by Melanie Wong
France’s premier contemporary chamber group, Ensemble Linea, arrived at CUNY’s Elebash Recital Hall Friday night while in the midst of their second overseas tour. While officially a sextet—flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano—plus
conductor, the group's programming incorporates any variety of these instruments,
including auxiliaries such as E-flat clarinet, piccolo, and bass
flutes and clarinets. With a goal of furthering the United States’ exposure to contemporary
French music, Ensemble Linea’s program consisted only of works dated 1978 to the present.
The program opened with two quintets for flute, clarinet, violin,
cello, and piano: Philippe Hurel’s Pour
Luigi and Tristan Murail’s Treize
Couleurs du soleil couchant. Hurel’s ultra-academic, postmodernist piece
was a cacophonous, atonal polyphony unified by its rhythmic components. In
contrast, Murail’s use of live electronics proved to be a fascinatingly eerie
study on color. Inspired by ring modulation and using a wide variety of
extended techniques, each instrument added its own unique sound and effect
while the piece gradually crept from light and open to dark, heavy, and
crippling with pain. Ensemble Linea were fabulous in their execution and
showcased extreme control over their instruments during the piece’s countless niente beginnings and subtone playing.
The meat of the program centered around two premieres, the
first being the world premiere of the latest version of Georges Aperghis’ Rasch. Originally written for violin and viola, and later revised for saxophone and viola, Aperghis reworked his duo once more
for bass clarinet and viola. The piece opened with an aggressive pizzicato/slap-tongue
duel and continued with the two performers twisting together spastic bursts of
notes until its abrupt end. Clarinetist Andrea Nagy and violist Jessica Rona
had great energy throughout, and Nagy must be applauded for both her incredible
slap-tonguing skills throughout all registers, as well as excellent sound and control in
the altissimo range.
After the duo’s exit, a quartet of flute, violin, cello, and
prepared piano tackled the U.S. premiere of Raphaël Cendo’s Rokh I (the full Rokh
consists of three movements that can be played together or separately). Named
for Shahrokh (the mythological bird from the Arabian Nights tales), Cendo explains that Rokh I is the “most diversified part” of the epic, which represents
the “cyclic aspect of life, death, and resurrection.” A frantic and percussive
opening eventually quieted down and Ensemble Linea creaked and croaked through Rokh I’s
strange world. The ensemble gave an effectively surreal performance and excelled in the piece's technical challenges.
Bruno Mantovani’s playful d’un
rêve parti served as the big finale for the evening. The name is a play on
the words “rave party” and, accordingly, the piece borrows heavily from techno
and house genres. With a strong, relentlessly beating bass, the semi-tonal
piece was reminiscent of a psychedelic trip gone wrong (or very right), and
altogether an intriguing intellectual twist on today’s popular dance-party
music.
In an evening of fully avant-garde music, effective delivery is
imperative for success, and Ensemble Linea’s unmatched vigor and precision
allowed them to achieve just that.