Delayed gratification is one thing, but i realise that i’ve been putting off listening to one of this year’s releases that i’ve been most looking forward to. When i first encountered Enno Poppe‘s epic Prozession, performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik at HCMF 2021 (and conducted by Poppe), it was all i could do to find words that even vaguely managed to adequately capture something of the extraordinary experience. It remains one of the most stunning performances i’ve ever witnessed in the concert hall, which has made the prospect of listening to Musikfabrik’s recording of the work both mouthwatering and daunting.
It’s an immense relief, therefore, to find that Prozession is just as impressive on disc as it was in the concert hall, and it makes for a powerful and illuminating complement to the live experience. The piece falls within that most unique and unfortunate of sub-genres, pandemic music, being a work that Poppe had abandoned but returned to in the midst of lockdown, finding a way to bring it to fruition. Back in 2021, no doubt in part due to the feeling we all shared about finally being able to be back in an actual concert hall again (albeit with social distanced seating within a slimmed-down 5-day festival), Prozession conveyed, among other things, a sense of wild elation, even hints of pandemonium. This was matched – and kept in check – by a long-term structure that indicated circularity, of starting again, repeatedly, hinting at Poppe’s difficult composition process as well as the global new start within which the performance was taking place.
The recording, again conducted by Poppe (surely the very best interpreter of his own music), offers what is essentially a much more measured, subtle and (for want of a better word) organised rendition of the piece – no pandemonium here. Perhaps that description instantly makes it sound less interesting, yet the reality is entirely otherwise. What we hear is a music simultaneously moving forward while continually restarting, recalibrating, reconfiguring itself. There’s a palpable struggle playing out, between disorientation and determination, articulated in a language caught between keening and joy. It brings to mind the “terrible trek” with its parallel sentiments in W. H. Auden’s poem Atlantis:
O remember the great dead
And honour the fate you are,
Travelling and tormented,
Dialectic and bizarre.Stagger onward rejoicing…
Prozession isn’t so much marshalled as gently and sympathetically prodded by a quartet of percussionists, whose role sometimes seems to be merely getting and keeping things going. Yet their omnipresence seems essential in galvanising the ensemble and encouraging them to inch their way toward, first, a voice, and eventually, a song. The process is fascinating and moving, nebulous traces of pitch becoming crude smears in the air, while motes of a motive (in every sense of the word) help formulate the beginnings of something tangible. Even here, in the nascent confusion, Poppe fills the music with fragile beauty, and with each passing section – each one acting like a gear change, but never quite returning to the start position – approaching ever closer to strength and unity. (It’s worth nothing that, on the disc, the work’s sections are demarcated with different tracks, an approach i usually detest but in this case actually proves very helpful.)
To talk about Prozession in much more depth than this would probably be futile, and in any case do the work a disservice. Yet i can’t fail to mention the astonishing forms of lyricism that emerge along the way, sometimes squally and uncontrolled, other times delicately wavering, or, in one of its most memorable passages (from bar 502), passing through a dark, low register realm producing a frankly astonishing array of deep velvet-black timbres and colourations. It’s an oscillating hymn of rising and falling, soaring and crashing, but never stopping, even as its melody becomes diffused into chord agglomerations, and it ends up, not in a conventional place of triumph, but somewhere infinitely more enigmatic, suggesting a pained kind of peace.
The album is completed by Fleisch, a short, pungent work for tenor sax, e-guitar, keyboard and drums in which Poppe turns his attention to gestures, riffs and allusions to pop, rock and jazz. Essentially a “concerto for band”, it’s like plunderphonics made real, though without any of the disjunct cut-and-paste. Here, those reference points are assimilated and reimagined as the syntax of a synthetic musical language. Compared to Prozession it’s relatively light and fun, though its central movement is especially engrossing, conjuring the impression of what jazz from a parallel universe might be like. But make no mistake, Prozession is what this album is all about: it’s incredible, inescapable, and absolutely essential.
Released by Wergo, Prozession is available on CD and download.
Strangely I also left this unplayed until this week – though I’d confidently put in my end of year favourites list months ago. What a piece!
[…] “Prozession is just as impressive on disc as it was in the concert hall, and it makes for a powerful and illuminating complement to the live experience. … What we hear is a music simultaneously moving forward while continually restarting, recalibrating, reconfiguring itself. There’s a palpable struggle playing out, between disorientation and determination, articulated in a language caught between keening and joy. … Prozession isn’t so much marshalled as gently and sympathetically prodded by a quartet of percussionists, whose role sometimes seems to be merely getting and keeping things going. Yet their omnipresence seems essential in galvanising the ensemble and encouraging them to inch their way toward, first, a voice, and eventually, a song. The process is fascinating and moving, nebulous traces of pitch becoming crude smears in the air, while motes of a motive (in every sense of the word) help formulate the beginnings of something tangible. … i can’t fail to mention the astonishing forms of lyricism that emerge along the way, sometimes squally and uncontrolled, other times delicately wavering, or, in one of its most memorable passages, passing through a dark, low register realm producing a frankly astonishing array of deep velvet-black timbres and colourations. It’s an oscillating hymn of rising and falling, soaring and crashing, but never stopping, even as its melody becomes diffused into chord agglomerations, and it ends up, not in a conventional place of triumph, but somewhere infinitely more enigmatic, suggesting a pained kind of peace.” [reviewed in December] […]