SNS masters Hatzis's eclecticism
Canadian composer Christos Hatzis is a master of musical style. He not only makes a virtue of eclecticism but has developed such confidence in its use that he splits the universe with it, multiplying his musical imagery and symbolism thereby to something approaching infinity. Echoes of Vivaldi, Bach, minimalism, world music, the Middle East, Stravinsky, Debussy, computer music, Varese, Boulez: all play a noble role in his Pyrrichean Dances, "maintaining a human core," throughout the out-of-control destructive energy raging through our times, as Hatzis said from the stage at the Symphony Nova Scotia Celebrity Series concert Tuesday night in the Cohn. His evident mastery of his palette, amounting to genius, was partly responsible for bringing many members of the audience to their feet after the performance, which featured violist Rivka Golani and percussionist Beverley Johnston - prolonged applause and bravos from a conservative Halifax audience for 35 minutes of new music.
Each of the four movements expresses the human reality of living with chaos (Broken Mirrors), the intifada (Postcards from the (un)Holy Land), 9/11 (Love Among The Ruins), and the invasion of Afghanistan (Worlds in Collision). Golani began Broken Mirrors with a series of tangled figures within a restless rhythmic algorithm of shifting metrical accents in the string orchestra, while Johnston executed acrobatic figures mostly on drums. The virtuosity of soloists and orchestra under Bernhard Gueller's direction, were contextualized by Hatzis's intuitive sense of how long a texture should prevail before being relieved. Postcards is an ethereal music, a lament for viola, inspired by Golani's powerfully rich sound (she commissioned the work), played against a cascade of silken overtone ladders glissed up and down upon the cellos and basses. Johnston accompanied with delicately anguished echoes from the waterphone, a Japanese temple bell, and a variety of gongs, all set in vibration by a double bass bow. The third movement with Johnston as main soloist, led off with a hauntingly romantic theme played on the musical saw against softly voiced triadic harmonies in the upper strings, to sympathetic murmurs and echoes from the viola. The musical imagery, somewhat reminiscent of the Garden music from Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, abruptly changed when Johnston began playing on the five-octave marimba, varying texture and intensity with throbbing strokes from four, and possibly more, mallets. Worlds in Collision pulled out all the stops, using all the forces in a, by now, dizzying succession of exquisite sounds and textures and agitated passages.
Brilliant as Hatzis, Golani and Johnston are, they need a superb orchestra to bring such a profoundly difficult work off the page. Symphony Nova Scotia, under Gueller, played world class all the way, instantly switching from texture to texture with the sure-footedness of mountain goats. |