Moving Sounds is a festival sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum NYC. In this case, it was a series of concerts, lectures, and performances over a three-day period. On Thursday, after work, I wended my way to the German Consulate General, near the UN, to hear the Mivos Quartet (Olivia de Prato and Joshua Modney, violins; Victor Lowrie, viola; Mariel Roberts, cello) play works of Reiko Fueting and Carl Christian Bettendorf. Not exactly household names, though perhaps they will be, eventually.
Moving Sounds is giving us contemporary—as in up-to-the-minute—classical music. The pieces were, in order, Il y a l’Océan for string quartet (2005, rev. 2007), Bettendorf; tanz.tanz for solo violin (2010), Fueting; Souvenir for viola and live electronics (2012), Bettendorf; and “…und ich bin Dein Spiegel” after Mechtild von Magdeburg for soprano and string quartet (2000), Fueting.
As this was “new” music, there are few noticeable (to me) forms, so my notes on the pieces and playing are also pretty much free-form. The first piece opened with all of the players playing at the same time and usually together. The first section was quiet, with unisons/octaves and a bit of pitch bending. This was followed by a louder, more forceful section—a lot of rapid bowing (a lot like the rapid portions of Vivaldi string writing), and then a return to a quiet section, but with a little more tonal variation.
The second piece was played by Ms. De Prato. The score was spread across three music stands. From the program notes, the general form is based on an analysis of a Bach Chaconne. What we got were fairly small snippets of phrases that were linked together. The piece used pretty much the full range of the violin, and had a repetition of phrases with subtle differences. Toward the end, a mute was added, which sort of “dulled” the string sound. The overarching form of the piece was the violinist slowly moving down the length of the score. When she got to the end, the piece ended.
After a brief panel discussion with both composers, we returned to the music.
The third piece, for viola and live electronics (Nina Young, offstage), contained some of the same types of electronic sounds I experienced at the last Rite of Summer concert—a looping/echo repetition of part of the phrase that had just been played by the violist. And then there were some other electronic sounds introduced that complemented the viola phrases. (I think I even heard part of the theme song from the “Twilight Zone” —doo-dee-doo-doo, doo-dee-doo-doo.) And sometimes the electronic echo sounded “beefier” or more “amped up” than the original. Speaking of original, apparently there was a first version of this piece for solo viola. I think I wouldn’t mind hearing that version.
The last piece, for soprano (Nani Fueting) and string quartet had, from my notes again, small segments strung together, including some spiky vocal intervals. There was also an extended sequence of dramatic/loud/angry(?) phrases for all four strings. The vocals were secure throughout, including spoken and whispered portions.
So, my take? The playing was quite good throughout, but I found the compositions just a little disjointed. There were many small phrases and segments but very few through lines (with the exception of the violinist in tanz.tanz). However, compared with some of the other avant garde music I’ve heard along the way, this was quite a bit more enjoyable.
ConcertMeister
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