Yesterday afternoon Old First Concerts presented the third of the four solo concerts planned for this month through live streaming. The recitalist was cellist Natalie Raney, originally scheduled for this past Friday evening. However, late last week it was announced that the event would be rescheduled in order to respect Juneteenth.
Raney was at her most adventurous in her decision to perform Kaija Saariaho’s Sept papillons (seven butterflies), which was composed in 2000. Those that have followed this site probably know by now that Saariaho is an alumna of IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, or Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music in English). Her research involved the synthesis of sounds with both analog and digital equipment, but those studies led to her exploring how similar synthesis could be realized by judiciously combining the sonorities of conventional orchestral instruments.
In that context Sept papillons can be taken as a study in a rich diversity of sonorities all emerging from a solo cello. Almost all of those sonorities arise through exploration of different tremolo effects, presumably intended to evoke the flapping of butterfly wings. However, that is probably the only instance of denotation that emerges across the seven miniatures that Saariaho composed. More significant is the wide diversity of different physical techniques, whose only commonality involves inducing vibrations in the four cello strings. The brevity of each of the movements allows the listener to assume his/her own exploratory stance around the underlying fundamental questions: What am I hearing, and why am I hearing it that way?
My first encounter with this piece was a performance given by Jean-Michel Fonteneau (with whom Raney studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music). In that context it is only fair to observe that even the best audio delivery systems are probably not equipped to accommodate the bandwidth of the sonorities evoked while playing this composition. The bandwidth for yesterday’s streaming technology clearly fell far short of doing justice to the “signal.” Even so, one could still appreciate what Saariaho sought to achieve; and Raney’s execution could not have been a better “guided tour” in the exploration of the composer’s results. I now feel well-prepared to experience her performing this piece in a “physical” recital setting.
The Saariaho offering was followed by far more familiar music by Johann Sebastian Bach, the BWV 1007 (first) solo cello suite in G major. The opening Prelude is probably one of Bach’s most familiar themes, but Raney presented it with her own individual spirit of exploration. The remaining five movements follow a sequence of dance forms found in almost all of the compositions that Bach called suites.
Readers should know by now that I tend to approach performances of such movements in terms of whether any spirit of the dance itself is present. Raney’s execution was not always in agreement with my own aesthetic. However, I found her approach to the Courante convincing; and she caught the spirit of the Gigue well enough to provide a satisfying sense of closure to the entire suite. My own quibbles tended to be with the Allemande; but, to be fair, I am still not quite sure what would count for an appropriate set of dance steps to go with most of the Allemande movements I have encountered at concerts.
Saariaho’s suite was preceded by the first movement of Dorothy Chang’s suite “Bloom.” Raney had conceived her program to evoke the spirit of springtime. Chang’s suite seems to have been organized around the same objective. Unfortunately, the few technical difficulties that emerged took place during the performance of this music. As a result I can only say that I would be most interested it listening to it under better conditions.
Raney also prepared an encore, which she performed with guitarist David Gonzales. This was an arrangement of Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds.” Thus, the spirit of spring that was introduced through Chang’s music was brought to closure through Casals. Furthermore, Casals’ use of tremolo to evoke the sound of a bird-call could not have been a better retrospective reflection of the tremolo beating of Saariaho’s butterfly wings!
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