Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY In association with S-O-U-N-D THE TORNADO PROJECT FLUTE, CLARINET AND ELECTRONICS ELIZABETH McNUTT Flute ESTHER LAMNECK Clarinet
Alan Cooper
27 November 2009
Cowdray Hall
Friday’s concert, almost the last of the Sound Festival, was the sixth international performance of The Tornado Project: a set of commissioned works for flute, clarinet and computer-generated sound performed by American wind virtuosi, flautist Elizabeth McNutt and clarinettist Esther Lamneck. Considering that the sound sources both live and electronic for all five works in the programme were essentially the same, the variety and individuality of these works was remarkable. Even the general approach was entirely different with three abstract works and two which in different ways were strikingly atmospheric.
Primary Colors by Robert Rowe struck me as being about integration and response. The relationship between the two soloists and the electronics was explored using digital delay which already builds an element of imitation and response into the music. However, the complexity of the responses between the three elements in the composition was far more complex than that. There was the response of the two instruments to one another, the response of the electronics to each separately or to both and the response of the live soloists to prepared sounds produced by the electronics. The result was really a kind of Concerto Grosso that was truly riveting in the appeal of its multiple abstract patterning.
For me, Beneath the Surface by Paul Wilson had a totally different kind of appeal. Here was a piece with an intriguing sense of atmosphere generated by its multiplicity of sounds. It took us away from the soloists and the concert hall into an imaginary world of its own. For some reason I was reminded of Tapiola, the last major orchestral work by Sibelius. In it the composer propels us through the deserted pine forests of Finland. Paul Wilson takes us to rather warmer climes. I imagined the Amazon, but his music has the same sense of movement through a large forestscape but with no human presence.
The second “pictorial” work was Andrew May’s Still Angry. The opening bursts of sound from the soloists certainly suggested anger, and then I felt we were propelled into a very different world from that of Paul Wilson. This was a busy city centre at night time with the sounds of pubs and clubs vying with the distraught voices of the soloists. If Hollywood ever decides to do a remake of the film The Lost Weekend, this would be the music I would choose for some of its scenes.
For the last two pieces we were firmly back in the Concert Hall and in the realm of wholly abstract music. Trio for Flute, Clarinet and Computer by Eric Lyon gave us the computer generated sounds as the third member of a chamber trio although sometimes I felt that the richness of the computer sound gave it more of an orchestral feel providing a backdrop sound ambience to the interactions of the two live soloists. Unlike the opening piece by Robert Rowe which was all about integration, here there was a fascinating set of tensions built up between the three participants which were brilliantly resolved at the end.
The final work with the intriguing title of Russian Disco for Flute, Clarinet and Electronic Expression by Ricardo Climent used more of avant-garde wind techniques as well as vocalisations from the live performers. Climent himself (should we call him DJ Climent) was onstage controlling not just the computer sounds but the selection of parts of the score appearing in front of the soloists who, as the programme note suggested, could select what they wanted like diners watching the dishes roll past in a sushi restaurant. With such apparently open elements of choice on display to the performers this whole work sounded amazingly well integrated. For this to work so well of course, you really will need players with the same technical brilliance and mental sharpness as Elizabeth McNutt and Esther Lamneck. Even the relatively frigid temperatures of the Cowdray Hall could not cool their ardour one little bit.