Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Parsed into four discrete pieces, the Taktlos performance is a fluid exercise in revolving roles from the jump. Ducret trades in jagged punctuations, mercurial arpeggios and swollen drone bursts on Stoppage, the first and longest. Blaser reacts as balm, his lubricious lines drawing a direct invisible lineage back suave and soothing bop purveyers. A reversal and it’s Blaser with low brass growls as Brunn colors the corners and edges keeping a rhythmic presence which bolsters and ornaments without drawing attention away from the colloquy of his colleagues. A drum solo filled with fluid, frothing beats works as both palate cleanser and reset into an ambling blues. Later, a froggy brass ostinato serves a similar purpose signaling first clean picking from Ducret and then feral, sharp-fanged blasts of distortion.

Bass-clarinettist Gareth Davis asked Roland Dahinden to write something for his quartet, with Koen Kaptijn, Dario Calderone and Peppe Garcia. Dahinden responded with an "imaginary talk" with Charlie Parker, one of his musical heroes, captured in a score involving graphic as well as more conventional elements. "I took a piece of paper and started to talk to him [Parker] one to one- and compose. Phrases, and graphical stuff." The resulting performance, says Dahinden, was "an intense and wonderful interplay between the musicians themselves and me as the conductor." Dahinden is an improvising trombonist who works frequently with pianist Hildegard Kleeb. When asked if he views himself primarily as an improviser or a composer he says "For me, sometimes composing is the better tool, and sometimes improvising is. One big difference is that when I compose, others are playing the music."

Ustvolskaya's music is dark, somber, even remote when a solitary voice holds sway. Her rejection of easily recognizable form suggests that, metaphorically, time is not a factor; as temporal references are acutely literai, the means to escape an oppressive time and place are found in spiritual, not social, values. Similarly, the chilling sparseness of textures becomes an emotionallandscape, scarred, sometimes painfully severe, where inner strength is necessary for survival. But there is, too, especially in the Duet For Violin And Piano, a sanctity of mood (shared with the later Shostakovich, when he was obsessed with death, and where, in his final works such as the Viola Sonata and Sonata For Violin And Piano, the influence of Ustvolskaya may be felt). ln moments like this, rare is the music where the human will is so immediate, so enduring.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music