Kudos to CSO composer-in-residence Mark-Anthony Turnage for collecting a strong, varied and provocative repertoire for Monday’s MusicNOW concert at Harris Theater. It’s a shame that given the sterling program and virtuoso personnel conductor Pierre-Andre Valade was unable to elicit more cogent and stimulating performances.
Two composers unfamiliar to local audiences presented markedly contrasting sound worlds.
“Testament” (2005), by young English composer Jonathan Cole, was a 12-minute soundscape featuring the unhurried exposition of a chorale tune through a veil of sustained pitches. Jostling for space were agitated clusters of varying speed and intensity, sometimes in bold relief, sometimes in shadow. The work leans heavily on color, but Cole doesn’t possess the ear for orchestration of many of his compatriots. His cause wasn’t helped by a reading that was scrappy and uninvolved.
Jo Kondo’s “An Elder’s Hocket” (1979) for four instruments also evoked the specter of shadow, but the effect was used for different ends. As the title suggests, a breezy melody is presented along with a barely delayed echo, but the mood is jaunty and jesting, and it unfolds in a mere 3 minutes. Similarly brief was Kondo’s delightfully daft “Isthmus,” a motoric, disjunct, yet delicate jolt of atonal whimsy.
Fortunately, we are hearing more of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. His mesmeric “Zilver” (“silver”) owes its name to the prominence of two metallic instruments (flute and vibraphone). He lays bare his material with two sub-groups trading sharp and sustained gestures.
Gyorgy Ligeti’s classic “Melodien” from 1971 was reasonably well-presented, but balances and pacing were haphazard.
