Although song figured in only one work, the human voice nevertheless dominated the opening programme of this year’s edition of the Bay Area’s most comprehensive and daring contemporary music festival. Of the nine composers from six countries gathered for a week of cultural exchange and music making, none intrigued more than Ben Johnston, whose forays into extended just intonation and microtuning procedures have done their part in disturbing the complacency of our western tonal universe. The premiere, a decade after its composition, of Johnston’s The Tavern represented the Other Minds philosophy at its most exuberantly unclassifiable.
Performing on a guitar with sliding frets, John Schneider expertly accompanied the baritone Paul Berkolds in contemporary settings of verse by Rumi, mostly hymning the abiding pleasures of the grape. It takes a while for the ear to adjust to the microtonal melodies and the vocalist’s delivery, more Sprechstimme than true singing, but what ultimately emerges is a portrait of a genuine American original. Chinary Ung’s Spiral X: In Memoriam recalls the Cambodian holocaust through lush string textures punctuated by the wailing and keening of the members of the Del Sol String Quartet, the dedicatees and superb interpreters of the piece. A true cry from the heart.
The Amsterdam Cello Octet (left) offered a pair of homages wreathed in invention. Mauricio Kagel’s Motetten adapts the vocal part writing of the venerable format to the instrument that most closely approximates to the compass of the human voice and he does it with enviable flair and wit. Counterpoint competes with percussive outbursts and jazzy inflections and there isn’t a dull moment. The same performers brought an aura of hushed spirituality to the American premiere of Arvo Pärt’s O-Antiphonen, the composer’s revision of his Sieben Magnificat Antiphonen. Cellos replace the original’s a capella choir, yet miraculously the massed strings seem to breathe almost organically.
Less focused were two contributions from the Dane Bent Sorensen. Pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann brought her considerable gifts to bear on the tremolo-obsessed The Shadows of Silence, while the Trio Con Brio Copenhagen failed to infuse life into the wispy Phantasmagoria – every bar affirms the composer’s unease in the piano trio format.
