Some of the most remarkable music performed during the 2026 World New Music Days came in the four concerts devoted to orchestral music.
At times, the challenge of writing well for large forces was all too apparent. Though in the case of Eli Tausen á Lava (Faroe Islands), there was little evidence he had tried that hard, as his let me cry was music at its most shamelessly filmic, diatonic and basic – simply boring, lazy rubbish. Jixue Wu‘s (China) SOLILOQUY was similarly problematic, with all of his ideas sounding off the peg, as if pre-fabricated elements had been stitched together. Bereft of originality, the music had no power to surprise, shock or satisfy. Wu resorted to cinematic bombast to try and win us over, though even he seemed to realise how hollow this was, focusing instead on a recurring motif, but never really using or developing it, simply repeating it ad nauseam.
Likewise Poland’s Maciej Kabza, whose asc / desc – (no) ending, despite its title, was surprisingly immobile, often fixed in place. It was like a form of treading water that seemed impatient, flaring up, eventually devolving into gestures and almost teetering into yet more filmic territory. (Remember the days when film music took its inspiration from the concert hall, and not the other way round?) The conclusion was utter emptiness, its overblown nature unable to mask how generic it was. Endless pounding accents at the end were a desperate, doomed attempt to make an impression. Evidently more ambitious was Whence Comest Thou by Ziv Cojocaru (Israel), though it was a frustrating piece, in which everything seemed ephemeral, seemingly laying the groundwork – atmosphere, tone, attitude – for something yet to come, but which never arrived. One sensed Cojocaru was (perhaps unwittingly) conscious of this, causing the music to swell and hit a sonic wall, magically emerging beyond it in a different world, soft, tender, simple – yet in this context unconvincing.
Of the submitted orchestral works, there were four that were not merely better than the rest, but genuinely outstanding in the way they uniquely used the orchestra and explored their respective ideas. Two of them came in the final concert of the festival, given by Concerto String Orchestra conducted by Bogdan Vodă.
In Versus by Anna Veismane (Latvia) we heard wonderful clustered gestures, each one suggesting it was in theory clearly defined, but in practice massively smudged into big swiping streaks. The effect had real power, in due course seeming to circle, as if contained, the lower strings in sympathy with the upper but turning more percussive, and undulating at depth. A mid-register smeary melodic impulse was explored, with an angular bassline that sounded more clear and prominent than was was going on above. A solo violin emerged – a focal point and perhaps a catalyst. Everything was now less clustered, more stable, almost as if we were finally hearing clearly what had previously been so obfuscated. Yet in the work’s conclusion Veismane introduced more uncertainty, a murky not-quite-drone below, somewhat clustered sounds above, establishing a beautiful liminality of clarity and unclarity. The texture pared back, rising sevenths emerged and echoed around the space, and Versus ended in a place less of resolution than enigmatic suspension.
One of the most captivating works of the festival came from New Zealand’s lucky pollock, who in resilience (pluto trine saturn) created what can only be described as a lopsided music, gentle but inscrutable, sliding – or possibly sagging – from note to note. Sad? Relieved? Tired? Despite its fascinating strangeness, what seemed certain was the music’s distinctly poignant tone. So much was kept at a distance: essentially pulseless; moments of rhythmic impulse starting only to falter soon after; likewise a hint of harmonic pseudo-clarity proved false almost immediately. Thus it continued, ambiguous, puzzling, and in ways hard to define, aching. A mesmerising and deeply affecting piece.
Sonically enthralling orchestral music came from Helena Tulve (Estonia), in a concert given by the National Radio Orchestra conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. Her Wand’ring Bark effectively started in medias res, with various tangible ideas already present in its rich texture, pulling the ear everywhere. Overall, one could say that they had a lyrical quality – but that’s too simplistic, too reductive, they were so much more than that. Furthermore, whereas previously in her orchestral music (and, indeed, all her music) Tulve suggests all the players are on the same side, with implications of a shared, common goal, here the situation was fascinatingly more equivocal, the fabric being pulled and stretched by different sections (factions?) of the orchestra. So sumptuous yet so complex, the violins our only locus of certainty amid an opulent tapestry of shapes, colours and scents. The music seemed outside time, beyond tempo, moving under its own inner and unknowable sense of pace – in which multiple notions of speed emerged simultaneously as ideas materialised. Despite lasting ten minutes, such radical invention as this was over much too soon.
The same concert presented one of the most intriguing works performed during the festival. Buds and Petals by Predrag Radisaveljvić (Serbia) began like a musical meringue, all whipped up sonic sugar and froth. Not a promising start, yet – where on earth were we now? Somehow, the music had grown dark, it trembled, plaintive clarinet calls within a black place that felt all-enclosing, with weird shuddering moans elicited from the piano strings, and hard chords from its keys. Sharp accents from the wind suggested an effort to recapture the spirit of the opening. Yet while momentum began to build, Radisaveljvić undermined it by making it feel like they were trying too hard to reclaim and recalibrate. An ostensibly triumphal air that followed was thus rendered magnificently false, forming a glorious, messy climax that brought to mind Allan Pettersson. The final sequence was astonishing, as if the orchestra had burst through the work’s final double barline and were now going it alone, lost and confused in a post-musical place of abject uncertainty: echoes, vestiges, memories, remnants, resonance. Incredible.
