The 8th “Europe-Asia” Contemporary Music Festival in Kazan. Part 2
Reviewed by Anton Rovner
The Eighth International Contemporary Music Festival “Europe-Asia” took place October 19-21, 2007 in Kazan, in the Republic of Tatarstan, in the western Russian Federation.
The second concert that day was held at the same venue at 5:30 PM. It started with a piece by Kazan-based composer Renat Khakimov called “Reference,” scored for flute, accordion and percussion, performed by flutist Venera Porfirieva, accordionist Vladimir Yeremeyev and percussionist Stanislav Sharonov. This was a very colorful composition, combining tonal and atonal harmonies, and featuring a lively mood, a colorful texture, arising from the extreme differences of timbres of these instruments, and dynamic regular rhythms with a lot of syncopations, invoking the element of dance. These contrasted with occasionally recurring soft and slow sections, the juxtaposition of which made manifest the expressive features of the piece.
New York-based composer Gene Pritzker’s duo for violin and clarinet titled “The Universe Contains Innumerable Elements” was given a masterful performance by Asya Meshberg and Philip Bashor. A fast and lively composition utilizing a lot of jazz rhythms and bits of jazz melodic intonations, it had a strong neo-classical vein very much in the tradition of the French “Les Six”. Among the highlighted ideas were short virtuosic outbursts alternately in the violin and the clarinet, whereas the occasional digressions into slow and soft music brought in additional zest to the dramatic flow of the piece.
Meshberg then performed Pritzker’s Chaconne for solo violin with the additional title “I’m so heavy,” derived from the title of a Beatles’ song. An impressive, dramatic piece with a decisive minor harmony, it also made a clear allusion to Bach’s famous Chaconne. The main core of the piece was slow yet dramatic, featuring pungent pizzicato and brilliant flourishing virtuosic passages, bringing appropriate contrasts to the slow music.
The esteemed older-generation Kazan-based composer Lorens Blinov presented his three-movement cycle for solo piano “Reminiscence for Piano II,” which was given a careful rendition by his daughter Violina Blinova. The work is a successful stylistic combination of Romantic music in the Russian vein, with elements of modernist stylistic traits. The first movement presents Russian-style song and dance melodicism over percussive effects in the piano. The second movement is slow and solemn, with intricate chromatic weaving took place in the upper register over an idée fixe of repeated perfect fifths. The third movement is fast and rhythmically dynamic, combining dramatic, Romantic and modernist textures, ending with a chorale-like passage.
Asya Meshberg and Philip Bashor presented a seven-movement cyclic work for violin and clarinet by Greek-born composer Demetrius Spaneas, residing in the United States, called “Cityscapes,” some of the titles of the movements of which were “the subway,” “in the office,” “smog,” “cocktail hour,” etc. it was a fairly traditional-sounding, tonal piece with contrasting movements, alternating slow and lyrical ones with fast and dynamic ones, the latter having very regular rhythms, including repetitive patterns at times.
Very different from the preceding works was the four-movement choral piece by Tatar composer Luisa Khairutdinova, titled “Winter Landscapes,” performed by the Chorus of the Kazan University for Culture and the Arts. The singers came on stage dressed in Tatar national costumes which were green and yellow – the green being the color of Islam, yellow the color of harvest. The music, primarily based on the Tatar folk tradition, was very expressive, and had a very colorful and innovative sound texture, including an assortment of non-standard effects such as tongue-clicking as well as a broad melodicism over an accompaniment of perfect fourths and fifths. The music contrasted slow and fast sections, the first presenting cantilena moods, the latter lively dance rhythms.
Next followed a performance by Sri Radja Shiam-Sharma, from India, who played a piece of Indian folk music for three-set percussion instruments called the “tabla” and simultaneously an accordion-sounding instrument called the “pakhawadji”. The latter presented a fixed ongoing repetition of several notes, while the drum rhythms were virtuosic and continuously varied and developed, albeit gradually. The music was uplifting, conveying an emotionally stable mood.
The concert closed with a brilliant performance by the Paris-based “Xasax” ensemble (directed by saxophonist Pierre-Stephane Meugé), a regular participant in the “Europe-Asia” festival, of Ivan Fidele’s “Magic” for saxophone quartet, a lively, dynamic composition with brilliant textural usage of the instruments, including very non-standard avant-garde effects, complex harmonies and rhythms, the latter involving polyrhythms and at the same time an extroversive theatrical quality, making it very accessible to a wider audience. Loud fanfare-like sonorities gave way to soft and sparse textures in its middle section.
The final concert that day took place at 8 PM and opened with a composition called “Dialogues” for alto-flute, clarinet and violin by the young Tatar composer Elmire Galimova. It had very intricate textures and an alternation between tonal and avant-garde harmonies, the former being derived from folk music material and the latter being very much in line with contemporary European music. Sometimes the individual instruments stood out as soloists, which gave the piece the flavor of a concerto. This was virtually one of the most impressive pieces at the festival.
Steve Reich’s “Drumming” for percussion quartet was performed by the Percussion Ensemble of the University of Freiburg. It presented a set rhythmic pattern, played on different instruments, including cymbals and various drums. The pattern was continuously off-set by one beat, forming deliberate discrepancies in the unity of its presentation by the separate percussionists, then coinciding again at the end by means of the “loop” effect. This provided a colorful element to the concert program. The work was reprised as the finale of the final concert that day.
Franco Donatoni’s piece “Rasch” for saxophone quartet presented soft yet dynamic repetitions of short harmonic and melodic cells with miniscule variations on a micro-level. At first there were a lot of legato effects, then these were followed by staccato effects, then more legato effects interspersed with added multiphonics and finally some polyphonic intricacies at the end of the piece.
“South Wind,” a work by Vietnamese composer Kim Mok for four cymbals, also performed by the Freiburg University Percussion Ensemble, was a very timbrally effective piece, which began with the four instrumentalists moving their hands along the cymbals virtually noiselessly, after which they gradually started producing sounds – first extremely quietly, then gradually more loudly. The long sustained sounds, invoking peals of bells, alternated with staccato taps on the cymbals, alternately softly and loudly, the latter effects reminiscent of the sound of overturned furniture.
Tatar composer Yulia Bekbulatova presented her piece “Dances on Sand” for trumpet and percussion, performed by Andrei Frolov-Menshikov on the trumpet and three Kazan-based percussionists, Sergei Krylov, Natalia Krylova and Mikhail Krasnichkin. It was a very theatrical piece with a neo-classical stylistic slant mingled with rock effects on the percussion and jazz and rock effects on the trumpet. While the composition did belong to the genre of “serious music” rather than rock or jazz, this fusion however produced a lively contrasting effect to the concert.
Iannis Xenakis’ percussion piece “Rebonds,” performed by Wen Chen Lee, a member of the Freiburg University Percussion Ensemble, presented regular dynamic percussion drum beats with very miniscule changes in rhythm, for the most part repeating the same rhythms for lengthy periods of time. Sometimes this presented an effect of rock music. The piece was very virtuosic and technically challenging for the performer. The dynamic contrasts between the different instruments greatly compensated for the rhythmic monotony.
Another work by Xenakis, “Xas,” was performed by the Paris-based “Xasax” quartet. Beginning with long loud chords featuring simultaneous rhythms in different parts of the ensemble, the piece then changes in texture as individual rhythms gradually become more varied, frequently producing very harsh sounding sonorities. Throughout the work the theme of the simultaneously sounding chords regularly returns, at times producing extremely interesting and colorful textural effects, including those involving the overtone scale.
Next, older generation Kazan-based composer Leonid Lubovsky had his three-movement Sonata for Vibraphone and Percussion performed, a dramatic, dynamic composition, somewhat neoclassical at times, with predominance of regular rhythms, tonal harmonies and penetrating, almost mystical sonorities, evoked by the vibraphone pedal. These greatly contrasted with rather harsh sounding textures in the other percussion instruments, sometimes alternating with soft yet dramatic drum rolls. The slow movement, with its soft dynamics and regular dynamic rhythms, occasionally quite contrasting to each other, presented a fine juxtaposition to the boisterously- sounding outer movements, especially the climactic Finale.
Natalia Golubinskaya then performed a piece by contemporary Japanese composer Tadao Tsavai called “The Return of Spring in Autumn” on the koto. This was an elegiac piece in a minor mode, yet possessing more full-sounding textures than her previous works, sounding quite Romantic and even Impressionist in their stylistic direction, at times even resembling guitar or piano sonorities with its contrasts of single unaccompanied notes and arpeggio passages.
The final day of the festival presented a gala concert at the Large Concert Hall. It opened with Kazan-based composer Anatoly Luppov’s “The Enigmatic Sphinx” for saxophone and organ, a dramatic composition involving some theater acting on stage, performed by saxophonist Stanislav Bystrov and organist Rubin Abdulin. The piece opens with a long note held on the organ, followed by other separate notes and then harmonies emphasizing open fifths. Then the saxophonist comes up on stage from the auditorium, playing virtuosic-sounding passages, diatonic in their core yet containing numerous chromatic alterations. After this, a more full-fledged relationship is established between the organ and the saxophone parts, creating a unified texture with decisively diatonic harmonies, sometimes incorporating slight jazz effects and at other times resorting to adding extravagant experimental sonorities.
Asya Meshberg and Philip Bashor then repeated Gene Pritsker’s two compositions, performed by them the previous day.
Turkmenian composer Nuri Mamedova’s “Sound of the Dutar” was performed on the piano by Maral Yakshieva. It was entirely traditional romantic in its style, being very much in the vein of Rachmaninoff with elements of Turkmenian folk music incorporated, along with a very thick piano texture meant to resemble the sonorities of the Turkmenian folk instrument, the dutar.
A joint improvisation followed by Maral Yakshieva at the piano, Vladislav Bystrov on the saxophone and Natalia Golubinskaya on the koto. Golubinskaya opened the improvisation with a solo passage resembling traditional Japanese music in the Japanese modes. After this, Bystrov entered bringing in some slow expressive passages, sounding a bit like Chinese music. Finally Yakshieva entered, playing fast yet lyrical sounding passages in minor mode. At times one of the performers faded out and the other two continued to play. The climax toward the golden mean of the piece sounded out very appropriately and effectively. The improvisation was very coordinated among the musicians and sounded very much as if it were a finished piece with a well-built form, well-thought out one composer.
Mircea Ardelianu gave an impressive and masterful performance of Stockhausen’s “Zyklus” on percussion instruments, demonstrating in full the contrasting loud and dynamic timbres as well as the contrasting soft and sparse sections of the piece.
The Xasax quartet presented French composer Ernst Papier’s “Axis for Four,” an energetic virtuosic piece, which started with a dynamic reiteration of one note at various time intervals by the different saxophones and at different dynamic levels. Then the note was repeated with deviations at distances of microtonal intervals as well as half steps. Gradually the music became more varied with more wide ranges of pitches and more varied faster rhythmic durations, as well as textural effects being added, including effects with mouthpieces and slaps. Altogether this produced a very theatrical effect, which at times was very humorous and inspiring.
Carlo Daviniconi’s Suite for solo guitar was performed by Kazan-based guitarist Ainar Reputov. A very traditionally styled piece, bordering on the bard tradition of guitar-playing with entirely tonal harmonies and Turkish folk music intonations, it produced a very favorable impression.
The concert and the whole festival closed with German composer Bernhard Wulff’s composition “Lark” for percussion instruments and tape. The tape featured recordings of larks singing, over which an assortment of percussion instruments including drums, vibraphone, celesta and xylophone played soft, delicate and texturally intricate sounds. This was a very impressive and appropriate way to close the festival, which once again made a very favorable impression on the musicians and concertgoers of Kazan and visitors from other Russian cities and other countries, and presented Rashid Kalimoullin and the Composers’ Union of the Republic of Tatarstan as creative, energetic and talented organizers of Kazan’s impressive festival, which has created a considerable impact on the musical scene of Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan.