Leah Hollingsworth visits New York’s Symphony Space on 16 April 2025 for the recital of Elena Firsova, Victoria Bond, Andrew Waggoner and Poul Ruders
This concert, part of Cutting Edge Concerts’ New Music Festival, marked the US debut of the Danish Rudersdal Chamber Players. The programme opened with Elena Firsova’s Four Seasons, showcasing good communication and commitment from the ensemble, even if the overall effect of the work seemed a bit muted. Victoria Bond’s Piano Trio, subtitled ‘Other Selves’ followed, with movements for the ensemble interspersed with solo ones foreach of the instruments. The solo violin movement explored character and dynamism and there was a clear jazz influence in the one for piano, while lyricism was to the fore in the cello movement.
Andrew Waggoner’s Matter, Circle, Heart, here receiving its world premiere, explored the notion that ‘all matter is conscious – a texture in which things are bubbling and percolating and eventually come into being’. Its strikingly rhythmic opening gave way to a sort of measured chaos interspersed with more lyrical passages, without ever losing the initial rhythmic drive. The Piano Quartet by the Rudersdal’s compatriot Poul Ruders concluded the evening: its powerful and rhythmically complicated music was given with tremendous passion, precision and commitment.
LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH
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