Re: Review of AFMM concert of May 27 1999

Review of MicroMay '99, Thursday May 27th Concert

I'm here once again in St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University only this
time with an old friend, a concert pianist for whom Ravel is God and music
is religion. For the past fifteen minutes I've been explaining to her what
microtonal music is. It's all new to her and I'm excited in that I know
that her first introduction to it is about to be a revelation. We are not
disappointed. Appel a deux( 1998), an American premiere of a work by Anton
Rovner provides a stunning opener in this masterfully composed, complex yet
moving work. Greg Evans (perhaps the finest French horn player that I've
ever heard) was right there with the incomparable Anastasia Solberg on
viola.

The core group of the American Festival of Microtonal Music (AFMM) �
Andrew Bolotowsky, Michiyo Suzuki, Anastasia Solberg and Johnny Reinhard
assembled to treat us to four short and diverse settings. I'm reminded of
the Columbia Group for New Music days when Wuorinen and Sollberger would
include an adaptation of Medieval music on each program for the purpose of
reminding us that alternative approaches to rhythm, interval and formal
organization have always existed. Here then in St. Paul's reverberating
acoustics we get to hear Hymnus and Organum (c.1000) in Pythagorean tuning,
another anonymous work composed around 1500 that freely inserts tones
smaller than the half-step and two early moderns (Percy Granger and Ivan
Wyschnegradsky who in 1939 push the concept of micro-embellishing to even
denser degrees of super-chromaticism. Brevity left us wishing to hear more.
These were like gourmet appetizers in short supply. My friend the pianist,
while applauding turns to me and explains how beautiful and expressive
everything is. I meanwhile am enlightening her to the notion that the
31-tone et organ in Haarlem, Netherlands is not a 31 note squeeze box but
rather an instrument that has 31 tones within a single octave. "Oh my" she
replies and I know she in her imagination is already trying to figure out
how to play it.

The next two works, Potion Scene (1931) by Harry Partch and La Rivera de
las Nueve Corriente, V-VIII (1998) by German Romero each featured the
soprano voice. Meredith Borden sang the Partch and Mary Hurlburt the Romero
which was a World Premiere. Both works came across with compelling drama. I
of course had to rush up to the music stands during the intermission
between them to check the Partch score and ask a few questions of the
artists. I am so impressed by the depth of their study. Anastasia Solberg
realized her conventionally notated part herself by constructing it from
Partch's numerical ratio notation adding numerous indications in cents to
specify the precise tuning. She told me that some day she hopes to be able
to read at sight Partch's notation. There is no question that Solberg and
Borden hear every nuance of what amounts to over 40 divisions per octave.
My own encounters as a pianist with realizing figured bass from the numbers
without writing out a part for myself seem like baby-steps by comparison
to their efforts. But the reward is great. These pioneering vocalists are
leading us toward a new approach to the voice. Gone are the tonal clich�s
but also gone are the awkward and angular leaps of much 20th Century vocal
writing that breaks away from Classical or Romantic roots. Here in the
microtonal domain it's the world of intervallic subtlety into which we are
transported.

The penultimate work on the program by Joseph Pehrson, One Small Step for
Man (1999) is a World Premiere written for the grandmaster himself of
microtonality Johnny Reinhard playing solo bassoon. It's in 48 tone equal
temperament work (eighthtones). The work was appealing on first hearing and
obviously well-composed and one that I am eager to hear again several more
times. The final work by Skip LaPlante, Camping in the Backyard (1999), is
also a World Premiere. Bolotowsky played conical Boehm flute, Reinhard
played bassoon and Mathew Fieldes string bass with the composer on an
invented instrument made of tuned aluminum tubes. Each of its five concise
movements came across with taste, sophistication and focus. Without the aid
of program notes there is no way that I could know that he utilizes 17-tone
et but it's this enticing fact offered by the composer that adds that extra
dimension of adventure to the listening experience.

As I left St. Paul's Chapel I felt the atmosphere permeated by an evening
of music that comes across as deeply soulful most of the time and yet this
whole genre at this point in its development carries with a strong spirit
of adventure, challenge and fun. I eagerly await the next offering of AFMM
wherever and whenever that may take place.

Howard Rovics
http://w3.nai.net/~rovics