Search - Hans-Joachim Hespos, Manfred Reichert, Ensemble 13 :: Hans-Joachim Hespos: Tightrope Dance

Nachkriegsavantgarde, gefuehle Akustisches

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 01/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yeah this is rough going to listen, but then what is the avant-garde suppose to do? offer "Twinkies" or bon-bons for contemplation, or like many composers today, the "wann-be-loved", "support me!" style of writing music, and where does, did it lead, to corruption of ideologic place, corrupted minimalisms, and corrupted avant-gardes, exploiting the popular odiousness, the homgenization of contemporary expression, the "have-a-nice-day" music, or seriousness does come in commissioned music but in the form of a variegated film music, again reduced down to Disney-like experiences, various Toy Stories.(They just merged with PIXAR.)



Hespos has been around the avant-garde in Europe for quite some time, the early Sixties actually, and has himself exploited the flipside of the establishment avant-gardes as represented by Stockhausen, Boulez, Rihm, Henze, Berio,Birtwistle et cetra, his subjectivity however is fairly close-by,within reach; certainly the "Piano Sonatas" of the young Boulez share the content the subversive innovations and off-center subjectivity at the extremes as "Tightrope Dance" Hespos has been nurturing his art, his musical language in all genres. I prefer myself the unaccompanied solos and small, short,kurz chamber settings and pieces. His scores,graphically written are more like a drama coach instilling workable concepts; something,a lifeworld out of the performance, an emission of timbre, of gesture, from the barely perceptible, to the most brutally violent. He loves extended timbres in the winds, multi-phonics, (singing and playing simultaneously), but the performer's voice, shouting, iterating nonsense syllables,schrei, screams and declamations is just as important as what comes out of the instrument. Here in "Tightrope. . ." the tension is well maintained with exceeding amounts of open spaces, silences, at least on the CD experience. Hespos defines this work as a drama unfolding in sound,from "workshops", "for those who are up to date with us" where the motions amongst/within the performers is/are not a necessary component, for us out here to contemplate. Still I wish I had something to look at while sitting through this, for very little happenes, and when something does happen it is shockingly violent,like someone, a burgler breaking in the back door; well again the canon of the avant-garde is to re-arrange your sensibility, to alter it, to influence, it, to wake you up from your consumerist stupor, your new and old complancency "Undurchsicklikeit" you've learned from spending time and dollars at Shopping Malls.



At some points herein you can hear what seems to be players moving furniture around, yet again we get events in fragments, never complete, another (modernity trope) that lives on I suppose, we take this dance moment for moment, with elegant wind sounds,stopping on a dime at times, balanaced just like Mozart(Happy Birthday) like water falling, and machine like noises,it has that "end-of-the-world" ambience which turns the average new music person off I know. Hespos however assembles a fascinating array (as he usually does) in instruments, ones not usually found as the Contra-Bass Klarinet,Klarinets in all keys,small Kleine Trompette, Piccolo-Cornet, and Flugelhorn, all played by seasoned virtuoso Malte Burba, also Trombones and a "Flugabone", a Tuba always adds wonderful timbres in the bowels the depths, a Contrabass as well and Metall-Percussion.There is what is like a Riot happening in the background here, and it all adds to the frenzy,the furioso, free energy, In fact how would one analyze a work like this?, interms of energy dimensions, like measuring the earth's magnetic fields, when it flip North to South, and South to North(well over hundreds of thousands of years) The work sounds like it has been well rehearsed, every event is placed/paced,cased in timbre, and we hear everyone, no one is drowned-out remarkably well, nothing sounds simply like a garage-band goofing around..Director Manfred Reichert,puts everyone to work."