Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Voices at Harvard

Last weekend The Fromm Players at Harvard, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, presented a series of two concerts entitled Multiple Voices. "Curated," as the program said, by Elliott Gyger, Harvard composition professor, it featured, as one might expect from the title, various approaches to using more than one singer in pieces, ranging from unaccompanied small groups of soloists to tape pieces whose sources were primarily or entirely voices. I suppose it might be possible to complain about the mostly modernist/"academic" outlook that was clear from the programming, but that's after all where we were. The concerts seemed to me to be among the most interesting I've heard or even heard about; and the performances were universally splendid.

The Friday evening concert began with It's Gonna Rain (1965) by Steve Reich; consisting entirely of the recorded words of an itinerate preacher minipulated in various ways, the piece is the beginning of Reich's earliest minimalist style. It was followed by Grammarie des reves (1989) by Kaija Saariaho, where two singers, in this case the wonderful Tony Arnold and Julia Bentley, sang fragments of poems by Eluard, volumptuously and elegantly enveloped, amplified, and intertwined with and by an instrumental ensemble of two flutes, harp, viola, and 'cello. The second half of the concert began with the Leopardi Fragments (1961) by Peter Maxwell Davies; a piece for soprano and mezzo (the same singers as in the Saariaho) with five winds, harp, and 'cello. The Leopardi Fragments is one of Davies's earliest major piece, predating Eight Songs for a Mad King by about eight years. Reflecting the influence of its model, Monteverdi--particularly the Vespers, it is spare and intense, with occassionally vivid shimmering melismatic outbursts.

The concert ended with Syringa (1978) by Carter. Syringa is one of the most typical, even stereotypical, examples of a certain kind of Carter piece involving different ensembles doing pretty drastically different things at the same time. In this case a baritone, with his own ensemble, sings in a very impassioned and florid manner texts in ancient Greek, conterpointing and commenting on a long poems by John Ashbery about the Orpheus myth sung by a mezzo, with her own complementary ensemble, in an understated and conversational manner. I was quite interested in hearing this, since I like the piece quite a bit, but had only heard it on recordings. I had always had a nagging suspicion that it was something that could only really work in a recording studio where the balances could be externally controlled. It turns out, I think, that I was wrong. At least I think I was. It seemed from this performance as though everything could work, with a minimal ammount of external help--the guitar part here was very slightly amplified.

This particular performance, however, was not helped by the mezzo soloist, Marry Nessinger, who somewhat overdid the offhand, casual quality that Carter seemed to want, and as a consequence was often completed swamped, not so much in volume as in dramatic projection by Jan Opalach, who was going after his part with passion and verve, and possibly some equivalent of chewing the scenery.

The second concert opened with Bo (1979) by Jacob Druckman, for bass clarinet, marimba, and harp with three singers. Unlike most pieces with singers, where the instruments are the accompanying forces, Bo is really an instrumental work, accompanied by the vocal parts. The singers, seated and facing away from the audience, sang a Chinese text, fragmented, I think. The piece is elegantly clear and pretty, undemanding of the audience and good to hear. It was followed by the second version A-Ronne (1975) by Berio, for eight singers, electronically amplified and mixed. The text is a multilingal collage working through beginning, middle, and end, with quotes from the Bible, Dante, Machaut, and Elliot, among others. The performance was brilliantly assured; the piece, although skillful and enjoyable and certainly irreproachable, nontheless seemed awfully derivative of other Berio pieces, amongh them O King, Sinfonia, and Laborintus II. I suppose one shouldn't complain so much about a composer ripping off from himself, but nevertheless...

After Gesang der Junglinge (1956) by Stockhausen, about the earliest important tape piece, which seems to wear pretty well, the concert ended with Meridian (1971) by Harrison Birtwistle. Meridian is a big piece in a lot of different ways, using two mixed vocal/instrumental ensembles arranged symmetrically--both physically and conceptually--around a sort of concertino group of piano, horn, 'cello, and mezzo. It sets poems by Thomas Wyatt and Christopher Logue and is dramatic and vividly powerful, a really wonderful piece. Its strength was undercut in this performance by the rather pale singing of Mary Nessinger, and the lack of clarity of words and volume from the chorus, despite the fact that they were amplified. The stage of Paine Hall was just too small for both Meridian and Syringa, both of which needed space to spread out and separate their ensembles more, so as to clarify the antiphonal qualities of the music. These are small complaints, though, about concerts whose conception was compelling and whose performances were so very assured and so very good.

posted by Rodney Lister 3/09/2005