The Strad Issue: December 2018
Description: Substantial new works that reward close attention
Musicians: Irvine Arditti (violin), Paul Hembree (computer musician), Inauthentica/Mark Menzies
Works: REYNOLDS Shifting/Drifting; imagE/violin imAge/violin; Aspiration; Kokoro
Catalogue Number: KAIROS 0015051 (2 CDs)
This demanding but thoroughly rewarding two-disc set serves as the chronicle of a friendship, one that’s both musical and personal, between senior US composer Roger Reynolds and UK violinist Irvine Arditti, dedicatee of all four substantial works here. Taken as a collection, they also highlight contrasting sides to Arditti’s own musical personality, and differing musical roles.
In the brightly coloured Aspiration, he’s a concerto soloist, rising to the fantastical lyricism of Reynolds’s multiple cadenzas magnificently while the ensemble Inauthentica provides richly detailed sonic backdrops. In the thoughtful, Zen-inspired Kokoro, Arditti is on his own, in an assertive performance that ruminates on small gestures of musical material, reluctant to come to rest on any of them.
imagE/violin imAge/violin counts as another solo work, but here Reynolds let Arditti in on the composition itself, comparing the creative process to a tennis match – and there’s a similar sense of mutual respect, admiration and gentle competition in the way the violinist effortlessly tackles the composer’s mercurial, unconventional demands.
Best of the bunch, however, is Shifting/Drifting, a duet for Arditti and Paul Hembree on live computer processing, who manipulates the player’s sounds while also mixing in original material. At times, Arditti plays against an orchestra of himself; at others, he weaves around a ghostly sonic doppelgänger. This is music that demands close attention, but repays it with startlingly abundant invention, delivered with cool authority and captured in close, generous sound.
DAVID KETTLE
No comments yet