cartridge. Barrel length 11 to 20 inches. Gas operated, short stroke piston, rotating bolt. 850 rounds per minute. Effective firing range: 300 meters.” 1984 To Present, track 5, begins with the sharp noise of static below a strong and rapid tom-tom beat. “Barrel length, 20 inches. Rate of fire: 700 to 950 rounds per minute. Muzzle velocity 945 Meters per second. Effective firing range 550 Meters…” Blackout Detachable, track 6, features the sound of a distant siren as the narration states: “AAC Blackout 300. Barrel length 35.7 inches. Unit cost $2233. Muzzle velocity 940 Meters per second. Rate of fire 800 to 900 rounds per minute. Effective firing range 503 Meters.” The listener feels as if buried under these vast and deadly descriptions of firepower.

Two of the pieces do, however, contain a human perspective. Trapped In A Constellation, the title track, starts with loud and harsh scratchy sounds, followed by lovely bell tones and electronic harmonies. The narration switches to a human point of view: “The habit that binds me to my limbs is suddenly gone – space extends.“ A background of beeps and bloops is heard, combined with ‘spacey’ electronic sounds. “I’ve become infinitely small and fall in all directions… Impossible to escape… I’m trapped in a constellation.” The listener is left with the distinct impression that this is a portrayal of instant death by gunshot.

Someone Else, the final track, is even more graphic. Electronic, alien sounds open this track, providing a remote and distant feel. The narration begins: “Silence. I don’t hear anything… [the bullet] entered my body almost quietly… Must have been very sharp and smooth. After an initial sting, I could feel my muscles contracting. I feel I should not move and stay very still. How do you breathe? I thought the bullet would quietly exit my body… “ Now the solemn electronic tones of a pipe organ are heard – distinctly spiritual. More narration: “Of course I moved eventually and then the real pain started. A dazzling pain that strikes your depths, my cells spitting out its electric suffering.” The music turns darker, with cold, spacey beeps creeping into the warmer pipe organ texture. The organ tones gradually diminish, replaced by distant electronic sounds at the quiet finish. A very moving final track to this very powerful album.

Ambidextrous Constellation is a compelling portrait of the unforgiving existence of the modern assault rifle. The emotional power of this album is all the greater because of the straightforward simplicity of its musical materials and a direct narrative approach. Ambidextrous Constellation is precisely the sort of artistry we need in a society besotted by a fascination with violence, guns and death.

Ambidextrous Constellation is available for digital download at Bandcamp.

by Paul Muller
Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Piano, Review

Georg Friedrich Haas’ 11,000 Strings At Park Avenue Armory

11,000 Strings at Park Ave Armory
“11,000 Strings” by Georg Friedrich Haas at Park Ave Armory in NYC (credit: Stephanie Berger)

At first glance, it seems like a stunt: 50 pianos and pianists, plus 25 other instrumentalists, all arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the vast Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. They were there to perform 11,000 Strings, a 66 minute composition by Georg Friedrich Haas, commissioned and performed by the Austrian new music ensemble Klangforum Wien. Performances began September 30 and run through October 7, 2025 (I attended on October 2).

At the onset, I was ready to condemn this work as B.S., a party trick, but it’s definitely more than that. Each of the 50 pianos were tuned differently from one another, in 50 steps of microtones. The carefully constructed piece began quietly, on a major chord. One would think it would be difficult to create dynamics any softer than forte, but this performance exhibited a great range of dynamic and timbral nuances.

Almost from the start I recognized that this was a visceral experience for me, similar to the way out-of-tune chords can sometimes invoke a queasy feeling. But this was not nausea. Instead, it was a pleasant vibration deep in my chest, bringing a sense of anticipation and occasionally excitement.

The overall aural effect was cinematic and evoked visual images like a swarm of cicadas, the spookiness of a horror film, mysterious anticipation and thunderous cacophony. As the piece wore on, I caught a glimpse of the digital readout in front of one of the pianists: 21:38. I was discouraged to realize that it indicated 21 minutes elapsed, therefore 45 more to go. At that moment, I was ready for a coda, a fermata and a big finish.

The fact that the Armory could create so much buzz around this avant-garde novelty piece and attract thousands to come experience it is impressive. It does seem like a lot of effort for an hour of music. You won’t leave the venue humming a tune, that’s for sure. But the molecules in your body may be permanently rearranged.

by Gail Wein
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, Recording review

Ken Ueno sings Sonic Calligraphies in the Tank (Recording review)

Ken Ueno – Sonic Calligraphies (Off-record)

Composer and vocalist Ken Ueno is a creator and performer of notated composition, sound art, and improvisation. A professor at UC Berkeley, Ueno’s singing  involves extended techniques, with an investigation of throat-singing styles from many traditions being just one facet of them. His explorations have also often included using a megaphone. 

The megaphone is not often thought of in musical contexts, but rather as an amplifier of spoken voices, often strident in demeanor and used for warning of danger, imposition of power, and inducing fear. Ueno’s employment of it in previous contexts turned these aims on their heads, serving as commentary on political subterfuge and decolonization. His latest work for voice and megaphone, Sonic Calligraphies, does this too, but in a more abstract fashion. In order to obtain certain frequencies, he modifies vowels to create expressive, but not directly linguistic, inflections. 

Another partner in this endeavor is the recording venue, The Tank, a disused, large metal cistern in Rangely, Colorado. Converted from water container to performance venue, it has a one second delay and is extremely resonant. The inception of its use for performance was the iconic 1989 LP Deep Listening, made by Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, and Panaiotis. Oliveros later repurposed the recording’s title as a manifesto for her discipline of sound studies. Like this trio, Ueno employs the resonance of the tank, exploring its high ceiling and spacious interior with detailed attention. His sonic palette is a panoply of overtones, microtones, multiphonics, and glissandos. They are deployed in everything from gentle forays to dramatic sonic maelstroms. 

 

Facilitating this endeavor with a megaphone which, above all, is about messaging and overt declamation, makes its abstraction a virtue. The recording is a poetic rejoinder to the amplified discourse so often found today, emanating from the political talking heads on cable news, doom scrolls of social media, and animated disagreements in public and around the dinner table. Sonic Calligraphies may elude precise translation. However, it is eloquent and engaging in equal measure. 

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism, Orchestral

Peter Thoegersen – Symphony IV: melodiae perpetuae



Peter Thoegersen has posted a digital realization of his Symphony IV: melodiae perpetuae on Bandcamp. This is an ambitious piece for full orchestra with a running time of just over 52 minutes. Symphony IV is a work in progress; it is intended to be poly microtonal and poly tempic in its ultimate form. The recording posted at this writing is realized in 12TET tuning with various sections of the orchestra heard in different tempi simultaneously. Thoegersen writes: “Each choir of the orchestra is moving separately in Fuxian contrapuntal motions, such as contrary, parallel, similar, and oblique, with respect to tempi changes in the choirs.” Fragments of Gregorian chant from the Liber Usualis form the foundation for the various sections as they ebb and flow throughout this single movement piece. Updates to Symphony IV will be posted on Bandcamp as software improvements and other refinements are implemented.

Peter Thoegersen has devoted much of his career to the exploration of multiple simultaneous tempi that intersect with scales and harmony constructed from micro tonal pitches. He has produced a number of works realized digitally as well as several performed pieces. These have been mostly for smaller and mid-sized ensembles, so the application of Thoegersen’s methodology to full symphonic forces represents a significant escalation of his artistic intentions. Symphony IV, even in its present unfinished form, gives an insight into this process.

In a conventional 19th century symphony, there is typically a sonata structure so that the various sections of the orchestra pass around a common theme and introduce variations. Symphony IV is nothing like this. From the very beginning we are immersed in a great wash of sounds and all the parts of the orchestra seem to be playing at once. This might seem to be a recipe for sonic chaos, but it proves to be more engaging than distracting. Different sections of the orchestra are often heard crossing through each other, and this creates an intriguing kaleidoscope of textures that are continuously unfolding as the piece progresses. At times the great wash of sound might remind of a piece like Becoming Ocean, by John Luther Adams. As the sections intersect and collide, snatches of what could be passages from David Diamond’s Symphony I or Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra might be heard.

The overall feeling in this music changes quickly and can vary from mysterious, to ominous, haunting, grand or tense. The Gregorian chant fragments embedded in this piece provide a solid foundational gravitas throughout. Often a single section, usually the brass or percussion, will rise to the top of the texture and dominate briefly. The strings provide a restrained background against which the other sections can emerge and contrast. A piano line of single notes will occasionally rise up over the woodwinds to trigger the memory of a piano concerto. The dynamics rise and fall, often depending on which section is dominating. The timpani often heralds a tutti crescendo that ends with a bold trumpet call. It is perhaps the employment of full orchestral forces that allow the listener to pick out favorite or familiar-sounding phrases. But these come in the absence of a conventional structure and so are enjoyed without any framing context. This uncertainty increases the engagement of the listener.

How far into the unorthodox will Symphony IV ultimately travel? Only time will tell, but the journey will doubtless be full of surprises and worth following.

by Paul Muller
Canada, Chamber Music, Competitions, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Strings

Nine Premiere Performances by Kati Agócs at Banff International String Quartet Competition

Composer Kati Agocs (photo courtesy Visconti Arts)

It’s rare for a new work to have even a second performance, but Kati Agócs’ Rapprochement received nine plays in a single day. Agócs was commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition to write a composition that each quartet would be required to play in the 2025 competition.

The title of her nine-minute piece means “to bring together.” Agócs, in a pre-performance conversation with BISQC director Barry Shiffman, explained that it is in variation form, in which the harmonic underpinning is important to the melodic line. It’s a lyrical piece, and the instructions call for a lot of fluidity with beautiful solos for each member of the quartet. In an introductory video, she said, “The score leaves room for players to shape nuances of dynamics, articulation, balances, and color.” Agócs worked individually with the competing quartets as they learned the piece.

Quatuor Elmire (Photo by Rita Taylor, courtesy of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity)

There were nine quartets participating in 2025 BISQC: Viatores Quartet (from Berlin), Arete Quartet (Seoul), Cong Quartet (Hong Kong), Quatour Magenta (Paris), Quatour Elmire (Paris), Quartett HANA (Munich), Nerida Quartet (Bremen), Quartet KAIRI (Salzburg), and Poiesis Quartet (Cincinnati). Naturally, each gave its own spin on the work. This was a great opportunity for the audience to hear the ensembles back-to-back-to-back. Over the previous four days, the quartets performed one round of works from the romantic era and one round of a quartet by Franz Josef Haydn paired with a 21st century work. You can watch all of the performances on demand on the BISQC website.

I asked Shiffman why he chose to program all of the premiere performances of Agócs’ piece in a single concert. He said, “Look at the audience. It is the most popular concert of the competition.” He said that most of the audience are not avid new music listeners, and it’s helpful to them to hear many interpretations at the same time.

The Arete Quartet pulsated the rhythms as if inhaling and exhaling. Cong gave special attention to a steady eighth note all through the piece, which was one of the instructions in the score. Magenta leaned into the dissonances at the opening, and gave the rhythms a jaunty swing. Elmire made the most of the hemiola rhythms near the beginning and gave the jolly rhythms a sensual twist, ending with panache.

HANA did a great job of “singing” lyrically (another instruction in the score). Nerida gave the ethereal opening an especially mystical feel and their upward glissandos were especially gossamer. KAIRI seemed to have an especially good handle on the transitions between sections, and Poiesis showed a confidence above the others. They were especially birdlike in the chirps that came just before upward glissandos, and did a great job of varying the sound of each iteration of the theme.

Agócs, who is Canadian-American-Hungarian, teaches at New England Conservatory in Boston. She has written two other quartets, Tantric Variations for Cecilia Quartet and Imprimatur for Jupiter Quartet, both previous BISQC winners.

The first Banff International String Quartet Competition was in 1983 and it’s been held every three years since then. It takes place at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity which is in Banff National Park, a breathtakingly beautiful location in the Canadian Rockies. The winner of the 2025 competition will be announced on August 31.

by Gail Wein
Contemporary Classical

BBC Proms–Boulez Thorvaldsdottir Hisaishi Reich Gubaidulina

The Prom on August 4 was presented by BBC Symphony Orchestra, along with the BBC Symphony Chorus and the Constanza Chorus, conducted by Hannu Tintu. It opened with Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna by Pierre Boulez, in commemoration of the centennial of Boulez’s birth. Written later in his life, when Boulez’s conducting career seemed to limit his compositional activity, Rituel is an austere ceremonial progression of textures and instrumental colors, lasting approximately half an hour. Both its structural strategy and its expressive effect are somewhat reminiscent of Stravinky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments. It was given a very effective performance with the appropriate concentration and seriousness. The other work on the program, Mahler’s Das Klangende Lied is a rather remarkable piece. Written when he was twenty, Mahler considered it to be the moment in which he found himself as a composer. It is remarkable both for the very great talent it demonstrates and for how really terrible it is as a whole piece. Both Brahms and Liszt, as heads of two different juries considering the work for performance, rejected it; they were both right.

The Prom concert on August 13, presented by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eva Ollikainen, featured Before We Fall, a ‘cello concerto by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, with the very wonderful Johannes Moser soloist, surrounded by early twentieth century masterworks, Varese Intégrale, Ravel Bolero, and Stravinsky The Rite of Spring. The most remarkable thing about the Thorvaldsdottir concerto is its instrumental writing and orchestration. The ‘cello is several times put in registral situations with surrounding instrumentation which it would seem should completely bury it, but the soloist is always audible. There is also a remarkable use throughout the work of octave doublings. Everything is in the service of what the composer, in her note about the piece, says is the most important expressive concept of the work: “…the notion of teetering on the edge–of balancing on the verge of a multitude of opposites.” Before We Fall is a very compelling and beautiful work, although it could have used more of the fine sense of timing and pacing demonstrated by the Ravel and Stravinsky pieces on the concert.

Joe Hisaishi conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by the BBC Singers, the National Youth Voices, and the Philharmonia Chorus for the Prom on August 14. The program consisted of two pieces of his, The Symphonic Suite The Boy and the Heron, in which Hisaishi was also the piano soloist, and The End of the World, both receiving their European premiere, and The Desert Music by Steve Reich. One is immediately struck on hearing Hisaishi’s music by the command of the sonorities and colors of the instrumental writing, and the immediate appeal of the musical ideas. The argument of the music is not always as continually engaging in The Boy and the Heron, despite its many pleasing qualities, possibly because it was written as music for the film of the same name by Hayao Miyazaki. The End of the World is a more independent statement, beginning initially with Hisaishi’s reaction to visiting the site in New York of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The work developed over several versions, increasingly concerned with the anxiety and chaos of the original attack and further with values of the aftermath of the event. The work concludes with Hisaishi’s effective recomposed version of the song The End of the World, recorded in the 1960s by Skeeter Davis. Although the program credited the lyrics of the song, which are by Sylvia Dee, it made no mention of the person who wrote the tune, Arthur Kent. The singing of countertenor John Holiday, the soloist in the work, was particularly beautiful and expressive. The concert concluded with The Desert Music by Steve Reich. A protest and warning against nuclear weaponry, the work, which was written between 1982 and 1984, practices the compositional procedures Reich developed leading up to Tehillim. Its workings and musical language were undoubtedly a precedent for Hisaishi’s compositional methods and style, so it was a very fitting companion on the program.

The Prom concert on August 15 was presented by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, joined by the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and Synergy Vocals, conducted by Ryan Bancroft. The advertisement for the concert featured The Ravel G major Piano Concerto, with Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist, and that piece, very masterfully performed, and followed by a barn burning performance of the third movement of the Prokofiev Seventh Piano Sonata as an encore, ended the first half of the concert. It began with a performance of Revue Music by Sofia Gubaidulina. Written when Gubaidulina was very much out of favor with the government of the Soviet Union, where she lived at the time, and when she was very desperate for work and for any means of financial survival, the work was initially conceived of as a sort of concerto grosso for jazz band, including electric guitars and vocals, and orchestra. The “jazz” it evokes is actually more the music of American sixties television music (the program note suggested Lalo Schifrin, particularly his theme for Mission: Impossible), filtered through Russian early twentieth century style and procedures. The result was both interesting and enjoyable.

The final work on the concert Dimitri Shostakovich’s Thirteen Symphony, Babi Yar, setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Since it is concerned with governmental oppression of a class of its citizens deemed unworthy and inferior, in the case of the work’s subject, Jews, and since its history is involved with governmental suppression of artists and works of artists which do not conform with the government’s agenda, the work seemed unsettlingly timely. Bass Baritone Kostas Smoriginas joined the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales in a powerful performance of the work.


by Rodney Lister
Contemporary Classical

New CD from Martin Kuuskmann: 3 Concertos for Bassoon & Orchestra

Martin Kuuskmann performs works for Bassoon and Orchestra composed by Tõnu Kõrvits, Eino Tamberg and Erkki-Sven Tüür, with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mihhail Gerts on Orchid Classics ORC 100384 ©2025 by Orchid Music Ltd.

Martin Kuuskmann (b. 1971) is an Estonian born, multi-Grammy nominated virtuoso bassoonist noted for his high energy, charismatic performance style across a wide spectrum of idioms and repertoire. To date, over a dozen concerti have been written expressly for him. In addition to maintaining a busy international recording and concertizing career, he holds the chair of Associate Professor of Bassoon at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. I first became aware of Kuuskmann’s work in 2008, when I heard him perform Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XII for solo Bassoon during a one day festival of the complete Sequenzas held at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater. On that occasion I wrote:

“Martin Kuuskmann’s performance of Sequenza XII for Bassoon left me wondering why that instrument has not long since replaced the electric guitar as the instrument of choice for disaffected teenagers around the globe. Playing from memory and holding his instrument without the aid of a support strap, he laid down a 22-minute industrial pipeline of sliding, distortion-laden multiphonics that gave me the vivid impression of a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo emerging from one of Anselm Kiefer’s collapsed concrete labyrinths.”

Over the ensuing 17 years, that 2008 performance has remained fresh in my memory. In fact, anyone who knows me has probably at some point heard me recount the experience. So, I was especially pleased when Martin himself brought this new CD, containing 3 of the aforementioned 12-plus concerti that have been composed expressly for him, to my attention.

If it can be generally agreed that the portal to 20th (and now 21st) century music first opened in 1913 with Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, it’s worth recalling that that epoch-making work begins by emerging from silence with an extended, utterly bewitching, unaccompanied bassoon solo. I believe that Stravinsky’s decision to commence in this manner was not mere happenstance. If we think of individual instruments in the way that we think of actors – as dramatis personae in an extended narrative – surely the bassoon represents the complex and unpredictable character actor. Berio himself considered something like this view as essential to the creation of his 1997 bassoon Sequenza. He calls Sequenza XII:

“…a meditation on the circumstance that the bassoon – perhaps more than any other wind instrument – seems to have oppositional characteristics in its personality – differing profiles, differing articulation options, differing characteristics of timbre and dynamics.”

Considered as a group, the works on this CD can be understood as a sequence of three unguided tours traversing through and lingering on striking aspects of the full range of the bassoon’s aforementioned abundant “oppositional characteristics.” In this collection, only Eino Tamberg’s work assumes the time-honored multi-movement, fast-slow-fast formal layout typical of the classical and Romantic eras. But, in this instance, the formula is a springboard rather than a straitjacket.

The program begins with Tõnu Kõrvits’s (b. 1969) “Beyond the Solar Fields” (2004). The work is an unbroken, 17-minute span that, to my ears, contains in its musical DNA a deliberate evocation of the musical, dramatic and folkloric sensibilities that gave rise to Stravinsky’s Le Sacre. The piece is compressed in its time span, but wildly expansive in its perfectly timed deployment of swells and washes of ravishing orchestral color and pseudo-impressionistic harmony. I use the prefix “pseudo” here in its scientific, rather than critical/pejorative sense. Kõrvits’s harmonic language in these passages is derived from 20th and 21st century jazz and pop sources. There is no defaulting to the altered, free floating Debussy-isms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The resulting sound world is familiar, but entirely fresh, never recycled.

The especially evident in the striking moment at the end of the work where a recording of a woman’s voice singing a type of Estonian folk song called a Helletus emerges from the orchestral soundscape. According to Wikipedia, Helletus is not a specific song but a genre of herding call, a form of communication between shepherds and their cattle. The vocalizations are often “non-lexical”, using sounds rather than words to guide, summon or sooth livestock. The deployment of this strategy as a coda to the work is both haunting and rich in extra-musical associations.

As mentioned earlier, Eino Tamberg (1930 – 2010) constructs his Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra (2001) in the time-honored multi-movement format of the classical and Romantic eras. But in this case, an antiquated convention is deployed in the service of pushing against generic expectations. The piece makes no heroic efforts to resuscitate archaic harmonic formulas or reanimate deadened melodic sensibilities. Of course, this kind of Neo-classical approach sets the stage for an arch species of late 20th century ironic wit and self-awareness. In this regard, Tamberg does not disappoint. Each of the concerto’s four movements are marked with both the classical Italian language terminology for designating mood and tempo AND terse, idiosyncratic translations into English of those same designations:

1. Perpetuo moto (It Won’t Stop) Vivo.
2. Interludio – La danza irrequieto (Restless Dancing). Allegro irrequieto
3. Solo (Alone). Lento
4. Postludio – Perpetuo Moto (It Moves Again). Vivo leggiero

The overall form of the work suggests a circle. Two thematically related outer movements, 1 and 4, frame a pair of inner episodes in movements 2 and 3. Movements 1 and 4 are characterized by manic, flickering streams of notes. They are initiated by the solo bassoon and picked up by wildly varying combinations of instruments from within the orchestra. This high-speed, high-energy music always stays just this side of under control. The effect for the listener is both mesmerizing and thrilling.

During the inner episodes, the action winds down from frenetic, “Restless” dancing to a haunting lament from the bassoon. The 3rd movements long, singing passages are draped in pointillistic necklaces of keyboards and mallet percussion performing hushed, rapid arrangements of the earlier dance music. Tamberg was a late 20th century master, and the agile wit, humor and seriousness displayed in the concerto’s formal strategies is borne out everywhere and abundantly in the wry luminance of the music itself.

The Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra (2003) by Erkki-Sven Tüür (b. 1959) is eccentric in its formal architecture and, in this setting at least, unique in its gestation. The unique gestation consists of the fact that the entire piece is a re-write of Tüür’s 1996 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, this time with the bassoon as soloist. While the reason for this state of affairs given in the CD’s liner notes by Kuuskmann involves a scheduling conflict, the practice of instrumental transcription has a history as long as music itself.

In overall form, the concerto is cast as a wildly asymmetrical pair of movements. Movement 1 is just under 17 minutes long, Movement 2 is just under 5. The piece begins with an arresting set of gestures. A sequence of chords is orchestrated in a bell-like manner, with one group of instruments providing the sharp attack of the imaginary bell’s clapper, and another the long, sustaining tones and overtones of the bell itself. The soloist emerges out of this resonating atmosphere, first appearing as one of the sustained tones, but gradually becoming animated with moving lines and figuration.

From there the music unfolds in a basically episodic manner. In fact, the concerto is something of a composer’s sketchbook of the ways in which an orchestra might accompany, oppose and/or be dominated by a solo instrumentalist – bassoon or cello. For me, the ultimate sonic impression is of a single 22 minute work with an extended coda beginning just before the 17-minute mark. But, the work’s formal asymmetry notwithstanding, the concerto ends as it began – as a sequence of bell strikes. It’s a compelling strategy which, in this case etches itself into the listener’s memory as a vivid, memorable musical landscape.

– Tom Myron, August 2025
by Tom Myron
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Microtonalism

Dave Seidel – Intercosmic

Dave Seidel has released Intercosmic, a new album of electronic music featuring tracks recorded in studio and in a live performance at The Wire Factory in Lowell, MA on June 7 of this year. Over the years, Seidel’s works have exhibited a long evolution from classical drones to the present mix of industrial and synthesized electroacoustic music. Seidel has an extensive background in experimental music, beginning as a guitarist in the 1980s downtown New York minimalist scene and later performing in various festivals throughout the US.. Since 1984 he has concentrated on the composition of drone and microtonal electronic music. Seidel is based in Peterborough, New Hampshire and Intercosmic is his latest offering.

Sundering Void is the first track on the album and this begins with a deep buzzing A/C hum, as might be expected from La Monte Young. Other harmonics enter, both lower and higher with the lowest being almost a rattle. These sounds build in volume and as the piece proceeds, new sounds enter and exit, gradually changing the texture. Most of the sounds are in the lower registers and the overall effect is like that of intimidating industrial machinery. When this piece was performed live at The Wire Factory, it must have been quite a visceral experience.

Sundering Void, as part of an album with the title Intercosmic, it would seem to imply a great empty place, filled with a few spacey beeps and boops, Almost the exact opposite is true. This piece does evoke a vast cosmos, with sounds that are commensurately impressive, but their character is drawn from familiar 20th century mechanical processes. About 4 minutes in, for example, some continuous high pitches enter, like the sound of a failing wheel bearing. By 6 minutes, there is a sound like the shrieking wind. Everything sounds vaguely out of control and about to self-destruct. These are all powerful elements, but are part of a familiar sonic vocabulary that make for a more intense depiction.

Halfway through the piece, a low rumble dominates the texture and faint sounds of sirens are heard, wailing in the distance. The middle registers become great swooshes of sound and the overall feeling is unsettling. There is a sense of movement in all this, as if a great energy is being expended to travel through the inter-cosmos. This is enhanced at about 12:30 when a few spacey sounds are heard above the roar, providing a glimmer of cosmic feeling. There is little sense of direction or purpose at this point – all is consumed by a loud thunder of sounds in acknowledgment of the dynamic power needed to reach interstellar space.

By 19:00, higher pitched sounds now dominate as if we are in free fall. Perhaps the end of the journey is at hand. There is only a rough rumbling in the lowest registers. The deep sounds continue to fade away leaving just a few descending notes at the finish. Sundering Void is great ride, the more so because it speaks to us in familiar sonic language.

A Furious Calm is the second track on this album and is more harmonically centered. Seidel writes in the liner notes that this piece is: “ My version of a chaconne, an application of a bit of Henry Cowell’s ideas for rhythm… Written using a seven-note subset of a microtonal Meta-Slendro scale. Some effects are digital, but all sound sources are analog, as are some of the effects.” A Furious Calm is organized in four layers, each with its own combination of synthesizers, drones, modulators and synthetic percussion. The piece opens with a lovely drone in the middle registers as additional sustained tones enter in harmony. The overall result is warmly atmospheric and surreal. Deeper bass notes are soon heard, providing a solid lower foundation. Some percussion enters, sputtering against the main harmonic texture and adding a sense of randomness to the mix. As the piece proceeds, the sounds become fully organized, expressing a sense of purpose that borders on menace. As the dynamics build, there is a feeling of grandeur as might be experienced in the presence of a large pipe organ.

By 9:00 the texture starts to thin a bit, with higher, swirling tones heard above. The dynamics slowly decrease, implying distance. At the finish, the swirling tones dominate and then fade away. A Furious Calm is an impressive combination of raw power and delicate microtonal harmonies that combine into a wide variety of textures, organized into a series of effectively layered sounds.

Intercosmic continues to confirms Dave Seidel’s mastery of alternate tuning and electronic synthesis.

Intercosmic is available for digital download from Bandcamp.

by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical, Minimalism, Video

Blushing at the Hem of Redemption: Uva Lunera’s “Trozos De Mí”

“Not even Arvo Pärt’s Gregorian chants could save her.”

When life tears your heart out, music has a way of suturing it back into place before you lose consciousness for good. This is what it feels like to immerse oneself in Trozos De Mí (Pieces Of Me), the latest project from Bogotá, Colombia-based pianist and composer Valentina Castillo (under the stage name Uva Lunera). Having previously explored her idiosyncratic blend of minimalism, groove, and songcraft across a travelogue of studio and live settings, she has produced what is, so far, her most intimate and transformational multimedia experience.

Combining sound, text, and video, Trozos De Mí is a journey, not in the sense of moving nomadically from one place to the next but of exploring the same place over and over until it becomes something totally different by the scuff marks of footprints and the stains of blood (and other effluvia) left behind. It is the latter we follow into this, her second full-length album, which by virtue of its unraveling gives us plenty of fiber to twine around ourselves in empathic understanding of the ache it so honestly captures.

Through the machinery of eight major organs surrounded by the skin of an “Opening” and “End,” the figure we glimpse beckons with one hand and holds us off with the other. We sustain this push and pull like the tearing of a muscle. What at first announces itself as an excruciation morphs with each touch of the keyboard into a lull of healing. That cusp between debilitation and revivification is where Castillo is most in her element as a performer, so that her recollections of fierce romance rage like an oil fire on a stove sucked of its oxygen by the range hood of memory.

From the fragments of “Deleite” (Delight) to the reparations of “Podéis Ir En Paz” (You Can Go In Peace), she rounds the edges of every shard just enough to be holdable without cutting through the fingers. And what a blessing that is when those fingers are the primary salvation bringers in a world of broken instruments. In the manner of bodies close and electric yet playing out the dances and separations that define every infatuation, she gives herself to the moment, knowing that whatever pieces she loses are opportunities for the clay of retelling to take their place. In “Deja Vú,” especially, she molds those traumas of repetition into something grander, less hesitant. As hurt turns into laughter and back into hurt, she leaves the piano to dance—the only coping strategy that makes sense as she delves deeper into the missing time of her autobiography.

And so, from the throes of adulthood to the quietude of childhood, she wraps herself in “Una Mantita” (A Little Blanket), a lullaby that reaches like starlight through slatted blinds without ever touching her sleeping face. Instead, that maternal glow is interrupted by “Padre,” whose stoic malevolence carves a shadow of resistance. Couched in this forlorn image is the tale of a Catholic priest (“Yes! I’m not the only one who calls him ‘Father,’” she quips) who prompts songs of forgiveness in the daughter he abandoned. However, that forgiveness must be gifted to herself, so tender that it can only be felt, never seen. This paternal hurt reaches its breaking point in “Un Duelo, Una Pausa” (A Duel, A Pause), in which drummer Rafa Lozina evokes a body scarred by too many paper cuts, each page a blade of awakening.

In closing, we are swept into a theme song for moving on. With terms settled and corporeality mended, she looks back while keeping one toe dipped into a future yet to be sung. Thus, her state of mind is always present with the listener. She sits before you, face to face, holding your hands in hers, the only completion of a circuit needed for us to know its electricity.

Trozos De Mí is available to experience in full on YouTube here. Let yourself go, and it will catch you.

by Tyran Grillo