Reviews

Cerró el segundo concierto del pasado sábado la compositora mexicana Hilda Paredes, con Siphonophorae (2016), sexteto inspirado en la escultura Siphonophora (2016), de Thomas Glassford, que provee sus modelos de unidad y discrepancia, utilizados por Paredes para estructurar toda la pieza desde motivos armónicos en progresivo desarrollo y colapso, de gran riqueza en cuanto a colores, timbres y texturas, como es habitual en la compositora de Tehuacán. Otro aspecto a destacar es el ritmo: impresionante por su riqueza y prolijas capas dentro del sexteto, añadiendo uno de los elementos que incorpora mayor vivacidad a Siphonophorae, junto con la profusión de técnicas extendidas que confieren color a las estructuras más puramente armónicas. La interpretación de los músicos residentes en el Festival de Takefu, con el especialista bachiano Masato Suzuki al frente, resultó abundante en matices, así como bellamente contrastada entre los tres grupos de cuerdas, vientos y piano. Destacar al flautista Mario Caroli, por su refinamiento en los pasajes de aire sin tono; a la clarinetista Nozomi Ueda, en su manejo de las tesituras oscuras del clarinete bajo; y al violinista Yasutaka Hemmi, que algunos compositores nipones me han definido como el “Arditti japonés”, así que huelga decir más. La precisión de su ataque, especialmente en cuanto a técnicas extendidas, creó ese refinado y prolijo mecanismo de contrastes que es Siphonophorae, dejándonos el punto compositivamente más alto de Nuevos horizontes III.

Last Saturday’s second concert was closed by Mexican composer Hilda Paredes, with Siphonophorae (2016), a sextet inspired by Thomas Glassford’s sculpture Siphonophora (2016), which provides its models of unity and discrepancy, used by Paredes to structure the whole piece from harmonic motifs in progressive development and collapse, of great richness in terms of colours, timbres and textures, as is usual for the composer from Tehuacán. Another aspect to highlight is the rhythm: impressive for its richness and neat layering within the sextet, adding one of the elements that incorporates the most vivacity to Siphonophorae, together with the profusion of extended techniques that confer colour to the more purely harmonic structures. The performance by the resident musicians at the Takefu Festival, led by Bach specialist Masato Suzuki, was richly nuanced, as well as beautifully contrasted between the three groups of strings, winds and piano. Of particular note were flautist Mario Caroli, for his refinement in the tuneless air passages; clarinetist Nozomi Ueda, in her handling of the dark tessituras of the bass clarinet; and violinist Yasutaka Hemmi, whom some Japanese composers have described to me as the “Japanese Arditti”, so needless to say more. The precision of his attack, especially in terms of extended techniques, created that refined and neat mechanism of contrasts that is Siphonophorae, leaving us with the compositional high point of the concert New Horizons III.

El concierto tuvo su broche de oro con el Arditti Quartet y la compositora mexicana Hilda Paredes, presente en Takefu para darnos a conocer Hacia una Bitácora capilar (2013-14), una partitura de una calidad y un dominio de los materiales a la altura del cuarteto al que está dedicada, el propio Arditti, con motivo de su cuadragésimo aniversario. Hacia una Bitácora capilar explicita los vínculos artísticos y personales que unen a Hila Paredes y a Irvine Arditti, pues sus propios nombres son utilizados como clave cifrada para articular la estructura armónica de una partitura que los va entrelazando y desarrollando en lo que es una fusión de vida y arte de una belleza tan delicada como rigurosamente arquitectónica. Poseedora de un lenguaje ricamente personal (en el que Paredes integra diferentes acervos culturales que dan fe de su recorrido vital por México y Europa), esta partitura tiene algo —como su título explicita— de bitácora, de diario de esas relaciones de Paredes con el Cuarteto Arditti, mostrando desde un lenguaje armónico que integra melodías en progresiva disolución, cual rumores que se van filtrando a través del tiempo, a una profusa red de técnicas extendidas que incluyen percusión de las cuerdas con el tornillo del arco o un uso del glissando de una belleza imponente. Por otra parte, tiempo y movimiento se convierten en dos elementos cruciales para cohesionar y disgregar a un cuarteto en continuas búsquedas, encuentros y nuevas partidas hacia paisajes que no dejan de conquistar e integrar recursos, paisajes tímbricos y un diálogo entre ruido, armonía y melodía que sitúa a este cuarteto en lo más actual de los paisajes musicales de nuestro tiempo.

The concert was rounded off by the Arditti Quartet and the Mexican composer Hilda Paredes, present at Takefu to introduce us to Hacia una Bitácora capilar (2013-14), a score of a quality and mastery of materials up to the challenge of the quartet to which it is dedicated, the Arditti, on the occasion of their fortieth anniversary. Hacia una Bitácora capilar makes explicit the artistic and personal links that unite Hila Paredes and Irvine Arditti, as their names are used as a coded key to articulate the harmonic structure of a score that intertwines and develops them in what is a fusion of life and art of a beauty as delicate as it is rigorously architectural. Possessing a richly personal language (in which Paredes integrates different cultural collections that bear witness to her life’s journey through Mexico and Europe), this score has something – as its title makes explicit – of a logbook, of a diary of Paredes’ relations with the Arditti Quartet, showing from a harmonic language that integrates melodies in progressive dissolution, like rumours that filter through time, to a profuse network of extended techniques that include percussion of the strings with the screw of the bow or a use of the glissando of an imposing beauty. On the other hand, time and movement become two crucial elements to cohere and disintegrate a quartet in continuous searches, encounters and new departures towards landscapes that never cease to conquer and integrate resources, timbral landscapes and a dialogue between noise, harmony and melody that places this quartet in the most current of the musical landscapes of our time.

In four short acts and an epilogue-spanning just over an hour – the work comprises scenes from Tubman’s youth, her days as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, her role in the Civil War, and a troublesome origin and hopeful legacy of her daughter. The epilogue’s closing words – ‘The Underground Railroad has not yet arrived at its destination’- here accompanied salient images of notable momenta in the African American quest for freedom. Harriet not only offers a glimpse into this remarkable history, but also urges its audience to consider how we can continue to learn from it.”

“Anchoring the ‘monodrama’ is high soprano Claron McFadden, a proud figure in a severe black gown and Puritan neckerchief. It was McFadden’s suggestion to make an opera about Tubman, and Paredes has written dreamlike, stratospheric phrases for her extraordinary voice. McFadden shares the narrative with agile soprano Naomi Beeldens, combining lyrical recitative with Sprechstimme and snatches of well-known spirituals.  Bringing the story into the present, newspaper headlines chart the progress of the civil rights movement and the opera ends with a hopeful image of the young Barack Obama on the screen. Unvoiced is the thought that the current president could right now be undoing all that Harriet Tubman fought for.”

“Snatches of Steal Away, haloed with circles of marimba, accompany the escaping slaves; Harriet herself is gloriously celebrated in Go Down Moses; at the very end images of the sufferings and triumphs of black America are projected over fragments of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, as they gradually reassemble into the full theme. Ultimately Harriet does ample justice to a great American hero, not least because of a central performance from McFadden that combines dignity and authority with poignant sensitivity and supremely assured command of a demanding vocal range”.

“Bitácora translates to binnacle, the container that holds a compass on a ship. Paul Griffiths describes it as a ship’s log. He writes, “Moreover, her personal relationship makes this a ‘capillary log;’ recorded in the inest threads of her bloodstream.” A collection of pulsations littered the middle section of the piece, metaphorically connecting the heavy beats of two hearts, each instrumentalist introspectively emoting each tone. Careful sensitivity among players allowed each fragment and motif to converse seamlessly.”

“Other instruments, singly and in combination, have been subject to the gravitational pull of the evolving string quartet. This fact also was underlined by the concert at the Indiana History Center, which had as centerpiece a 2016 work for guitar and string quartet, “Son dementes cuerdas,” by Hilda Paredes. The composer’s program notes suggest the interest that idiomatic styles are juxtaposed and contrasted, and similar techniques, such as glissandi, are presented to expose differences in timbre between guitar and string quartet.”

“Hilda Paredes is probably one of the two or three more interesting composers with a consolidated artistic career of our time in the Spanish speaking community. Author of a wide and most diverse catalogue, this Mexican settled in London for a long time is one of the few women who regularly sees her music recorded on portrait CDs. Her latest entitled Señales is a good sample of her creative work.

The five pieces of diverse nature, structure and chronology, offer a good portrait of her enormous palette of resources. These five selected pieces encompass a period from 1996 to 2013 and are unified by their variety. We travel through the characterized glissandi, an idiomatic repetition of percussive notes or the effects of woodwind instruments. A versatile continuous tension and relaxation in this music from the pointillism in Páramo de voces (for piano and electronics, and a reference to the writer Juan Rulfo), to the lyricism of Homenaje a Remedios Varo for sextet, a work inspired by five canvases of the Hispano-Mexican artist. There are also more demanding works for soloists like  Intermezzo malinconico  for bass clarinet and for medium size scoring like those that open and close the programme: Señales a homage to Jonathan Harvery, enables the brilliancy of Irvine Arditti’s violin, the best performer of the music of his partner and wife, and of an ensemble of nine instruments, three of each family. Finally, the chamber music in Recuerdos del porvenir crowns this great CD in Mode’s label.”

“The first, “Corazón de Onix” (“Heart of Onyx,” 2005), for a sextet of winds, strings and piano, evoked a gemstone’s luster and mutability with sharp, glistening sounds, reshaped and refracted with microtonal smears and noisy outbursts.

“Señales” (“Signals,” 2012), newly commissioned by the Miller Theater, featured Irvine Arditti, the formidable English violinist who is also Ms. Paredes’s husband. From a lapping, splashing introduction, the music — played by a 10-member ensemble that included an ear-tickling mix of cimbalom, harp and marimba — rippled, surged and jolted ceaselessly around Mr. Arditti’s flashing exertions. Time stood still repeatedly during haunting interludes that paid homage to another composer, Jonathan Harvey.”

“Thus, two musicians of the ensemble (clarinet and horn) venture on the stage reserved for dancers to perform solos. In their turn the dancers mimic a strange production of the sound which gives the impression of an encounter between two parallel universes. Simple and beautiful is the choreographic idea of ​​building movements mirroring those of the conductor, true point of convergence between two twin arts. The abolition of the limits in the space reserved for each one is also manifested when the entry on stage of the musicians is dramatized by the dancers, thanks to the use of hats top-of-form, symbol of the man-character, the role to be played in the theater and in life, thrown to the ground before the music begins, with the exception of those of the soloists who on stage circulate between the two universes.”

“In Altazor, for example, it is the Altaigle piece or the Parachute Journey, by the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948), who provided the material for a “monodrama” that gradually loses its semantic dimension to access at a purely musical level of phonetics “. Treated in real time with the technology of the Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustics / Music (IRCAM), the voice (baritone) of Altazor will make us listen to Hilda Paredes’ conception  of legacy: “A way of illuminating the soul in which one must draw one’s inner resources when one travels far from one’s own country.”

“Pierrot Lunaire is the obvious template but it doesn’t overwhelm her vision. The quality of the poetry from Pedro Serrano, the composition and the singing make sure of this. The first song is still and bare. For the singer, it must be like walking through the dark. The confident and vocally mature young countertenor Jake Arditti, however, navigated the lonely terrain with total conviction, never once tripping over the Ardittis’ atmospheric undercurrents or the sibilants and whispering.

With a lurch into madness we moved into a faster and punchier movement that the Ardittis invested with their characteristic intensity. There was a hint of early Birtwistle in the directness and fury of the string writing. But the anger evaporates in a cord of springy ricochets as the third song imagines a moon set free from its daily drill.”

“And while it would not be inaccurate to compare Paredes’ chamber works to those of Ligeti, Xenakis, or Tristan Murail, it is her attention to the relationship between communication and miscommunication, conversation and noise, that sets her work apart. In thinking about Paredes’ chamber works, we can borrow a phrase from the philosopher Michel Serres, “the miracle of harmony.”

“The idea dates back to Haydn’s quartets, but she gives it an Arditti-ish twist, and the work has a superb dramatic sweep. The Ardittis are joined by the pianist Ian Pace for Cotidales and by Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart for the magic-spell evocation of Can Silim Tun. Ah Paaxo’ob (Those Who Play the Music) is a colourfully detailed ensemble piece.”

“Watching the world premiere of Hilda Paredes’ chamber opera Phantom Palace, I had the sort of out-of body experience where you say to yourself “This can’t be happening in New Haven”. I simply couldn’t come to terms with the realization that I was seeing topflight European modern opera, performed by a major international company premiering a ceaselessly provocative, unexpectedly comic and altogether amazing work…just a few blocks from my home. This is the kind of thing you feel you can only travel huge distances to see. But there it is: New Haven should be talking about Phantom Palace – in a number of languages – for years to come.”