More “Noodling” from Sclavis-Moussay Duo

Louis Sclavis and Benjamin Moussay (© Stéphanie Griguer, courtesy of ECM records)

My last opportunity to write about a new ECM release was this past Saturday, when my “first contact” with Florian Weber’s Imaginary Cycle: Music for piano, brass ensemble and flute led to reflections on past encounters with “noodling” (basically meandering without any sense of direction) as the “cardinal sin” of composition. This morning brought me another new ECM offering, this time a duo performance by clarinetist Louis Sclavis with Benjamin Moussay at the piano. The album consists of nine tracks of original works, six by Moussay and three by Sclavis.

The advance material I received declared that all nine of these pieces drew “from a broad range of inspirations.” Those inspirations involved a rather extensive spectrum of sources, with the organ music of Olivier Messiaen rubbing shoulders with Jimmy Giuffre, one of the composers to contribute to the third stream genre that tried to merge the jazz and classical styles. Those who read my latest article about Andrew Hill probably already know that my opinion about third stream parallels an old joke about the monorail being an idea of the future whose time has passed; and that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter!

The title of the new Sclavis-Moussay album is Unfolding, but I am afraid it did not register much impact with me. There were few, if any, moments that could be taken as reflection on either Messiaen or Giuffre. For that matter, were I to take a “blind listening test,” I probably would not be able to distinguish the compositions by Moussay from those by Sclavis. Instead, there is an overall rhetoric of quietude, which, to be fair, may be just the right mood to soothe tensions after a stressful day of shopping for the holidays.

Indeed, this is the time of year when many of us could do with resorting to Alprazolam (better known under the brand name Xanax) while trying to get into the holiday spirit. Personally, I have better ways to cultivate that spirit. Readers that have followed this site over the course of the years know that I make it a point to attend the annual performance of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 56 oratorio (better known as Messiah); and this year I got my fun from Peaches Christ with the Holiday Gaiety program, both events involving the San Francisco Symphony performing in Davies Symphony Hall. Such offerings provided more than enough to soothe my tensions and raise my spirits, and I doubt that Unfolding will have anything to add to those spirits between now and my ringing in the New Year!