At the more serious end of the expressive spectrum, there was a lot to take in during my long weekend at this year’s HCMF. It was disappointing to witness, in Ann Cleare‘s TERRARIUM, yet another example of that which has become so prevalent at HCMF in recent years, a multimedia work where the musical content is bland, lifeless and unoriginal, evidently of secondary (or even tertiary) importance in relation to the work’s visual and theatrical elements. So it was with TERRARIUM, 75 minutes of cringingly earnest processional nonsense by the members of Crash Ensemble, basic electronics redolent of Edward Williams’ music for the 1979 TV series Life on Earth (an homage, perhaps?), uneventful textures and idle visuals. It was just horribly pretentious from start to end. Thankfully, with the possible exception of Lina Lapelytė‘s worthy but nonetheless irritatingly empty Study of Slope, nothing else throughout my four days in Huddersfield plumbed such vacuous depths.
A particularly potent example of carefully-executed simplicity came in Synchronicity by Lithuanian composer Julius Aglinskas. Performed by GBSR Duo and Twenty Fingers Duo, its initial impression of indulging in ambient noodling was soon proved otherwise, partly in the way it established a connection between the live performance and a pre-recorded version of the piece, but more due to the overwhelming sense of active thought governing and guiding its gradual unfolding. On the one hand, the work’s musical language felt at times tired, even clichéd, yet it managed to keep itself abstract, almost like a radically simplified form of Baroque counterpoint: one can feel affected by it, it has that capacity, but it’s really just about the notes. It wasn’t clear whether the live performers were intended to be in sync with the recording, but the reality – usually a fairly close kind of misalignment – was arguably more interesting, creating foreshadowings and echoes. It was surprisingly compelling, and its 25-minute duration passed very quickly.
One of this year’s featured composers was Wadada Leo Smith, and he did not disappoint. Few composers have left me so simultaneously rapt by their music while at the same time puzzling over and trying to make sense of their compositional language. This was especially the case in two of his string quartets, superbly performed by the Ligeti Quartet. String Quartet No 3 (Black Church: A First World Gathering of the Spirit) was especially impressive in its elaborate stream of melodic consciousness, intensified with tremolos (which quickly turned out to be one of Smith’s favoured string effects) and slow individual glissandi. This was focused in four solos, given to one player at a time, and throughout the piece Smith often chose not to use the entire quartet at once. What was curious was the fact that the austere, somewhat impenetrable material never felt anything less than mesmeric, demonstrating intensity without conventional warmth, and culminating in a wonderful impassioned high point.
String Quartet No 17 (The Capitol, Washington D.C: An American Experiment with Democracy and Capitalism) went further and deeper, divided into five contrasting but connected movements. The second of these, ‘The Lincoln Memorial’ was especially hypnotic, like a mobile comprising four individual elements, in a slow movement of simple, heartfelt music, warm now but plangent, lyrical yet not primarily melodic. Smith’s mode of expression was genuinely fascinating, and even now, over a week later, i’m still trying to get my head around aspects of its makeup. The work’s trajectory evidently was one towards unity in the players, which was consolidated through the movements, climaxing in an explosion of wildly fervent individual lines, unified but acting as four parallel songs. The unity, fragility and beauty of this work were quite overwhelming, and at 40 minutes’ duration, it’s clearly a piece that wants and deserves a lot more time and listening to understand and appreciate better.
Smith also blew us away with his new piece for Marco Blaauw’s Monochrome Project, The Flight of the Eagle: The Sonic Memorial of Jiddu Krishnamurti, receiving its world première. To the octet of trumpeters Smith added a percussionist (Dirk Rothbrust), given responsibility for three large bass drums. This quickly made for an intriguing relationship, the inclusion of the drums giving the piece the tone of a large-scale ritual, yet also for a while conveying the impression that the trumpets were directly triggering Rothbrust’s percussive blasts. In the episodes that followed, something of the same convoluted lyricism as in the quartets was present here too, complex tangles of melody, very lovely, embellished by drum tremolos and friction. Reaching for descriptors is difficult: to call it primordial or apocalyptic is to sell it short. This sounded like something wholly different, a new kind of heraldic music, bold, strange, familiar, brash, alluring, wild, joyous. Solos had a conversational flavour, often taking time to descend into the raspberry-timbred pedal register of the instrument before ascending to unite in huge tutti chords. Something like a 4- or 8-part chorale ensued, in a blazing conclusion with drum thunder raining down. Incredible.
Perhaps the most striking small-scale work i heard at this year’s HCMF was in the universe everyth ng is a circle for contrabass clarinet and electronics by Finnish composer Maija Hynninen, premièred by Heather Roche on ‘Shorts’ day. It took a little time to get the measure of its language, but it was soon revealed as a beguiling complex song, both embellished and expanded by the electronics. Roche’s control of overtones and multiphonics – an integral part of the work’s sonic language – was just exquisite, avoiding sounding animalistic when letting rip, retaining an overt lyricism. While it felt less focused when introducing whispered speech later on, the return of the clarinet’s song kept it engrossing to the end.
Two of my strongest memories from HCMF 2024 came in the opening concert, celebrating the Arditti Quartet’s 50th birthday. Chaya Czernowin‘s Ezov (moss), a UK première, demonstrated the most remarkable kind of quality: fragile, gossamer-like, yet somehow capable of being robust even though it was sufficiently vaporous – barely a substance at all – that the faintest puff of air would seemingly blow it apart. Another paradox came in its demeanour: remote and inscrutable at times, but never aloof, with a curious earnestness even at its most abstract (i think this is the quality i love most about Czernowin’s work). It culminated in a hypnotic display of tiny ricochets that formed atomised triads, a clockwork mechanism transformed into chords of harmonics, more gossamer, and an unsettling descending sequence leaving the cello squalling and occasionally grinding in darkness.
Most powerful of all was the work that began the Ardittis’ recital and the entire festival, Terra Memoria by the late, irreplaceable wonder Kaija Saariaho. An amazing kind of low, subdued processional, sombre and distorted, led to a place where lyricism could finally speak, loud and clear but heavily weighed down, before receding with trill embellishments, like smiling through tears. For all its melodic power, Saariaho keeps the music fragile, overlapping phrases ended up on precarious high harmonics, their force undermined by intense tremolandi, introducing a harshness that persisted through hard-edged tutti phrases that followed. The conclusion was achingly tragic, twin melodies in octaves, encompassing the highest and lowest registers, returning to the dark sadness whence the piece began. i’m sure i wasn’t the only person in St Paul’s Hall feeling that, despite it being over a year since she died, Saariaho’s loss still feels deeply acute.
