Monday, November 7, 2022

"Lied in Fall" - The Israel Contemporary Players open the 2022-2023 season on an autumnal note


 

The Israel Contemporary Players opened their 2022-2023 Discoveries Series with "Lied in Fall" (Song in Autumn) in the Zucker Hall of the Tel Aviv Culture Center on October 22nd 2022. ICP artistic director Ilan Volkov conducted the players, with 'cellist Hillel Zori as soloist.

 

The program opened with "Schlammflocke II (Sludge Flakes) by German composer Carola Bauckholt (b.1959). Composed in 2010 for the Cologne-based Ensemble Musikfabrik, the curious trigger for this ensemble piece was the operation of water purification installations, in which sludge flakes (micro-organisms of dead and living material) play an important role. To produce the unique piece, the composer uses a wide range of resources, with the musicians playing their own instruments conventionally, but also generating a variety of animal sounds with such instruments as nose whistles and conventional instruments played in unconventional ways. The score shows accurately-notated pitch-, rhythm-, timbre- and dynamic signs, yet invites each player to give them his own meaning. What emerges is a tranquil background against which a dynamic scene emerges, a rich and exhilarating sound world of independent animal sounds and varied bird calls, from the most minute and delicate of gestures to nature's grand tutti. The listener is swept into the vivid scene, into a work that is experiential both aurally and visibly, beautiful and captivating,

 

Sarit Shley Zondiner (b.1984), a prominent Jerusalem composer, refers to her music as "ambiguous dramatic situations" that "find their expression in different combinations of sound, that fluctuate between normalcy and insanity." "Shoudu '' for ensemble and electric guitar is not the first work of hers to explore the darker, ambiguous nature of the inner world of the child. The composer refers to two Israeli writers of children's literature who address the subject - Miriam Yalan-Stekelis and Ronit Haham.  Shoudu, a devil wielding magical powers, a figure both fearful and humorous (even nice), appears in Haham's writings. In Shley Zondiner's work, unrelenting texture are strewn throughout, with finely-chiselled, chilling-, spectral- and otherworldly effects, melodic fragments and glissandi that surface and subside; but the core texture of the piece consists of wispy percussive effects, breathy sounds and even some disturbing effects of an uninvited guest gently knocking on a door. There is no mistaking that the piece evokes a child's most nightmarish imaginings. Volkov and the instrumentalists gave a detailed and fine-spun reading of the piece, one demanding much skill and delicacy. Kudos to Oded Geizhals on his very fine handling of the percussion role.  

 

Then to Anton Webern's 1920 chamber ensemble setting of his Six Pieces for large orchestra Op.6. The original version of the Six Pieces was premiered in Vienna in 1913, conducted by Arnold Schoenberg. The average length of each piece is 25 bars; the longest (No.4) having 41, the shortest (No.3), presented in just a few brushstrokes, a mere 11 bars in length. Volkov and the players addressed the fine detail, shades of meaning and emotion of each of the pieces. The Funeral March (No.4), opening with what must be one of the most chilling percussion sequences ever written, the instruments mostly shrouded in shadows of sotto voce, the haunting, penetrating clarinet solo, with the snare drum leading fatefully to the movement’s shockingly abrupt conclusion, was compelling. Altogether, the ensemble's warmth of sound and attention to such elements as pauses gave poignant expression to Webern's remarkable sensibility and ground-breaking musical syntax. Indeed, autumnal in mood, the work, according to the composer himself, describes episodes connected with his mother’s death.

 

And to the piece offering the concert its title - "Lied in Fall" (Song in Autumn) - by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen (b.1952), a work for large chamber ensemble and 'cello solo commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, which also premiered the piece in January 1988. "Lied in Fall" is dedicated to prominent Danish composer Per Nørgård (b.1932). Abrahamsen describes the work thus: "In an autumnal landscape of falling lines, the 'cello moves about with delicate lyricism, almost singing its Lied. It is surrounded by shadows of what has been and what has yet to come, coexisting with melodies between these lines…" In this work, typical of the evocative narrative and nature imagery of the early period of Abrahamsen's career, the ensemble creates a vivid, dynamic screen of sound, against which Zori expounded the work's sweeping, songful melodies with bold delivery. Throughout the lush soundscape, wrought of two totally different and seemingly independent agendas, Volkov held both components in delicate and precisely-hewn balance, leaving the listener questioning himself as to where to direct his own personal spotlight at any given moment.

 

Established in 1991, the prestigious Israel Contemporary Players have added much to the country's musical life, enriching its audience's appreciation of contemporary music. The ensemble regularly commissions, performs and records works by Israeli composers, besides performing an international repertoire from the 20th- and 21st centuries. It collaborates with European and Israeli conductors and soloists and performs in Europe and Asia. The ensemble consists of 14 players.

 

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