The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet performs works for trio, quartet and quintet at the Willy Brandt Center, Jerusalem

Photo courtesy the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet

On March 29th 2019, the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet, now into its tenth season, performed a concert of works from the Baroque to the 20th century at the Willy Brandt Center, Jerusalem. Founded by young Israeli musicians seeking to bring fine woodwind repertoire and commissioned works to wider audiences, the ensemble performs more than 20 concerts per season. Its international tours have included Switzerland (2017) and France and Germany (2018); the quintet will tour China in May of 2019. The TAWQ makes a practice of performing and recording music of leading Israeli composers of both the older and younger generation and has recorded two discs.  Quintet members are Roy Amotz-flute, Yigal Kaminka-oboe, Itamar Leshem-horn, Nadav Cohen-bassoon and Danny Erdman-clarinet. The musicians are each also involved in solo careers.

 

The Jerusalem program opened with Gioachino Rossini’s Quartet No.4 in B-flat played on flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon; a very early work (Rossini was 12 when he wrote it) it was originally scored for strings but also heard in other settings. Very much a solo work for the flute, the work is not without interplay among the four voices, with each of the instruments given a say. Placed between two exuberant movements, the Andantino emerged lush with cantabile melodiousness, to be followed by the Allegretto, a playful rondo featuring lively dialogue between flute and clarinet, this already displaying Rossini’s penchant for the Italian opera buffa style.

 

We then heard György Ligeti’s  Sechs Bagatellen for woodwind quintet (1953), written when the composer was still a young man in Budapest. Ligeti derived the Six Bagatelles from an earlier set of eleven short movements for solo piano titled “Musica Ricercata” (1951-53). He relied on pitch class variety as the organizing element of the pieces as each inhabits its own world in terms of structure. However, their associations.referring to the composer and his times play no lesser role, as was heard in the explanations preceding the performance and indeed in the quintet’s performance of the work, which was Informed and profound. Ligeti expressed his hatred of the ideology-bound cultural world of dictatorship. In his own words: ''I am in a prison. One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape.'' Two Bagatelles make reference to his Hungarian background: Strident and bathed in dissonances, Bagatelle No.2, for example, elegiac, at times nostalgic, at others even eerie in mood, pays homage to the Hungarian folk song genre, to end enigmatically on a major chord. Bagatelle No.5, “Béla Bartók in memoriam”, with its eastern-style melody on flute, insistent chords and dejected ending, was clearly an expression of pain. The artists however also highlighted the character and originality of the faster bagatelles - Bagatelle No.3’s quirky cross-rhythm staccati against the most singing of melodies, No.4 with its feisty, wild Balkan dance rhythms and No.6, considered “dangerous” by the authorities, who claimed that chromaticism dangerous to the public!  The work, one of the most significant for wind quintet, encompasses splendid writing for the instruments, with the TAWQ's performance giving expression to its playfulness, cynicism, grief, contentment and its vibrant soundscape.

 

J.S.Bach, the great musical recycler, would surely have enjoyed hearing Mordechai Rechtman’s arrangement of Bach’s organ Trio Sonata BWV 529 in C major performed by Amotz, Erdman and Leshem. In fact, Bach’s unique collection of trio sonatas for organ BWV 525-530 is largely the reworking of some of his favourite works – now mostly lost. Highly challenging for the organist, playing the work on three wind instruments is also a test of the players’ dexterity, with Bach writing in the Italianate concerto style and challenging the instrumentalist with wide leaps and rapid arpeggios. The artists juxtaposed textures in the lively outer movements, maintaining articulacy and tension deriving from tempi that never allowed textures to become dense or inarticulate. In the serene, richly-harmonized Largo, they gave emphasis to poignant, well-crafted melodic shaping, with Amotz adding some Baroque-style ornamentation. As to the final Allegro, the artists’ playing of its vivid and intricate fugal textures kept the listener at the edge of his seat and definitely involved.

 

The concert concluded with Paul Hindemith’s “Kleine Kammermusik” (Little Chamber Music) for Wind Quintet, Op. 24, No. 2, one of a series of ensemble works. Of the finest wind pieces to come out of the 20th century, it is a five-movement “suite”. Presenting Hindemith’s characteristic writing, such as smooth disposition and use of dissonant counterpoint, to the present-day listener, it is a genial, humorous piece (with a touch of cynicism), but for audiences (and quintet players) in 1922, who had grown up listening to music in the Romantic style (not yet dead), Hindemith’s quintet was a major departure in almost every way. Following the lively and energetic first movement and the following languid yet appealing waltz - here Amotz switches to piccolo to add a further touch of wispiness - the third movement marked “Ruhig und einfach” (peaceful and simple) is much like an elegy, not surprising coming from a composer who had served on the front lines during the end of the World War. Blending its autumnal colours with gentle, appealing sentiments, the TAWQ players created a thought-provoking mood piece. Intense and frenetic, the fourth movement, only 23 bars long, was nevertheless another opportunity to hear some brilliant playing, with cadenzas for each instrument. As to the forthright Finale, sounding march-like at times, it gave the stage to different groups within the quintet.

 

 

For their encore, the artists played the Overture to Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” (a piece new to their repertoire) giving freshness and appeal to Bernstein’s profuse musical canvas and to the wit, élan, and sophistication associated with the operetta genre. Comprising five outstanding players, the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet never fails to please and entertain, offering dedicated performance of the highest level.

"Eternal Light" - Franz Herzog (Austria) conducts the Israel Vocal Ensemble in a program joined by saxophonist Eyal Aizik

Maestro Franz Herzog (photo: Peter Purgar)

“Eternal Light” was the title of the Israeli Vocal Ensemble’s recent concert directed by guest conductor Franz M. Herzog (Austria). Also taking part in the event was saxophonist Eyal Aizik. This writer attended the concert at St. Andrews Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem, on March 2^nd, 2017.

Born in 1962, conductor, composer and music educationalist Franz M. Herzog today serves as artistic director of the Vocalforum Graz (chamber choir) and was founder and chief conductor of the Cantanima, a Styrian youth choir (2004-2013). He is currently head of choral conducting at the Johann Joseph Fux Conservatory (Graz) and lecturer at the Graz University of Music and Performing Arts. As a composer, his oeuvre largely focuses on choral- and vocal music. This was his first Israeli concert tour.

Established in 1993 by Yuval Benozer, who continues to serve as its music director, the Israeli Vocal Ensemble, comprising professional singers, is among Israel’s finest choral chamber choirs. With its own concert series, the IVE performs in major Israeli concert venues, also taking part in local festivals and overseas. The ensemble’s repertoire ranges from medieval to the most contemporary of works; it has also recorded film music. The Israel Vocal Ensemble is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, Mif’al Hapais and private donors.

“Eternal Light”, a program of mostly European pieces, many sacred and (almost all)  a-cappella from the Renaissance through Romantic music to that of the 21^st century, took the listener on a spiritual journey through the course of a day, starting out in the sparkling light of daybreak. The program opened with the Lenten hymn “Christe, qui lux es et dies” (O Christ who are light and day) by Robert White (1538-1574), a sophisticated, imitative piece, its polyphonic verses built around the chant.  Via the densely-interwoven textures and descriptive effects of György Ligeti’s (1923-2006) “Morning”, we were presented with a performance of young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo’s (b.1978) stunning spiritual- and richly blended 8-voiced “O magnum mysterium”, with saxophonist Eyal Aizik’s mellifluous playing of phrases weaving into-, complementing- and conforming with the work’s vocal lines.

Of great interest to singers and audience alike were two works of Franz Herzog himself, their first Israeli performances. We heard the Kyrie and Gloria of his Missa “Lux caelestis” (2004), a richly-coloured multi-dimensional canvas of ostinati creating vital rhythms, of clusters, the enmeshment of seconds and contrasts between lighter and darker timbres - music of excitement and conviction. “Laudato si, mi Signore” (2011) uses a text from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun of 1224 and in the original Umbrian dialect of Italian.  Here, Herzog’s writing threads his evocative use of syllables and words effectively with the natural beauty of voices in a gripping kaleidoscope of lush, introverted textures then spiralling into powerful grandeur, expressive of the text’s message of both suffering and forgiveness.

An interesting reflection on the text of Heinrich Schütz’ exquisite motet “Herr, nun lässest Du deiner Diener” (Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace) from the burial service for Prince Heinrich von Reuss, a Dresden nobleman, was the division into a low 5-part choir and a smaller ensemble of two sopranos and bass and set apart. In the latter, the bass represented the soul in bliss, with the sopranos as two seraphim. With each choir singing a different text, the IVE singers highlighted the work’s extraordinary texture in unforced singing and fine projection of words, even at moments when both texts were intertwined.

Another fascinating motet was Felix Mendelssohn’s setting of Psalm 43 (opus 78 No.2) (1844), its five double verses divided into four sections, with basses and tenors singing the melody in unison against sopranos and altos in harmony, then moving into “O send your light and your truth” soaring into eight-part harmony. The work concludes with the composer (texturally and musically) revisiting the cry of suffering from his setting of Psalm 42, a heartrending personal gesture. Rich in Romantic harmonies, Edvard Grieg’s “Ave, maris stella” (Hail, star of the sea) was given a personal and dynamic reading, poignant in its gentle echoes.  Probably his best-known sacred work, Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger’s (1839-1901) subtly introspective, syllabic six-voiced "Evening Song" (1873) was sensitively shaped and richly satisfying. Another fine miniature was “O nata lux” (O Light born of Light) from “Lux Aeterna” by one of America’s most acclaimed and widely-performed choral composers Morton Lauridson (b.1943), its economic use of pure triads and those coloured by an added second or fourth flowing in in a stream of undulating melodic lines in the composer’s glistening treatment of the theme of light. And to “Stars”, a mysterious and mystical night piece in four voices by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds (b.1977) to the text of American poetess Sara Teasdale’s poem of the same name.  Ešenvalds’ unique setting calls for water-filled glasses of specific pitches and sounded by the singers themselves by running a wet finger around the rim. Herzog led the singers securely through this work of floating, magical timbres with its underlay of clusters created by the water-tuned glasses (and their overtones) and the sonorous choral writing of fluctuating crescendos and diminuendos as its spacious, otherworldly mood was crowned by a weightlessly-suspended high soprano “a”.

‘Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,

And a heaven of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red…’

Turning to a different kind of repertoire, we heard “Amazing Grace” William Cowper’s hymn text to words by Anglican minister John Newton, published 1779, nowadays mostly sung to the melody of “New Britain” and referred to by Gilbert Chase as “the most famous of all the folk hymns”. In Israeli composer/conductor Tzvi Sherf’s evocative and imaginative arrangement of the song, IVE bass Ronen Ravid soloed with splendid natural mastery, at one point joined by soprano Talia Dishon to give the performance a fleeting Afro-American touch.

An unusual and unique addition to such a program, Eyal Aizik’s hearty-, imaginative- and intermittently intimate saxophone improvisations, taking their cue from the program’s repertoire, added an enriching and indeed profound dimension to the event. The “timeline” agenda of Maestro Herzog’s program effected the integrating of works of all eras into a fluid and satisfying continuum, with the obvious rapport between him and the IVE singers resulting in interesting, high-quality choral performance of exceptional depth and beauty.

 

 

 

The Israel Contemporary Players (conductor: Zsolt Nagy) open the 2015-2016 season with works spanning 100 years



The Israel Contemporary Players opened its 25th “Discoveries” season with a representative selection of the ensemble’s wide range of repertoire, from Stravinsky’s “Ragtime”, to music of Ligeti, to folk-flavored music, to the premiering of a work by Eitan Steinberg, with music from England, Europe and Israel. The concert was conducted by Professor Zsolt Nagy (b. Gyula Hungary, 1957), who has served as chief conductor and artistic adviser to the ICP since 1999. A collaboration of The Voice of Music IBA Israeli radio and the Jerusalem Music Centre Mishkenot Sha’ananim, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality, the series is under the artistic direction of Dan Yuhas and Zmira Lutzky. This writer attended the concert on November 1^st 2015 at the Jerusalem Music Centre.

The program opened with “Pierrot on the Stage of Desire” (1998) by British conductor and composer Roger Redgate (b.1958), a work for flute, clarinet, violin, percussion and piano, written in the “New Complexity” style of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. As the title infers, the piece focuses on the character of the dreamy, naïve clown Pierrot and his sadly unrequited love for Columbine.  In three miniature but evocative and richly designed movements, the players presented the opening movement’s feisty, witty character in crisp, articulate gestures, the middle movement more introspective than the two outer movements. With fine clarinet playing on the part of Danny Erdman, the sextet’s articulate and skillful performance offered much to fire the listener’s imagination, as the agitated third movement finally dissipated into nowhere. Redgate, who has worked in the fields of jazz, improvised music and performance art, writes music for film and television and writes about music. In 1999, he collaborated with the New York-based experimental rock band GAWK.

Then to what Zmira Lutzky referred to as a significant work in the development of modern chamber music – György Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto. Composed 1969-1970, it is scored for flute, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), horn, trombone, harpsichord (doubling Hammond organ), piano (doubling celesta) and solo strings. As to its format, it is not a concerto in the conventional sense but “all 13 players are virtuoso soloists and all are treated as equals”, in the composer’s words.  This being the case, the Israel Contemporary Players’ reading of it was beguiling and not just for its virtuosic performance. Nagy brought his ensemble together in articulate and wonderfully precise playing of the work’s extraordinary textures and different techniques, rendering it transparent, accessible and exciting. In its four contrasting movements, concluding with a wild, whirring series of rapid cadences, the work reminds the listener that this major classical work, in its inventive, playful, poetic and communicative utterance, still has much to say to today’s audiences.

We then heard the Israeli premiere of “Cosmic Progressions in the Heart II” for 10 instruments by Israeli composer Eitan Steinberg (b. 1955), one of today’s prominent Israeli composers.  “Cosmic Progressions in the Heart II” was commissioned and premiered in 2011 by the El Perro Andaluz Ensemble (Dresden, Germany.)  It is the second of three pieces, each the result of a process of change, referred to by Steinberg as non-linear change, with the composer interested in examining what might constitute development or a lack thereof in the pieces. Scored for orchestra, “Cosmic Progressions in the Heart I” was premiered by the Israel Camerata Jerusalem in 2008. “Cosmic Progressions in the Heart III” for symphony orchestra was premiered in 2013 by the Tbilisi Symphony, Georgia, conducted by Vakhtang Kakhidze. Referring to the pieces and their title, Steinberg spoke of the cosmos and the heart as what we all possess, that what we do has impact on the cosmos, with the cosmos also influencing our actions. When composing the work, what was echoing in the composer’s mind was that Albert Einstein had claimed that past and present are only directions like left and right, forward and backwards. Over recent years, as Steinberg has returned to the work to change parts here and there, creating new versions, it has gone through its own natural processes, hence its three versions. “Cosmic Progressions in the Heart II”, as performed at the ICP concert, is scored for strings, flute, clarinet, percussion, accordion and piano.  A richly wrought canvas comprising tiny fragments as well as intense drawn-out sounds, a sprinkling of tonal references, dancelike moments, the use of insistent ostinato, a nostalgic folk-type melody played on accordion, Prof. Steinberg’s orchestration and palette of timbres are both sophisticated and attractive, personal and emotional, making for an exhilarating listening experience.

Igor Stravinsky’s “Ragtime” (1918), one of the composer’s “essays in jazz portraiture”, is scored for flute, clarinet, 2 horns, trombone, bass drum, snare drum, side drum, cymbals, 2 violins, viola, double bass and cimbalom. In 1915, Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet took Stravinsky to hear Aladar Racz playing the Hungarian cimbalom - a hammered dulcimer from Eastern Europe, introduced into Hungary by the Roma (Gypsy) people - at a bar in Geneva. Stravinsky, fascinated by the trapezoid shape of the instrument and its rich timbre, decided to buy one; he and Racz found an elderly Hungarian gypsy with one for sale. The composer  first used it to produce raucous animal effects in his chamber opera-ballet “Renard”, later using it wherever possible.  Assuming an almost solo role in “Ragtime” (an extension of the dance in “A Soldier’s Tale”), Stravinsky used the cimbalom to imitate the sound of a honky-tonk piano. Guest artist at this ICP concert, Hungarian composer, improviser, jazz musician and master of the cimbalom Miklós Lukács (b.1977), in his first Israeli visit, joined Nagy and the ensemble in a performance that was jaunty, clean, pithy, bristling with energy and tinged with Stravinsky’s brand of cynicism, the uncommonly grainy character of the cimbalom infusing a unique voice into the texture. The artist played on the Israel Contemporary Players' cimbalom, tuned chromatically.

The program concluded with “Da Capo” (2003-2004) for cimbalom or marimba and ensemble by Hungarian conductor and composer Peter Eötvös (b.1944), with Miklós Lukács performing the cimbalom part. In an interview with Tünde Szitha appearing in the blog of Universal Music Publishing Classical in May of 2014, Eötvös spoke of the work’s title as relating to the structure of the work, to the constant process of starting afresh. “The music begins and reaches a certain point, but, before it is completed, it starts again…in a different way…nine times.” Introducing fragments of themes from Mozart archives as initial ideas, these launch a creative process transforming them into Eötvös’ own music. Referring to it as his “newest and oldest” work, the composer suggests that the piece could be subtitled “Reading Mozart”, but speaks of its scoring as being very different from Mozart’s orchestration, considering the fact that some of the instruments he uses did not exist in Mozart’s time. The essential difference lies in the variety of percussion instruments, not to speak of the instrument in the solo role. The latter was inspired by Miklós Lukács’ virtuoso playing, which, as we heard, was no understatement. In his dazzling performance, underlining the composer’s complex polyphonic writing, Lukács joins the ICP, serving as soloist and ensemble player as Eötvös runs the listener through the unpredictable course of “Da Capo”, its busy, split-character canvas juxtaposing  velvety, touching Mozart gestures with blatant, fiery moments of atonality, the use of ostinati, some references to jazz and  devil-may-care energy. For his encore, Miklós Lukács played his own composition "After Dark", a  folk-music-inspired piece, now using his hands rather than hammers in a virtuosic and beguiling performance.

In yet another evening of polished, dedicated and finely detailed performance, Maestro Nagy (his direction fluid, articulate and emanating dedication to the music and the ICP) and members of the Israel Contemporary Players opened the new concert season with an outstanding evening of music.

PHOENIX Ensemble "In Search of the Chaconne"

Ensemble PHOENIX’s latest program “In Search of the Chaconne” presents many approaches to the chaconne and asks a number of questions about this early form. This writer attended the concert at the Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv, on March 17th 2015. PHOENIX is a broad, multi-faceted ensemble specializing in early music. PHOENIX's repertoire ranges from music from the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and Baroque to early Romantic music, all played on period instruments. Herzog, however, does not limit herself when it comes to the presenting of a very broad repertoire, introducing audiences to works rarely performed and, in fact, to new music. Such was the case in this concert. Artists taking part in the program were Tali Goldberg and Cordelia Hagmann (Baroque violin), Miriam Manasherov (Baroque viola), Marina Minkin (harpsichord) and Myrna Herzog (viola da gamba).

There is reason to understand that the chaconne, originally a fiery, suggestive dance that appeared in Spain around 1600, may have originated in Mexico. Apparently danced with castanets by a couple or a woman alone, it spread to Italy, where it was considered as disreputable as it was in Spain! Viewed as obscene because of the indecent costumes worn to dance it or because of the vulgar body language it entailed, some people have even attributed the dance’s invention to the devil! In the 17th century, a more subdued, stately and slower version of the chaconne entered the French court, where it also appeared in the stage works of Lully. Usually in triple time, the music is characterized by variations over a recurring bass or harmonic pattern. As to the difference between the chaconne and passacaglia, some theorists have defined the chaconne as a set of variations over a harmonic progression, as opposed to the passacaglia variation form being written over a melodic bass pattern. However, one can find the reverse theory; so attempts to arrive at a clear distinction are arbitrary and historically unfounded.

The PHOENIX program opened with Passacaglia in g minor Op.22 by one of Italy’s first virtuoso violinists Biagio Marini (1587-1663). Indulging in the lush affects of this beguilingly tragic piece, the artists rode on the piece’s dissonances, with ornamenting that was personal and inspired by the moment. There were other “mainstream” chaconnes, too. Issued in by the ostinato subject played pizzicato on the viol, the two violinists took on the musical play, complexities and virtuosity of Tarquino Merula’s (c.1594-1665) Ciaccona with fine assuredness and clear interaction between them. The piece also offers the viol a lively, intricate solo. Then, to the poetic expressiveness of the Chaconne in D-major, taken from the first volume of Marain Marais’ “Pièces de Viole”. Herzog and Minkin’s performance of this was anchored on a delicate sense of balance, bringing out the flow of new ideas and highlighting its French elegance and understatement. Although a solo viol piece by Marin Marais (1656-1728) to whom German music theorist, organist and composer Johann G. Walther referred to as “an incomparable French violist da gamba, whose works are known in the whole of Europe”, one was also constantly reminded of the interest and sophistication of the harpsichord role. Written for dance at court or in the theatre, the chaconne of Henry Purcell’s (1659-1695) Pavan and Chacony (“Chacony” seems to be Purcell’s own term) in g-minor, an early work dating from around 1680, is based on a freely descending tetrachord. It was given its own authentic string expressiveness and “narrative” by the artists, who presented the composer’s mastery of writing variations which grow in power and magic as they proceed through a series of harmonic adventures. One of many chaconnes by G.F.Händel, we heard the chaconne from “Terpsichore”, the ballet-prologue the composer wrote in 1734 for his third version of “Il Pastor Fido”. Here was a chaconne to be danced, written for performance of the French dancer and choreographer Marie Sallé, who performed in this and other Händel operas from 1734-1736, when she was in London.
There were some Baroque composers, to name two, G.Frescobaldi and François Couperin, who enjoyed the play of ambiguity in composition, as they used genre characteristics in a tongue-in-cheek manner. A curious departure from the chaconne was heard In Couperin’s rondeau-chaconne “La Favorite”, written in duple time, rather than triple, yet linked to the dance form by its stately character and its cyclic form. Its recurring bass line is a chromatic scale with figurations. Bristling with interest, Marina Minkin’s reading of this ”Chaconne à deux temps” presented Couperin’s picturesque harpsichord expression, unfailing interest and variety, as she juxtaposed the color of registers and used creative ornamentation to intensify and, sometimes, to relax the music’s course. Minkin also performed a 20th century work inspired by the same form – Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s (1923-2006) “Passacaglia Ungherese”. One of only two harpsichord pieces Ligeti had written, it is based on eight intervals slowly spiraling downward through invertible counterpoint; the composer’s instructions were that it be performed on an instrument tuned to mean-tone temperament, producing eight completely pure intervals. The total effect has a curious otherworldly effect and makes for a beguiling mood piece, a dialogue in a non-tonal musical language with a few somewhat tonal progressions. Add to this some elegant melodies, growing rhythmic intricacy and intensifying, blatant fraught dissonances. Minkin, known for her performance of modern music, juggled the many elements of this piece with great skill and insight.

Another very different take on the dance form at hand was British composer Gustav Holst’s (1874-1934) Chaconne from Suite No.1 in E-flat opus 28 (1909), written for wind band. (Holst was a trombonist). The Chaconne (first movement) is based on a 14-note melody that moves from instrument to instrument, with much weaving of varied lines in and through the ground. In this concert, the work was played on strings only, and period instruments at that! But the instrumentalists recreated the articulacy, atmosphere and sound world of early 20th century British music very successfully, reminding one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ description of Holst’s music as “uncompromisingly direct (it) reaches into the unknown but never loses touch with humanity”.

The event also included world premieres of two chaconnes, both composed for PHOENIX and for the program. Of his Chaconne, violinist, violist and composer Jonathan Keren wrote: “Treating a melody or a recurring bass have always fascinated me, so I was happy when Myrna Herzog asked me to write a chaconne for the PHOENIX Ensemble…The recurring bass I used in my work is a series of ten notes (a 12-tone row minus two notes.) This row makes writing in the early style difficult as it does not comprise a typical (chaconne) course, being almost atonal in character…” This being the case, the piece opened in a tonal manner. However, with the ground always obvious, it proceeded to touch the ear’s associations of both tonal- and atonal music as the individual lines became more complex and sometimes less so. So the listener finds himself straddling both tonal- and atonal sound worlds quite comfortably, without giving up on either. Jonathan Keren’s Chaconne is both accessible and rewarding to hear.

Moscow-born pianist, arranger and composer Uri Brener is an artist who performs and writes music of many styles and genres, from music for piano, chamber music, vocal-, choral- and symphonic music, electro-acoustic- and crossover music. “In Search of the Chaconne”, a vibrant, eclectic work, from which the concert took its name, reflected Brener’s use of a wide range of styles. His musical agenda included oriental touches, dance music, the bourdon, clusters and driving rhythms in what built up to relentless, full-on energy. This energy spent, we were presented with a tranquil, homophonic chorale-like section, the piece finally winding down to the minimal strand of pizzicato notes on the viol. Brener is a master orchestrator with much to say in the chamber music medium. Writing for specific artists meant including vigorous, challenging solos of strongly individual character – for violin, viola as well as some electrifying material for harpsichord.

Once again, PHOENIX has presented its listeners with a unique, thought-provoking program, taking the courtly Baroque chaconne as its point of reference and examining works inspired by it right up to today. There was a sense of in-depth enquiry, inventiveness, involvement as well as enormous vivacity in the playing of all five artists, inviting the listener to immerse himself fully in each item on the program.

The Israel Contemporary Players host the Tremolo Ensemble in the opening concert of the 2014-2015 season

The Israel Contemporary Players, under their long-standing house conductor Zsolt Nagy, opened the 24th season with a collection of works by some of the 20th century’s greatest composers. The ensemble was joined by Ensemble Tremolo (director: Tomer Yariv) and soloists. Dan Yuhas and Zmira Lutzky serve as the ICP’s musical directors. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha’ananim on September 21st 2014.

As in the ICP’s opening concert 23 years ago, this program opened with “Ionisation” by French-born Edgard Varèse (1883-1965). It is scored exclusively for percussion instruments: crash cymbal, bass drums, concerros (muffled cow-bells struck with a drum stick), high and low tam-tams, gong, bongos, side drum, high and low sirens, slapstick (clapper), guiros (gourd), woodblocks, claves (two wood dowels), triangles, snare drums, maracas, tarole (a high-pitched drum), suspended cymbals, sleigh bells, tubular chimes, cymbals, castanets, celesta, tambourine, anvils and piano. With only chimes, celesta and piano bearing equal-tempered pitch. “Ionisation” (1929-1931) begun six years after the composer immigrated to the USA and referred to by the composer as the “liberation of sound”, became a “landmark”, the the first of many all-percussion scores to be written in the 20th century. In what could have culminated as a chaotic din in the wrong hands, the young artists here were meticulous in bringing to life the score’s subtlety and order, with its richly layered and changing sonorities – high, medium, low but also those produced by skin, metal and wood-tone - its small groups, its homophonic and unison moments, wrenching tempo changes and the grand sonorous coda issued in by the pitched instruments (although pitch here is immaterial) - piano, celesta and chimes – finally fading away with bells, tam-tams and suspended cymbals. The precision and immediacy of the performance were as gripping as was watching it all happen.

Then to the very different sound world of Henry Cowell (1897-1965), one of the most far-reaching and open-minded musical revolutionaries of the USA, a composer who viewed any sound as musical substance with which he could work. In the “Aeolian Harp” (c.1923), a piano piece, Cowell instructs the performer to play inside the piano by sweeping, scraping, strumming and muting the strings. “Aeolian Harp” takes the ancient idea of harps being played by the wind; the piano is used as a zither, with the performer standing at the keyboard, plucking solo notes and strumming chords, while holding down keys in chord formation to produce enchanting harmonies. In his introduction to the score, the composer gives very detailed instructions as to how to produce the effects he has in mind. Pianist Naaman Wagner, using Cowell’s old-fashioned harmonic idiom in this new setting, fashioned the work in its glistening delicacy and varied dynamics. Now based in Berlin, Naaman Wagner is a soloist and chamber musician and a regular performer with the ICP.

Naaman Wagner then performed German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s (b.1935) piano study “Guero” (1969). The piece stems from the period when the composer was defining his style of “musique concrète instrumentale” (tape music pioneer Pierre Schaefer initiated the term “musique concrète”), “in which the sound events are chosen and organized so that the manner in which they are generated is at least as important as the resultant acoustic qualities themselves…” in Lachenmann’s words. In “Guero”, the composer takes a thorough exploration of the instrument’s acoustic possibilities as his starting point and begins to build structures. The guero, or guiro is an open-ended hollow gourd with parallel notches along one side; it is played by rubbing a stick along the notches. In his program notes, Lachenmann describes “Guero” as a “six-manual variant of the eponymous Latin American instrument. Re-creating the composer’s rejection of tradition piano technique, Naaman Wagner showed the order present in the course of the piece, moving from the vertical surfaces of the white keys to their horizontal surfaces, via the black keys into the piano, playing the pegs and, finally, the strings, using the rippling sound of fingernails along the keys as the work’s basic material. Naaman Wagner is confident and convincing, enlisting the listener’s curiosity as he speaks in Lachenmann’s musical language with comfortable fluency.

Following a dangerously unproductive three year spell in Bela Bartok’s life, Concerto no.1 for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1926 along with other piano works for his upcoming concert appearances. An impressive showpiece, Bartok (1881-1945) wrote it in order to have a new piece to perform with orchestras. The solo piano role - with its large, awkward leaps, dense clusters demanding wide stretches of the hand, relentless speed and severe demands on the outer, weaker fingers - says much about the composer’s own virtuosity on the instrument. In his search for new sounds and sonorities, Bartok sees the piano as a percussion instrument. This was the last large piece in which Bartok was to use a key signature. The ICP concert included the second movement of Bela Bartok’s Concerto no.1, scored for piano, winds and percussion, but with no strings. We heard Naaman Wagner as soloist in a haunting dialogue between piano and percussion, the reverie supported by filigree percussion playing in a sensitive, searching reading of the movement.

Then to “Okho”, a unique, poly-cultural percussion work by ethnic Greek composer, theorist and architect-engineer Iannis Xanakis (1922-2001), scored for three performers on djembe and bass drum and premiered in Paris in 1989. A naturalized French citizen, the composer wrote the work for celebrations of the French Bicentennial. The djembe, or djembé, is a rope-tuned, skin-covered goblet drum originally from West Africa. It is powerful and resonant and can produce a variety of sounds. A study in repetition and different ways of introducing irregularity, the work has six sections, each different in intensity, tempo and rhythmic texture. Lior Eldad, Ziv Kaplan and Daniel Solomonov, each playing a number of drums, gave a precise, polished and totally engaging performance. As it proceeded, one’s ear began to pick up on an interesting play of pitches.

Of his “Music for Pieces of Wood” (1973), American composer Steve Reich wrote that the work had grown out of “a desire to make music with the simplest possible instruments…Performed by five players, its rhythmic structure is based entirely on the process of rhythmic build-ups or the substitution of beats for rests, and is in three sections of decreasing pattern lengths: 6/4, 4/4, 3/4.” Pitch is established by the wooden claves, but once the piece has begun, this becomes a background sound basis. Each of the three sections employs a new progression to build density and is connected to the neighboring section via the basic quarter note pulse presented by the first player. In solos, smaller combinations and tutti, Lior Eldad, Daniel Solomonov, Nadav Ovadia, Tomer Galili and Oded Geizhals exhibited amazing intensity of concentration and inter-communication in the work, the text of which is written in precise notation but with instructions to repeat each bar “approximately” the number of times indicated.

The program ended as it left the audience right at the turn of the 21st century with Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s (1923-2006) “With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles” (2000), a setting of poems by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres for mezzo-soprano and four percussionists playing the following instruments: triangle, crotales (antique cymbals), pair of cymbals (high, with a coughing sound), cymbal (sounding like a broken pot), 2 suspended cymbals (high, low), tam-tam or gong (low), 2 cowbells (one dull, one lower), Japanese bell (high), Japanese “rin” temple bells (tuned), Burmese gongs (tuned), tubular bells, 3 snare drums, 2 high rototoms (rotary drums), bongo or conga (tuned), 3 bongos, tambourine, 2 tom-toms (one low but not resonant), log drum, wood drum (muffled), low slit drum, 2 bass drums (medium, low), 4 temple blocks, woodblock, sandpaper blocks, claves, castanets, Japanese wooden rattle, sistrum (rattle), chimes (unpitched), maraca, ratchet, guiro, vibraslap (stiff wire connecting a wood ball to a hollow box), large whip, 2 slide whistles, railway whistle, 2 police whistles, 2 siren whistles, metal pipe, sopranino ocarina in F, 2 soprano ocarinas in C, 3 recorders (soprano, alto, tenor), 4 Hohner M270 chromonicas, lion’s roar, 2 flexatones (flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame), glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, 2 marimbas and bass marimba. Joining the highly skilful percussionists was Israeli contralto Noa Frenkel, a highly versatile and gregarious contralto with a rich palette of colors, a singer with a repertoire spanning from Renaissance to contemporary music. She gave superb insight into each of the seven miniatures, with their play of the surreal and the absurd. From the first utterance of the opening song, “Ballad”, performed with abundant chest voice, wild facial expression and uncanny laughter, she swept the audience into a world governed by the unpredictable:

‘A mountain walks.

Another mountain comes towards it.

The wolves howl:

Do not crush us!

I am a mountain.

You, too, are a mountain.

We are indifferent to that.’

Frenkel collaborates closely with the ensemble: in the homophonic “Chinese Temple”, the effect is decidedly bizarre as she uses her voice is as an unpitched bell. “Bitter-Sweet”, evocative and melodious, is the closest piece to a strophic Hungarian folk song, whereas in “Parakeet” Frenkel creates colorful patter in gibberish. Noa Frenkel and the instrumentalists had the audience sitting at the edge of their seats as they presented the theatrical work in all its modernist complexity colored by both childish directness and sophistication with a touch of melancholy. Weöres spoke of art as a land of possibility rather than reality or, rather, “it describes level of reality beneath the troubled surface.”

The Israel Contemporary Players’s opening concert for the 2014-2015 season presented some landmarks of modern music. It was a celebration of fine performance, much of it percussion-centred, of rigorous preparation, deep enquiry into the works and conviction of the musical message of each. It was also a celebration of the outstanding, high level of young Israeli performers.

The Israel Contemporary Players conducted by Christian Eggen

Luca Lombardi

The fourth concert of the Israel Contemporary Players’ 2011-2012 Discoveries Series took place at the Jerusalem Music Centre April 1st 2012. The concert was directed by Norwegian conductor Christian Eggen (b.1957). Eggen made his debut as a solo pianist (classical and jazz) in 1973. His international career as a conductor was launched at the 1990 ISCM World Music Days in Oslo. Eggen also composes, mostly for theatre and television. Much in demand today as a conductor, he is well known for his in-depth understanding of modern music.

The program opened with Bent Sørensen’s work “The Deserted Churchyards”. Born in 1958, Sørensen is considered the leading Danish composer of his generation. Scored for violin, ‘cello, flute, clarinet, piano and percussion, the title “The Deserted Churchyards” (1990) refers to several churchyards along the western coast of northern Jutland, in locations that were formerly inland, now close to eroding beaches being ravaged by the sea. Not a program work, the composer refers to its title as “only an association”. It is, however, a delicate collage using light and dark “colors”, a fascinating use of single and mixed timbres depicting a strange, grey, moody world. The piece itself is economical and effective; the ICP performance was one of precision and lucidity.

In 1938, violinist József Szigeti approached Béla Bartók, requesting him to compose a duo for violin and clarinet with piano accompaniment, a work consisting of two contrasting movements, with a cadenza for each solo instrument. The work - “Contrasts” – was, however, officially commissioned by American jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. One wonders if Goodman was not expecting a jazzy little concert piece; the work Bartok came up with was a high quality, three-movement chamber work whose fabric is made of Hungarian- and Rumanian folk music, as well as meters suggesting Bulgarian and Greek music . Originally titled “Rhapsody”, it (in its original form consisting of the two outer movements) was premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1939, performed by Szigeti, Goodman and pianist Endre Petri. In 1940, it was performed at Carnegie Hall once again, but, this time, as “Contrasts”, in its three-movement form and played by Szigeti, Goodman and Bartok himself. The movements are titled “Verbunkos” (Recruiting Dance, a dance used from about 1780-1849, when the Austro-Hungarian government was encouraging conscription), “Pihenö” (Relaxation) and “Sebes” (Fast Dance). We heard “Contrasts” played by Yael Barolsky (violin), Gilad Harel (clarinet) and Ofra Yitzhaki (piano). The artists gave an articulate, well-defined reading of the work, from the mildly jazz-tinted whimsical and nostalgic opening movement, through the magical middle movement with its nocturnal nature scene in which violin and clarinet play together, with comments by the piano, to the final wickedly humorous third movement with its complex rhythmic figures. Bartok’s fine writing was highlighted throughout by the players; the score calls for the clarinetist to change from A-flat clarinet to B-flat clarinet and back again and for the violin to tune differently (scordatura) in the final movement, the latter suggesting folk music of a rougher idiom. An outstanding performance.

Luca Lombardi’s (b.1945, Rome) education and professional life straddle both Germany and Italy, placing him in the most divergent of cultures. A student of Stockhausen, he wrote a dissertation on Hanns Eisler; he lived, studied and was performed in both Germanys, standing up for his political and aesthetic ideals. He studied piano and composition in Rome, Florence, Vienna, Cologne and Berlin. His PhD from Rome University is in German language and literature. From 1973 to 1993, he taught composition at the conservatories of Pesaro and Milan. His oeuvre includes opera, orchestral music, chamber- and solo music. With a passion for the music of Stravinsky and Bartók, Lombardi had deep contact with the avant-garde movement. In 1982, he explained the existence of different styles in his works through the concepts of “ex-clusive” (the possibility of creating complex forms from greatly reduced materials) and “inclusive” (the will to include multiple musical “behaviours”). In the 1970s Lombardi was composing for electronic instruments, but meantime has returned to more conventional scoring, making much use of the flute as of the late 1990s: this came about from his having come across some excellent flautists, but the composer also sees the flute as “close to the sound of nature…at the very origin of everything – of life itself”. Today Luca Lombardi divides his time between Lago Albano (near Rome) and Jaffa (Israel).

“Infra” for 11 instruments refers to ‘depth’ (as in infrastructure), an association referred to by the composer as activity below the earth’s surface or in our own sub-conscious. The work was composed in 1997 in Italy, where the composer’s house looks out onto Lake Albano, a small volcanic crater lake; he uses a scale he constructed as the result of his encounter with Jewish music. The work opens with an uncompromising combination of low, (sometimes buzzing) sounds, the basis of the work, to which the composer returns again and again. Solo instruments introduce new tints – high ‘cello sounds, nostalgic chimes, a drum solo… But the lion’s share of solo-playing is scored, not unexpectedly, for the flute. The several flute solo sections were handled superbly by Dafna Yitzhaki, who literally breathed meaning into the large variety of effects and gestures, some breathy and distant, others introducing a flow of ideas like distant and disturbing memories. Yitzhaki paces the solos strategically, taking time to give each motif expression; she uses her fantasy to give meaning to each idea, to paint the ideas in eerie hues onto a canvas of haunting silence. The listener who is willing to confront “Infra” is well rewarded. This was the work’s Israeli premiere. Ambassador for Italy in Israel Luigi Mattiolo was present at the concert, as was the composer himself.

The concert concluded with György Ligeti’s (1923-2006) Chamber Concerto for eleven orchestral instruments: piano doubling celesta, harpsichord doubling Hammond organ, flute doubling piccolo, oboe doubling oboe d’amore and cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet doubling second clarinet, horn, trombone, two violins, viola, ‘cello and double bass. Melody and motifs do not form the basic fabric of the four movements: each, however, focuses on a specific quality of musical expression. Composed 1969/1970, at a time the composer was exploring micro-polyphony and was emerging as a leading member of the international avant-garde, the Chamber Concerto is a concerto for each of the instruments. The listener becomes aware of elements of melody, counterpoint and harmony, but no less of Ligeti’s textural ideas – clusters in which the notes seem to suddenly take on individual life, moving like insects, muted chord effects, fast repeated, witty, percussive notes (as in movement 3 – Movimento preciso e mecanico) and eerie, trippy screens of sound, the instrumental textures being thread through stereo speakers. And there are also the horrific shrieks and shaking effects, never far away from Ligeti’s soul and drawing-board. A Jew born in Transylvania, he survived the Second World War in a labour camp; his brother and father perished in Auschwitz. Commenting on the emotions shaping his creative utterances, he was quoted as saying “I am permanently scarred; I will be overcome by revenge fantasies to the end of my days”. The Israel Contemporary Players, most of them young artists, took on the challenge of this work with the utmost of competence, giving it a sensitive, finely-detailed reading, their treatment of the text, on all its levels, making for compelling listening.

It was an interesting and inspiring evening of music. The Israel Contemporary Players’ concerts offer high quality programs. Their players are committed to bringing fine performance of modern music to Israeli audiences. The auditorium of the Jerusalem Music Centre is the ideal venue for this music.