Review of concert

Bank of America Celebrity Series: eighth blackbird

Sunday, March 26, 2006, 3:00 PM
Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

The Pierrot -plus-percussion ensemble eighth blackbird boasts a highly visible and successful career after ten years of existence. Appearing this afternoon courtesy of the Bank of America Celebrity Series, they put on event that, despite some clear shortcomings, merited attending.

The most noteworthy works heard were for the most part the oldest. Les Moutons de Panurge (1969) by Frederic Rzewski is a justly esteemed classic from the heyday of process music, its strict additive and then subtractive melodic principle producing a bouncy yet intense line that forms shifting canons as players make inevitable errors of ensemble. A trio of players scratch, flick, and drum upon tabletops to generate snappy, irresistible, shipshape music in Thierry de Mey's percussive Musique de Tables (1987). The Fantasy Etudes (1985) of Fred Lerdahl, like all but the de Mey piece on this program, makes full use of the ensemble's six players. And it's a splendid opus too, cleverly handling a harmonic language that ranges from tonal clarity to more pungent soundscapes and expertly outlining a variation procedure that never seems old-fashioned.

Derek Bermel's Tied Shifts (2004) impressed most from the recently penned items. Its two movements, running the gamut from modal focus to octatonic instability, bear homage to Bulgarian folk idioms without being a slave to them. Busy and reflective music alike consistently maintain a riveting profile and palpable energy set in structures that are intuitive yet well-defined. True, Zango Bandango (2002) by Jennifer Higdon is at heart a brief rousing encore -- but one that is smartly spoken, perfectly spun, and flat-out fetching. A fine mating of New Tonalism and post-process, it sparkles like top-quality designer soda pop.

The remaining three items, all newly commissioned by this group and dating from 2005, ranged from okay to unexciting. Lucid by Gordon Fitzell came across best, a Fibonacci-series generated architectural shell that asks the players to improvise while drawing in part from eighth blackbird's earlier repertoire. Given what was heard, one might guess that the oeuvre of Cage, Crumb, and Xenakis, among others, have figured prominently in the group's history. It was fun, if inessential. Marcus Maroney's Rhythms uses quintuplet figures and percussion based (mainly snare drum) ostinati to weave an overall opening wedge form with myriad off-tangent excursions. While reasonably tight in material, it's confusingly put together and flows oddly. In her program notes, Ashley Fure says that Inescapable “fuses two radically different experiences of musical time,” beginning with active textures laden with extended techniques and sound mass ideas which shortly give way to a lengthy and low-key elaboration on a single pitch. Sorry to say, the effect is one of peaking much too soon followed by an overly protracted rest period.

Eighth blackbird's presentation was one of excellence marred by a few problematic elements. The negatives first: Rzewski's piece saw baffling use of sections in half speed tempo and a low energy quotient, while the group's pervasive moving about the stage while playing -- whether called for the score or not -- at times cleverly pointed up interesting ensemble blends but just as often seemed distracting. And Musique de Tables, while impeccably played, choreographed, and lighted, lacked clear sonic amplification. Nevertheless, Molly Alicia Barth (flutes), Michael J. Maccaferri (clarinets), Matt Albert (violin), Nicholas Photinos (cello), Matthew Duvall (percussion), and Lisa Kaplan (piano) are all splendid performers from an individual and group standpoint, exhibiting dynamic stage personas, first-rate technical execution, solid musical instincts, and prescient ensemble coordination. Much of this music was in fact performed from memory.

--David Cleary