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Lunchtime concert review written by Becky Thumpston.
Featuring three student compositions alongside Thea Musgrave’s Music for Horn and Piano, Friday lunchtime’s concert, presented by members of the Chimera Ensemble (the University of York’s New Music Ensemble), was a sensational showcase of talent.
Postgraduate students Benjamin Gait and Mark Hutchinson opened the concert with an exciting rendition of the 'Musgrave'. The work incorporates passages of great rhythmic complexity that are made possible through a method of writing that allows the performers a degree of rhythmic freedom. Gait and Hutchinson explored the subtle nuances and thrilling climaxes of the work to engaging effect.
Second in the programme was postgraduate composer Manos Panayiotakis’ 'Aoide', a work borrowing its title from the muse of song in Greek mythology. Exploring multiple sounds and worlds, and reaching a forceful climax with the entry of spectacular tubular bell runs, the work was evocative and beautiful and deserving of the warm applause it received.
Third was a work composed from a very different compositional muse: in the words of the composer, Marinos Koutsomichalis, 'Apraxia' ‘explores the musical possibilities of timbre, without trying to become “narrative”, or “programmatic” in any sense’. From the unconventional combination of bass clarinet and double bass, a number of unusual and often unexpected textures and ideas emerged. Snippets of sound hung in space, creating a sense of timelessness. The timbral qualities achieved were by turn ethereal and aggressive, aided by ingenious use of remarkable instrumental techniques.
Last up was undergraduate composer Joseph Houston’s 'Shift'. Constructed from a single cell, the work was effective in its aims: unity governed in all aspects of the work. Although it came across as perhaps a little sterile or mathematical, the work featured dramatic climaxes excellently realised by percussionist Martin Scheuregger.
Evening concert review written by Rich Powell:
Concert-goers last Friday were greeted by the somewhat unusual sight of twelve ‘cellists seated in crescent formation. As cultish as it appeared, it was all in aid of the evening’s opening work; one of the more novel arrangements of the celebrated Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fratres’.
The players skilfully created an eerie growth in intensity above an ever present drone, demonstrating remarkable control in contrasting the repeated percussive motif with the piece’s plaintive chorale-like passages.
Next came Finnish composer Olli Kortekangas’ ‘Four Images from the Book of Changes’. Soprano Marja Liisa Kay beautifully highlighted the melodic aspects of her vocal line while the earth’s thunder (a linking facet of all four songs) was portrayed ominously by the timpani and bass drum.
There then followed the world premiere of the flute arrangement of Thomas Simaku’s ‘Soliloquy V’, the imaginative work given a performance of outstanding character and musicianship by Neil Thomas Smith. He demonstrated all manner of instrumental techniques, letting the music emerge from its breathed opening like a living creature.
The intimate led to the epic with Joseph Wong’s ‘Tuach’, a piece drawing on aspects of the creation as described in the book of Genesis. The larger forces lent the work a great sense of presence, the percussion in particular exuding oceanic power.
Works by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho dominated the second half, the first being ‘Lichtbogen’, a work inspired by the Northern Lights. Saariaho’s vision translated stunningly into music; the awesome silence and brilliance of an aurora descending into an unsettling darkness at the close. This was followed by three songs in which Marja Liisa Kay’s pure tone delicately intertwined with piano and violin.
The programme came full circle for the evening’s finale, another work by Arvo Pärt, this time ‘The Beatitudes’ for choir and organ. His setting of the biblical passage grew and grew in intensity as the majestic choral phrases sailed above the low organ notes. The choir’s piercing, climactic ‘Amen’ gave way to the triumphant barrage of Jamie Oliver’s organ, bursting forth like water through a dam. Who said contemporary music doesn’t communicate?
Chimera Day will be back next term, under a new theme. Watch this space!
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