Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Penn Sounds: Maya Beiser - World to Come

When Israeli cellist Maya Beiser plays, it's real and it's Memorex! Beiser uses multi-track recording, some technical enhancement, and a video environment designed by Irit Batsry to create an audio-video experience with new music, mostly composed for her.

In Arvo Part's Fratres (1980), Beiser coaxes out sounds that are almost unearthly, but may just add harmonies over a long ground note. In a piece written for twelve cellos, Beiser manages to sound like several at once; the slow, melancholic, repeating patterns are backed by shades of blue.

Osvaldo Golijov composed Mariel (2001-2003), in memory of the death of a friend's wife, for Beiser accompanied by marimba, and the tonality reflects his native Argentine cadences. The melancholia in this two-tracked arrangement is more straightforward, a low slow tango with throbbing undertones under an orange sky. Beiser inserts a sense of "timelessness" with a performance by Four Strings by Cambodian composer Chinary Ung, a piece representing the violence and horrors of Cambodian history. In this unenhanced arrangement, there is percussive tension, whining ground, and harsh chords against a gray-beige light.

Cello Counterpoint by Steve Reich (2003) was commissioned by Beiser and is the first piece he wrote entirely for cello. There are seven recorded tracks, and the frenetic rhythm is echoed and video-enhanced by moving slashes of white on red, which keeps the typical Reichian repeated patterns from being too deadly by way of distraction. There is a slow center section in black and white, with a faster portion in swirling colors and shifting geometrics.

A different mood was created by Louis Andriessen's 1981 La Voce, which incorporated the poem by Cesare Pavese. The stage was completely covered with a projection of a large empty and unfinished room; the cellist whispering the text creates an atmosphere that is more resonant than the cello tones that are interspersed.

World to Come (2003) is Beiser's long-term collaboration with composer David Lang, and is influenced by jazz, with its jagged lines and syncopated rhythms against flickering video and a recorded ground line, but you might also be reminded of Bartok or Ysaye. The cello phrases are somewhat repetitive, but augment and develop against the visual turmoil of clouds, sky and moving water, eventually allowing the listener to be immersed into this new universe of sound and light. Beiser's style is elegant and intensely energetic with a sense of artistic showmanship that is neither aggrandizing nor artificial.
Fresh Ink Series
Kimmel Center
Philadelphia, PA
February 10, 2005

(Reposted Penn Sounds 2/14/05)

posted by Deborah Kravetz 2/15/2005