By Anton Rovner
A very notable event, which took place in Western Europe in the Fall of 2000, was the World Music Days Festival in Luxembourg, organized by the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) and its Luxembourg branch, the LGNM (Luxembourg Society for New Music). The artistic director of the festival was Luxembourgish composer and conductor Marcel Wengler. The World Music Days Festival is an annual festival of the ISCM, which is hosted by a different country each year and tries to represent music of virtually all the countries of the planet. This festival has proven that the creative potential of Luxembourg exceeds by far its geographical size. Between September 29 and October 7, there was a total of 29 concerts, which took place in various concert venues in Luxembourg city and in many of the extremely picturesque smaller towns and villages of Luxembourg country, of which there is an infinite amount, not to mention one concert in nearby Metz, France and another one in Saarbrucken, Germany. The concerts featured soloists, duets, small chamber ensembles, large chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. Each day featured three or four concerts, which provided for an extensive and saturating musical experience.
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The festival begin in the afternoon of September 29 in the "Casino Luxembourg," the modern art museum, with a demonstration of three sound-sculptures by composers-sculptors from different countries. In one of the museum's halls there was a display of curiously shaped metallic objects, many of them including rotating wheels, bells, chimes and other means of sound production.
This sculpture display was the "Sound Objects Orchestra" by Christoph Schläger, which, at a certain given moment, started to sound out, producing a real effect of an orchestra, since the individual sculptures-instruments produced their respective individual sounds at especially prescribed times, their successive combinations producing the most varied types of metallic sounds, which demonstrated that there was a "score" for this musical installation, the overall form and structure of which was conscientiously thought out by the composer. My guess was confirmed, when in a corner I saw the composer monitoring the successive entrance of the instruments at a computer, which contained all the respective entrances and exits in graphic notation. The result was a very invigorating metallic "symphony" in a typical German avant-garde cerebral aesthetics of contemporary music, which in this case we could both see and hear, with its own logically coherent laws of musical development.
"Bambuso Sonoro" by Hans van Koolwijk from Holland was a huge, wooden instrument, located in the central hall of the museum, with an assortment of pipes and levers, the function of which was similar to that of an organ. When the composer sat down at the instrument and began monitoring it, the pipes began to sound out, also featuring individual sounds, produced by the various pipes, entering and fading out, producing another logically coherent "symphony." In this case, the sounds produced by the instrument loosely resembled that of an organ, or, more remotely, wind instruments, some of the sounds being quite comical. The musical "composition" resulting, in its turn was a typical representation of contemporary Dutch musical aesthetics – it featured diatonic harmonies, for the most part, as well as a quasi-minimalist approach of static harmonies and a sound-world alluding to certain folk or ethnic music traditions, with an air of the Down-town American music tradition.
The last work, "Interactive Raum-Klang Installation" by Urs Rickenbacher from Switzerland, had the easiest type of "technique". It was a sculpture of very thin pieces of metal, shaped in a big object, resembling a gate, a door and a short passage, forming triangles and rectangles, which produced an assortment of different sounds and textural sonorities, all of which were produced by reverberations caused by visitors or "audience members" walking inside the gate and the passage, which the sculpture was, which ceased as soon as everyone walked away from the sculpture; as a result, a "symphony" was composed, in this case the audience members were the co-authors and the conductors of which.
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Very impressive was the opening concert of the first night at the Luxembourg Cercle Municipale, which featured the Swiss Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Klaus Arp.
The first piece was not a modern piece but one by a Luxembourg classic, the Overture to "D'Mumm Séis" by the most famous 19th century Luxembourgish composer, Edmond de la Fontaine, a classic in that country. This was a melodramatic, theatrical overture in a style resembling that of Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, which started out in a tragic mood and finished off in a heroic mood. It was played by the orchestra with great vigor and zeal and was a charming way to start the whole festival.
Viola Concerto N.2 by Romanian Dan Dediu, performed by viola soloist Marius Ungureanu, was an extensive work which combined traditional, neo-romantic features, elements of Impressionistic orchestration with more avant-garde textural approaches. It had a melancholy mood and featured a lot of virtuosic solo writing for the instrument, including many dramatic gestures, such as glissandi and other subtle extended techniques. The orchestral accompaniment ranged from holding long chords accompanying the soloist to sweeping, dramatic full orchestra textures.
"Unto These Yellow Sands," a concerto for two oboes, two horns and strings, was a more decidedly avant-garde piece, texturally elaborate, resembling Ligeti and Lutoslawski in its abundance of clusters and intricate orchestration, continuously oscillating between avant-garde and almost bordering on Romantic orchestral writing, with a mood of a continuous state of suspense, swaying between static and dynamic. The work produced an extremely favorable impression.
Marcel Wengler's Flute Concerto, performed with flute soloist Carlo Jans was a orchestrally elaborate, dramatic work, a striking feature of which was a successful combination of a very dramatically intense, restless orchestral sound with a very light-weight, delicately textured and nonchalant flute part. The work had very colorful, imaginative and emotionally saturating orchestration, combining avant-garde and Romantic features, alternating dramatic staticism with dynamism, altogether producing a well-balanced, structurally and emotionally coherent work.
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The morning concert on Saturday, September 30 took place at the Cercle Municipale, Luxembourg's major concert hall in the very heart of the city. It featured the "Antipodes" Ensemble, directed by horn player and cellist from Switzerland, Olivier Darbellay, the son of the famous composer, Jean-Luc Darbellay. Their rendition of the program deserved the highest amount of praise, being technically proficient and containing great musical insight.
A world premiere of Albedo III for Octet by German composer Helmut Zapf opened the concert. It was an advanced, avant-garde piece with unusual, elaborate and intricate textures, including many extended techniques and a well-blended combination of expressive and cerebral musical thinking. It opened with quiet, introversive music and gradually expanded into loud and dramatic music, the result of which was a very adequate and sophisticated composition.
Labyrinth, Promenade IX for solo saxophone by Hwang-Long Pan, performed by Markus Niederhauser, was a dynamic piece, utilizing elaborate instrumental technique, showing itself in an assortment of extravagant extended techniques, featuring a harmonious alternation of static and dynamic effects, a cerebral sound and a certain degree of philosophical discursiveness.
Evolution for solo cello by Makoto Shinohara from Japan, performed by Imke Frank, utilized an avant-garde sound world with an assortment of extended techniques, glissandi, playing on the other side of bridge, an abundance of notes in the extreme high register – all of which were used in an emotionally and musically coherent way, providing for a piece of high merit.
Especially impressive was the performance of "Ein Garten fur Orpheus" for horn, basset horn and string trio by Jean-Luc Darbellay, a texturally imaginative, colorful and moderately expressive piece, with a well-built form and character, intricate, sensitive instrumental usage and a well-blended interplay between static and dynamic. An important feature of the piece was when one or two instruments (most prominently the horn and basset horn) held long notes, while the other instruments (the strings) scurried around in micro-polyphony. The steady change of textural elements suggested a narrative element, as if the music was recounting a story of some kind. The piece was the most impressive one from the entire concert, all of which was of excellent quality.
String Trio by Tsung Hsien Yang from Taiwan was a texturally elaborate and expressive piece with sparse, delicate textures, many extended techniques and a Webernian type of linear polyphony, as well as a coherent formal development.
A special treat for connoisseurs was "Anaktoria" by Iannis Xenakis. It was an especially striking piece with a radical approach to texture and timbre, an imaginative variety of instrumental combinations, most notably the brass instruments, not to mention the dramatically effective well-placed pauses, and a wealth of timbral effects, including extended techniques and Xenakis' favorite glissandi. The composition was polyphonically elaborate and contained great emotional breadth, which was greatly balanced with intellectual substance. The performance of this piece was technically competent and the musical interpretation of it by the players was superb.
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The second concert, immediately following the first, in the same venue, performed by the Luxembourg Saxophone Quartet, joined by soloists Olivier Sliepen and Guy Goethals on the saxophone and Annie Kraus and Garry Müller on the piano.
"Tangled Loops" for saxophone and piano by American composer Jason Eckhardt was a lengthy, extensive piece with a Romantic, impulsive rhetoric but with a modernist language with a limited amount of extended techniques and an abundance of recitative element for the solo saxophone. There was a hint of jazz influence, mostly due to the saxophone glissandi. The saxophone had plenty of chance to show of its technique and solo melodic capabilities, while the piano had mostly sparse, isolated fragments.
"Rituals for Forgotten Faces" by Bongani Ndodana from South Africa was a solo piano piece with interesting textural elements, starting with almost a pointillistic approach, featuring long, disjunct notes, then acquiring fuller linear textures and ending with a soft but rhythmically busy texture. Generally the piece was not very coherent formally, despite the interesting work with textures and the excellent performance by Annie Kraus.
"Monotaurus" for solo saxophone by Claude Lenners from Luxembourg was an impulsive, technically vibrant and virtuosic composition with a pronouncedly athematic language, sudden, sporadic changes of textures, dynamics and mood. It was extremely disjunct in terms of textural usage and formal structure, the irregularity of which produced a favorable impression, especially enhanced by the excellent performance.
Irish composer John Buckley's Saxophone Quartet was a dynamic, spirited piece in four contrasting movements. It had a moderately traditional style and a rhythmically regular, bouncy textures, though an atonal harmonic language, which occasionally purposely utilized tonal elements for purposes of explicit traditional polyphonic development.
"To the edge of the corridors" for solo piano by Ting Cheong So from Hong Kong was a soft, slow, lyrical and very intricately textured piece of an Impressionistic type, reminiscent of Takemitsu piano pieces. The piece was atonal in harmonies, at certain times remotely approaching tonality, with some extended techniques, such as playing inside strings. The piece and its performance produced a very favorable impression.
"Coup de Dés" for saxophone quartet by older-generation Luxembourgish composer René Hemmer was a rather traditionally styled piece with Romantic textures and an alternately atonal and nearly tonal harmonic language, contrasting tempi of slow and fast, as well as a discursive, matter-of-fact mood.
"Opcit" for solo saxophone by Philippe Hurel from France was a vibrant, virtuosic piece with fast, scurrying rhythms, a strong experimental slant and a bit of a jazz flavor.
"Passamezzo" for saxophone quartet by Dutch composer Theo Verbey was a dynamic piece, combining Neo-Classical and minimalist stylist approaches, with almost entirely tonal harmonies and oscillations between bouncy, regular Neo-Classical rhythms and athematically abstract and irregular ones, the former ones prevailing.
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When I left the hall after the concert, and walked downstairs to the vestibule, I caught about twenty minutes of the performance of Morton Feldman's composition "For Philip Guston" for flute, piano, celesta and percussion, performed by three members of "Das Neue Ensemble" from Hannover, Germany: flutist Markus Hufschmidt, Christian Schulte alternately on the piano and the celesta, and percussionist Stephan Meier. The composition, which lasted a few hours, featured very static, music, consisting of repeated musical patterns, which changed gradually with intricate and delicate instrumentation, utilizing refined, subtle pianissimo effects on all three instruments. The performance of the work by the Hannover musicians was extremely musical and sensitively refined. The curious addition to the performance was an addition (or "transplantation", according to the program) of theatrical effects by Marcel Wengler, which featured people, dressed in white attire as doctors, nurses and hospital assistants act as if they were giving the musicians medical treatment – giving them "injections" with needles, looking into their mouths with spoons, bandaging their arms and giving other kinds of "medical treatment". Towards the end of this performance, the instruments faded out one by one, while the "medical attendants" seated each of the three musicians, gradually one by one, into wheelchairs, and took them out of the audience's reach, while the other instrumentalists finished their respective individual parts, after which they in turn were seated into their respective wheelchairs and taken, presumably, for more intensive medical treatment. While this theatrical antic was very comical and amusing, and was very much in the style of Mr. Wengler's exquisite sense of humor, the question was asked among the festival's participants, whether there was any logical or conceptual connection between the beautifully sounding piece by Feldman and the theatrical performance, which presented a rather ambiguous message, which there was a danger for the audience of misconstruing.
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We were then taken for the next few concerts to the nearby town of Esch-sur-Alzette, the second largest town in the country after Luxembourg city, only four kilometers away from the French border. At the Esch Conservatory, the next ensemble, offered to our attention was the "Pearls Before Swine Experience" a Swedish based quartet, featuring flutist Sara Hammarstrom, violinist George Kentros, cellist Mats Olofsson and pianist Martin Landstrom, which performed an eclectic program, featuring a curious mix of "academic avant-garde" music as well as "informal" music, combining minimalism and vernacular styles. The main idea behind the ensemble and its strange title, was to counteract against the standard elitist attitude of many highbrow classical composers, who claim to write music for a chosen elect, dismissing the general public as ignoramuses. Instead, the ensemble's goal was to bridge "high" and "low" art and to appeal to audiences from different social strata. Unfortunately, this eclecticism did not always provide the most favorable influence on their choice of repertoire, the quality of which was kind of uneven and did not always match too well in one program.
The concert began with a world premiere of "Short Fall" by New York based David Lang, a co-founder of the "Bang on a Can" Festival – his piece was intriguingly eclectic mixture of straightforward, generic type of minimalism with steady, repetitive, odd-metered rhythms and unusual sound combinations for the traditional instruments. A good concert-opener, the piece was rather superficial in its substance.
"Falling leaves" for solo piano by Swedish composer Göran Gamstorp was a swift, dynamic piece of a rather mechanical quality with atonal harmonies and steady motor rhythms.
Next, Japanese composer, Yuriko Kojima's "Eclat du Soir" for piano trio sounded out. It was an avant-garde piece, presenting slow, quiet music with a subtle yet dramatic mood with sparse effects and plenty of extended techniques. This music alternated with a livelier middle section, which was crisp, dry and more cerebral in its musical language.
Korean composer Hae-Sung Lee's "Goyoh" for cello and piano was a contrasting, dramatic piece with diverse tempi and moods. It started in a slow, suspended manner, reminiscent of Feldman, with the cello holding a long low note, then a long high note, while the piano played short chords, adding momentum. Then it switched to louder and faster music, featuring a lot of disjunct effects for the two instruments. Interesting and inspiring in its diverse textural effects, the piece did not have any real unity or formal coherence behind it.
"Qi Yun Xiao Sa" for flute and cello by Ming Chi Chang from Hong Kong was a piece in which subtle extended techniques and unusual textural effects played a leading role, presented in a formally and dramatically coherent way, with a great deal of vibrant dynamic contrasts between soft, intricate effects contrasted with sporadic, loud, dramatic outbursts. While some effects were trivial, most of them were of good quality.
A world premiere of "Cranks and Cactus Needles" for the full ensemble of flute, violin, cello and piano by American Anne Gosfield, another Bang on a Can associate, was another minimalist piece, different in its approach from Lang's piece. It was very sectional, with different musical blocks, presenting blunt, harsh, instrumental effects, eclectically different from each other with tonal harmonies and elements of ethnic music effects, as well as semi-popular effects, and an overall decidedly down-town aesthetical position, however, rather trivial in its musical content.
"Quartet" by Swedish composer Peter Mortonsen consisted of four short, contrasting movements, each one utilizing contrasting rhythmic effects. It had a minimalist slant, combining tonal and atonal harmonies in a repetitive fashion and was very pictorial in its choice of textures, some of which sounded like African drums and even alluded to sounds of singing birds and running brooks. It also had a decidedly down-town, hippie aesthetical slant.
"Feuilles a travers les cloches" by French spectralist, Tristan Murail, currently residing in New York, marked a sharp contrast to most of the other pieces on the program. It was a delicately textured and gently lyrical piece, with an assortment of gentle pianissimo effects for the instruments, utilized with great taste to create a wonderful, well thought-out piece of great emotional breadth, performed with great taste and refinement.
The concert finished off with a world premiere of "a presto" by Swedish Mats Larsson, a loud, busy, dynamic piece with a lot of fast, scurrying effects for the instruments, a few sections with regular rhythms with motor-like textures, intermingled with a few dramatic pauses. It was a lightweight, superficial, almost pop type of piece, meant to finish off a concert as a crowd pleaser.
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An extremely unusual event, unique in its genre and memorable in its qualities, was an immense theatrical-musical performance "Der Gelbe Raum" in Theatre Municipale of Esch-sur-Alzette, performed by "Das Neue Ensemble" from Hannover, joined by Soprano Annette Robert, mezzo-soprano Annina Papazian and baritone Thomas Holzapfel. The overall conception and program ordering was by Eberhard Kloke, the lighting effects were by Thilo Reuter, while the pictures in the last act were by Klaus Merkel. The theatrical performance was one of an abstract type, combining elements of theater, stage lighting and musical compositions. Its overall conception was based on the abstractly modernistic script of Russian-German artist Wassily Kandinsky "Der Gelbe Klang," which was published in his almanac "Der Blauer Reiter" in 1912 as an example of avant-garde for its time, expressionist art, which was to herald the "new form of expression". This production featured music by different composers, performed practically without a break, meant to function together as one continuous theatrical and musical mega-composition, written collectively. There was rather minimal action going on stage, mostly emphasizing the music performed, whereas the music was in a way meant to be subservient to the actions on stage, so in a sense, the music was subservient to its new emploi of being the object of the theater.
The performance was divided into three acts, each one containing a nearly equal share of classical and contemporary composers. The first act, in which the musicians were sitting in a pit with minimal action going on stage, started by an excellent performance of Schoenberg's "Three Pieces for Chamber Ensemble" from 1910, without an opus number, after which one of the actors on stage pronounced a text in German, as part of which one could recognize the words: "I am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not have other Gods but Me".
Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" was given an excellent performance by the ensemble. After this a pianist and singer came out on stage to sing Schubert's song "Gute Nacht" from "Der Winterreise" song cycle in a very casual manner, the singer sitting on the same bench as the pianist, facing the audience.
Finally, the ensemble and the mezzo-soprano performed German composer Moritz Eggert's vocal-instrumental melodrama "Der Andere" ("The Other") based on a novel by H.P.Lovecraft. It was a composition, which combined an expressionistic, post-Romantic tradition of Schoenberg and Berg, with newer, more "analytic" sonorities of the contemporary German school, being very expressive and texturally innovative. The soprano part included singing, speech and Sprechstimme.
In the second act, the musicians were situated on stage, sharing the functions of the musicians and the actors. Australian composer, David Young's composition "Thousands of bundled straw II" for two voices, bass-recorder, violin and percussion was an imaginative avant-garde piece, combining lyrical and cerebral musical elements, resembling in its sound Berio's "Circles" and Ligeti's "Aventures".
This was followed by another on-stage performance of Schubert's songs: "Death and the Maiden," which was sung twice, and "Die Krahe" (The Raven).
Another contemporary work, namely Luxembourgish composer, Jeannot Heinen's "Ich plante zu Sprechen" for two sopranos, baritone, two violins, viola, cello and double-bass, set to the text of Monika Köhn. It was a lyrically refined piece with elaborately textured, florid vocal parts, following the tradition of Ligeti and Berio. Towards the end of the piece the music gradually became more and more tonal, the change occurring so gradually, than no apparent discrepancy of style or eclecticism was perceived. The music was of excellent quality, very unified and coherent formally and dramatically.
Another on-stage intermezzo happened, with Schubert's "Doppelganger", sung by a man, with a few lines replaced by or joined by a woman singing. One spot had a soprano sing backstage, while both singers on stage were silent. The next song "Der Zwerg" (The Grave), sections of which were sung alternately by the two sopranos and the baritone.
The final piece was "Tientos del dia infinito" for soprano, flute, guitar, cello and percussion by Spanish composer Augustin Charles Soler – another expressive piece with an advanced musical language with a florid, graceful, expressive soprano part, containing many melismas and ornamentations and, for the most part, rather sparse, though texturally elaborate accompaniment, frequently utilizing accompaniment by solo lines of the respective instruments. The piece featured two spots with marked digressions of style – one into 19th century, Romantic style of Schubert and Verdi, and the other into the style of Monteverdi. Another memorable spot was a harsh sounding guitar solo, remotely resembling flamenco, accompanied by sharp, percussive drum slaps.
In the third act, the musicians sat in the pit, once again, while as part of the stage setting was a giant abstract painting, parts of which were illuminated during the course of the third act, especially during the performance of the last work by Schnittke. It opened with a work by the famous German composer, Gerhard Stäbler, "Spatial Ayres" for soprano, chamber orchestra and electronics. It was a very impressive, dramatic work, with declamatory singing by the soprano, accompanied by simultaneous declamation by the baritone, who sometimes resorted to shouting. It was accompanied by harsh sounding sonorities for the instrumental ensemble, which frequently oscillated between brusque sounds for full ensemble and dramatic passages for solo instruments, like solo clarinet and percussion instruments. It was an expressionistic piece, reminiscent in style of Bernd Alois Zimmerman, its emotional pathos and innovative orchestration producing a very moving and vivifying favorable effect, being one of the most substantial works on the program.
Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" was repeated, the performance having a recapitulatory function. The chief digression was in that some of the lines for solo trumpet were replaced by soprano singing, producing an unusual and inspiring effect.
The last work was by Alfred Schnittke, which was the one that had the title "Der Gelbe Klang" and the subtitles "A Cosmic Landscape" and "Stage Composition", written for mezzo-soprano, chorus, chamber orchestra and electronics. This was the work initially inspired by the Kandinsky text, around which the whole mega-composition was based. The work was very eclectic with no musical unity whatsoever, with contrasting material, which could be fit for many different pieces. Nevertheless, the sharp musical contrast of style emphasized the theatrical genre of the music, and demonstrated that the composition was clearly following the development of the stage script in its form. The only thing that the work was unified was by a somber, introversive, philosophical mood, which sometimes manifested itself in the opposite trend of loud bombastic music. Despite the sharp eclecticism of this work, the overall conception of it was intriguing, certain musical sections were very effective, while its curious form and conception gave it a unique role of a distinct final number in this multi-media performance.
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Our trip to Esch-sur-Alzette closed off with an extravagant performance at of the Tanztheater Basel, along with the musicians from the Electronic Music Studio of the Basel Hochschule, directed by Jean-Guillaume Weis at the extravagant time of 11 PM. The setting of the concert was a very bohemian theater or concert hall, rather shabby on the surface, but obviously meant for informal artistic happenings. Three dancers, namely two women and one man, the latter being Maestro Weiss himself, dressed in simple, black costumes, danced graceful, abstract, rather geometric figures, twisting and twirling around separately, then doing graceful pas together. The three electronic compositions, all being of a sophisticated, intellectual type, featured mostly abstract patterns of sound.
"Histoires de Sons" by Spanish composer, Eduardo Polonio utilized a sparing amount of abstract electronic material, presenting a lot of development of scanty material in a tasteful and serious-sounding way.
"Currents", by Jens Hedman and Paulina Sundin of Sweden had more of a diversity of musical material, though maintaining a tasteful amount of moderation.
"Derrière la porte la plus éloignée" by Canadian Gilles Gobeil utilized elements of musique concrete, since certain sounds from life, such as birds singing and water running, were heard, though applied in an adequate and moderate way, not breaking the excellent equilibrium of the three compositions. The concert produced a very favorable impression in its harmonious blend of artistic freedom and tasteful moderation of means.
The morning of October 1 opened with a very impressive concert – that of the Basel Electric Art Messengers, directed by composer Thomas Kessler – which took place at the Theatre des Capucins in Luxembourg city. The Swiss musicians performed a series of works utilizing soprano, string instruments, percussion and electronics. Their performance and interpretation of the music deserved the highest merit.
Italian composer Manuel Cecchinato's "Four constellations before dawn" for saxophone, piano and electronics was performed by saxophonist Marcus Weiss and pianist Anton Kernjak was a piece of soft and intricate advanced sound effects. The saxophonist playing long, soft, slow held notes throughout, utilizing all the possible sound effects, including those derived from extended techniques. The pianist played only inside the strings, producing a variety of odd noises, including scraping and plucking pizzicato. The electronic sounds, soft and subtle in character blended very well with the two instruments. Though long, the piece was very pleasant, expressive, imaginative texturally and formally and held our attention throughout.
"Tangata Vocale" by French Jose Luis Campana for soprano, cello and piano, performed by soprano Sylvia Nopper, cellist Michael Keller and pianist Anton Kernjak was a lyrical, introversive piece with innovative, static textures on the cello, sparse chords and semi-arpeggiate passages on the piano and long, expressive lines on the soprano, at times changes to fast, rhythmically more regular movement, where the poem, to which the music was set, was treated as a folk song. It was an impressive piece in its own right.
"Implantate" for two violins, viola and clarinet by German composer Killian Schwoon was performed by violinists Julia Schröder and Karin Löffler, violist Natalja Alexandrowa and clarinetist Lanet Floers Otero. It was a slow, static piece, where the instruments held long notes for the most part with occasional two-note fast quavers, sounding out gentle, intricate textures and atonal harmonies. Only occasionally did this vary with sporadic, fast movement for all the instruments. Though sparse in its technical means, the piece was very musical in its nature, and produced a good impression.
"Wassermusik" by Swiss composer Wolfgang Heiniger was a very intriguing piece, featuring the composer standing on the stage in front of a glass bowl, spreading his hands over it, as if performing a ritual over it. Loudspeakers were placed on stage in the form of a crucifix, and the composer's actions were meant to allude to Pontius Pilate washing his hands. Loud, harsh electronic sounds commenced the piece proper. Gradually and slowly, the composer put his hands into the water and started to stir it, the sound of which could be heard as part of the music, especially since it was reverberated as an echo effect by the computer. Gradually, the stirring became more intense, and so did the music, in which newer sounds to be added to the water sounds, the result being a very bold and imaginative musical and multi-media event.
"Errinungen an Shakespeare" by Rudolf Kelterborn from Switzerland for soprano, percussion and electronics deserved special attention by its innovative musical language and its highly imaginative and emotionally expressive utilization of these instrumental and electronic mediums. The soprano sang with a virtuosic technique in a very mysterious and alluding manner, while the percussionist played gentle and texturally rich timbral effects, utilizing non-pitched instruments for the most part. The piece was the most impressive on in the concert. It was very successful in interpreting Shakespeare's sonnets with a 20th century approach .
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The next concert that day was at the St. Michel Church in Luxembourg city, featuring the Swiss "Antipodes" Ensemble along with Alain Wirth on the organ and Charles Consbruck on the trumpet. Though very qualified in its performance quality, the concert was less focused as one unified entity than the previous "Antipodes" concert the previous morning.
British composer Caroline Wilkins' "Camera Aeolia" for organ, performed by Alain Wirth, started with a loud, tonal chord, then continued with slow, soft, sparse entries of notes, producing atonal harmonies, clusterry effects, and gradually evolving in a contrapuntally more elaborate work. It successfully combined an introversive, contemplative mood with somewhat dramatic and restless character traits.
Olivier Messiaen's "Appel Interstellaire" for horn, performed by Olivier Darbellay, a dramatic piece with theatrical fanfare qualities, an abstract, philosophical mood, intervallically conscious and containing some elaborate extended techniques including glissandi. Darbellay performed the piece in a striking, masterly virtuosic and very musical manner.
Hungarian composer László Sáry's "...and the Sun" for string quartet and double-bass was an intriguing, constructivistic piece, the aesthetics of which were derived from both Bartok and Christian Wolff. It featured layerings of isolated notes, played successively by the different instruments, producing mostly atonal harmonies and rather full and lively textures by pointillistic means, alternating with long, static chords, held through lengthy periods of time in a quasi-minimalistic manner. Puzzling by its conception, the work was quite intriguing in its musical substance, and aroused the urge to find out more about the composer's legacy.
A world premiere of "Les Lunes de Jupiter" for organ by Luxembourgish composer Roland Wiltgen presented a moderately traditional work, recognizably in the form of chorale variations, with rather traditional organ textures and harmonies combining tonal and atonal elements. Starting in the form of a chorale processional, then switching to a polyphonically elaborate section, the music passed through several other distinctly different sections, emphasizing different textural and polyphonic approaches for the instrument in this established form and genre.
"Tres Noches sin Luna" for clarinet by Diana Arismendi from Venezuela was performed by Markus Niederhauser. It started by the clarinetist saying a phrase in Spanish, then playing moderately avant-garde style music in a free form with a supple technique for the instrument as well as an innovatively melodic quality with a sparing amount of extended techniques. The performance involved some whispering by the player in the middle of the piece, as well as walking around the stage to produce a desired acoustic effect in addition to the theatrical effect.
"Seven Visions from the Apocalypse of St. John" for trumpet and organ by Belgian composer Andre Laporte was performed by trumpet player Charles Consbruck and organist Alain Wirth. It was a very dramatic piece, sectional in its form, consisting of a loud, bombastic introduction for organ, describing the opening of the Seventh Seal in the Book of Revelation and then seven sections, each one starting with a triumphant trumpet call, resembling Messiaen's "Appel Interstellaire" with its dramatic, fanfare qualities, followed by organ music, featuring contrasts between soft, slow and introversive music and loud, bombastic music with full textures, clusters and extensive pedal sound. Each of these seven sections depicted the events of the Book of Revelation. It was a very powerful and impressive piece by its dramatic theatrical and musical qualities and the performance of it was first rate.
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Among the participants of the festival from the United States was the famous New York based "Continuum" ensemble, directed by pianist and conductor Joel Sachs. In a concert hall of the Chateau de Vianden, a picturesque medieval castle, located an hour distance on the bus from Luxembourg city, in the afternoon of October 1, "Continuum" performed an imaginatively eclectic program of music from different countries.
Piano Trio N.1 by Jong Woo Kim of Korea was an accomplished technically proficient composition combining serial features with a more texturally elaborate avant-garde approach.
"Interrupted Song" for violin and piano by Oleg Felzer, born in Baku, USSR (now Azerbaijan), who emigrated to New York in 1988 and passed away in 1998. This piece, which was the last piece written by him, was a slow, soft and subdued piece, with an atonal harmonic language and a meditative approach, where each new sound or pitch, which appeared, sounded like a novelty.
"Tema y variaciones" by Puerto Rican Roberto Sierra essentially fulfilled the duties of the genre after which it was named in a moderately traditional language, with rather simple instrumental textures.
"Ask Havasi" by Azerbaijan composer Franghis Ali Zadeh was a very robust and jovial piece for cello solo, eclectically combining different harmonic languages, tonal, modal and atonal, and extremely diverse textural effects, dramatically woven in together.
"Proverbs of Hell" by Italian Alberto Colla for soprano and chamber ensemble was a dramatically pungent piece, polystylistically combining the most diverse stylistic features and bordering on the grotesque in its mood.
A world premiere of "Nguuraa" by Luxembourgish composer, Georges Lentz sounded out for the ensemble, combining a Romantic emotional spirit with innovative textures and a moderately avant-garde musical language, utilizing a bit of Eastern music exoticisms.
The last piece on the program. "Daimon II" by American composer Francis Schwartz, a long time faculty member of the University of Puerto Rico, was a very intriguing piece, which involved unusual sound textures and bits of instrumental theater with the musicians walking around the hall and encouraging the audience to participate in clapping and snapping their fingers, as well as loud breathing and noisy stamping, in appropriate moments, creating a delightfully invigorating atmosphere. At a climactic part of the piece all the members of the ensemble started making grotesque faces. The audience cheered an applauded this last composition with great vigor.
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The evening concert at the St. Peter and Paul Church in Echternach, Luxembourg, featured the Arditti Quartet, with a large and exciting program of composers from different countries.
"Nunatak" by James Bohlin from Sweden was an energetic, robustly sounding piece with predominantly loud dynamics, imaginative, innovative usage of harsher as well as gentler textures and an expressionistic mood. It followed the traditions and the modes of thought of Bartok, though in an original manner.
Quartet N.3 by British composer, James Dillon was another dynamic piece in three movements with innovative textures, alternately intricate and harsh, an abundance of repetitive motivic and textural figures, and an assortment of extended techniques, blending well into the long, elaborate formal structure. This was one of the most impressive pieces on the program.
"Uy u t'an" by Mexican composer Hilda Paredes was a long, elaborate work with a fast, dynamic, exuberant character and an abundance of swift, scurrying figures in all four instruments, polyphonically fitting each other well. The piece occasionally digressed into softer and sparser textures, the latter having liberal dosages of sul ponticello effects in all four instruments.
String Quartet N.4 by Rashid Kalimoullin from Tatarstan, Russia, impressively combined modal and chromatically tonal language, starting with a solo folk-sounding melody in the viola, with a texturally elaborate and emotionally vibrant and dramatic language, suggesting a hidden program for the piece, the beginning of which was in a minorish mode, resembling the Arabic scale, and the end of which was in an exhalted major mode.
Quartet N.2 by Finnish composer Kimmo Hakola was an extensive piece in four movements with a dramatic mood, an almost epic narrative quality as well as an abundance of novel textures, timbral effects and extended techniques for the instruments, including harsh sounding clusters, pizzicatti, col legno effects and long, static chords, held for long periods of time – all of which successfully combined with an almost Schoenbergian coherence of formal structure.
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The performance of IRCAM's Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Luxembourg Conservatory in the evening of October 2 was extremely impressive. The performance of all the pieces was in an extremely refined and elegant way.
"Aura" by Argentinean composer, Carlos Gratzer, was a lush, exotically textured, imaginative piece, very much in the tradition of Boulez's later works, making full usage of all the possible timbral possibilities of the ensemble, with a subtle slant towards a jazz style, merging organically with the avant-garde style.
"Trojtza" by Romanian-born Carmen Maria Carneci from Germany, a texturally subtle, delicate and elaborate composition in several short movements, utilizing sparse textures, almost Webernian solo lines, intermingling polyphonically, and an assortment of extended techniques and subdued textural effects, all of which produced an extremely favorable impression.
"Agregados" by Carlos Satué Ros from Spain was a brusque, lively piece with a jovial mood, lush timbres, delicate extended techniques and making full usage of all the instrumental possibilities of the ensemble in its entirety as well as in smaller instrumental combinations.
Pierre Boulez's "Explosante fixe" for large chamber ensemble and electronics, a serious, substantial, 40 minute piece with a succession of static but extremely elaborate and sonorous textures, including an appropriately sparse and well-balanced use of the electronics, which blended successfully with the instrumental ensemble. Some of the textures had remote resemblance to Scriabin and Debussy, though with a more modernist type of sound approach. All of these features, added together produced a very coherent formal and dramatic structure of the piece, which aroused an extremely invigorating impression.
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The first concert on October 3 took place at noon-time at the Cercle Municipale, featuring a performance of the Luxembourg Sinfonietta, conducted by Marcel Wengler, joined by three singers: soprano Ruth-Maria Nicolay, baritone Assaf Levitin and bass Nicholas Isherwood, perform three dramatic works for voices and orchestra. All three works elaborated on the theme of the fallen angel Lucifer, utilizing different aesthetical and stylistical approaches for their interpretation.
"Löwe, leih' mir Deine Stimme" ("Lion, lend me your voice") by German composer, Theo Brandmüller was a dramatic composition of a moderately innovative musical language. It featured several reciters reading texts in a loud, dramatic manner, sometimes even shouting, while the orchestra producing sparse but conspicuous, dramatic effects, featuring both full orchestra passages as well as passages for solo instruments: solo violin, saxophone, accordion, percussion. The music, which was very intriguing, was clearly subservient to the text in its development and form, clearly meant to follow the latter and describe it.
"in den hohen trompeten der bäume" by French composer Claude Lefebvre was another dramatic composition for reciters and orchestra, quite similar to the first piece on the program in its musical language and overall conception, the music, likewise being meant to be subservient to the text. The orchestration also ranged from dramatic solo passages, for such instruments as the solo trumpet, and accordion, to tutti textures with more dramatic orchestral accompaniment. There were also some dramatic pauses, during which the reciter spoke unaccompanied. In addition, this piece had a few theatrical effects, one of which was the reciter walking towards the center of the hall, where the audience sat, and reciting from where, accompanied by a solo accordion. One humorous effect, is when the reciter laughed (as part of the text), after which the orchestra mimicked his laugh by means of an instrumental textural effect. The piece had a great imagination for timbral combinations of instruments, which, though prominent in themselves, remained in their subservient role, accompanying the text.
Marcel Wengler vocal-symphonic composition "Der unbekannte Engel" ("The Unknown Angel") for soprano and orchestra had a more semantically unified and coherent musical language, with more traditional lush, Romantic textures, without the fragmented approach of the first two pieces. It featured a combination of tonal, Romantic and atonal, modernist musical languages, the former having an almost Mahlerian approach to vocal and symphonic writing, typical of the "Das Knaben Wunderhorn" cycle, in its allusions to traditional styles and genres, such as elements of military marches as well as almost strophic sounding rhythmically coherent vocal lines. Despite this conscientious gesture towards a late-Romantic, Mahlerian tradition, the work was not a stylization, but successfully blended this language with a more modernistic musical approach. Extremely narrative in its character, the music conveyed very well the mood of the text to which it was set, without losing its autonomous status.
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The afternoon concert of October 3 at the Luxembourg Conservatory featured the French Flute Orchestra (Orchestre de Flutes Francais), a diverse ensemble of the entire flute family, from piccolos to bass flutes, under the direction of Pierre-Alain Biget with flute soloist Pierre-Yves Artaud perform music for flute orchestra with a flute soloist.
"Le chant des aires" by French composer Alain Louvier was an eccentric sounding piece featuring very exotic combinations of flute timbres, sometimes very complex and sophisticated music, including very beautiful chorale music, presenting a variety of color between piccolos, flutes and bass flutes. In a few sections, the work switched to rather simple-minded music with march-like rhythms and loud vocal exclamations from the musicians. The solo flute part was very lively and vivacious and included the soloist switching to piccolo.
This was followed by the world premiere of "Seven Ways to Djebel Chambi" by Luxembourgish composer Luc Rollinger. It featured gentle, intricate textures, alternating with vivacious waves of sound, a little bit square in its formal development, but very beautifully elaborate in terms of texture. A special leitmotif of the piece was an often recurring sonorous loud chord, spread across the entire register of the flute family.
A world premiere of "Shaman's Songs" by Bulgarian composer Vassen Vodenitcharov sounded out next, an extensive, dramatic work in four parts, which made use of various unusual groupings of the flute family, being essentially a concerto for several solo flutists playing different instruments of the flute family. The piece alternated between long, extensive solo passages with extended techniques, elaborate tutti passages for the whole ensemble and smaller combinations of flutes of different kind, and included homophonic chordal passages, exquisitely textured repetitive patterns, solo lines with extended techniques, high range cluster effects in flutes and piccolos and even percussion effects by incorporating triangles and drums as well as vocal effects, sung by female flutists.
The world premiere of Romanian composer Doina Rotaru's "Wings of Light" was a long and very mysterious sounding piece with a mystical mood, a gradual, extended development and an assortment of extended techniques, including toneless playing, brass-sounding effects for the bass-flutes, as well as usage of some percussion instruments such as tam-tams and drums, as well as a special unusual percussion instrument, which created a sound, similar to flowing water. This was the best piece in the concert.
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The evening concert of October 3 took place at the extravagant building of the Deutsche Bank of Luxembourg, featuring the Prague Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ondrej Kukal, play a rather traditional-sounding even academic program of orchestral music from various countries. The choice of the program was meant to be sponsor-friendly, in order not to shock the government employees with overly contemporary music.
"Burnout" by Dutch composer Toek Numan was a fast, loud piece, bustling with energy, of a Neo-Classical type, with regular motor rhythms, contrasting with on slower and softer section in the middle, a piece resembling an overture, in aesthetics entirely from the early 20th century, good for a concert opener.
"Delusions" for piano and orchestra by Ari Ben-Shabetai from Israel was a dramatic and theatrical piece in five movements, played without a break. It also in a traditional style, consisting mostly of fast, busy and dynamic movements, while the two slow movements – the fourth and the fifth – were the most impressive. The fourth movement for string instruments alone was entirely slow, mysterious and suspended in character, holding static, intricately textured chords for lengthy periods of time, while the fifth movement had the addition of the solo piano playing paraphrases from Mozart's motet "Ave Verum Corpus" with which the piece ended.
A world premiere of Czech composer Marek Kopelent's Trumpet Concerto was a slow, static piece, moderately traditional in style, with a strong tonal slant and exquisite, refined, intricate textures and sonorous clusters, resembling Ligeti's "Atmospheres". The trumpet part also featured long, isolated, texturally intricate lines with long note values, which blended successfully with the rest of the ensemble. This was the best piece in the concert.
"Hymn and Aria" by Polish composer Alexander Lason was a slow, melodramatic piece, almost entirely tonal in harmony, elegaic in its mood, often sounding like gypsy music. It contained only a minimal amount of sporadic textural changes, such as inclusions of dynamic parallel major sevenths, the elegaic quality of the music prevailing for the most part.
"A Winged Creature" by Czech composer Miroslav Pudlák was another piece with a traditional, Neo-Classical language, an Apollonian mood and an assortment of Impressionistic, pictorial sound qualities, which also included in an organic way an avant-garde approach of sonoristic textures and refined timbres and intricate gradations of orchestral color. The latter were less prominent towards the end of the piece, when steady rhythmic, dancelike accompaniment as well as recognizable tonal melody prevailed.
Hans Werner Henze's "Seconda sonata per archi" was a four movement traditionally sounding piece, alternating slow and fast movements, entirely tonal in harmonic language and academic in its style, combining Romantic and Neo-Classical stylistic features, bearing a slight resemblance to Schoenberg's neo-tonal "Serenade for Strings" of 1934. There were a few microscopic deviations from straightforward tonality into the realm of chromatic clusters in the slow movements, while the fast movements abundant with dancelike rhythms.
"At the End of the Road" by Yugoslavian Dejan Despić was a moderately traditional, tonal piece for trumpet and strings. It was straightforwardly Romantic in mood and almost entirely traditionally Romantic in textures, with some traces of more contemporary techniques. Mostly slow and elegaic in tempo and mood, the piece had a few digressions into faster territory. Though not very original in terms of style, the piece had warm, Romantically expressive, sincere qualities.
On October 4 we were virtually taken on a tour throughout the entire Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. As part of the tour, we were taken to four beautiful towns, in which we heard four concerts. The first one happened in the concert hall of the locally famous Chateau de Clervaux and featured the "Saxas Ensemble," a quintet of saxophones, along with Maurizzio Spiridigliozzi on the accordion and Pascal Schumacher playing percussion instruments.
"Meeting" for saxophone, accordion and percussion by Marco Pütz from Luxembourg was a light-weight, tonal, Neo-Classical piece, lively and jovial in mood with bouncy accompanimental patterns with a colorful percussion accompaniment, where the vibraphone was especially prominent, bringing a lot of zest to the timbral palette of the piece. It was an effective concert opener.
"Vue sur les jardins interdits" ("View of the Forbidden Gardens") by Belgian Henri Pousseur for saxophone quintet was a quiet, subdued piece with atonal harmonies and suspended textures entering in one at a time, and held through lengthy periods. It had a rather limited musical and textural palette, though was effective in depicting a particular reserved mood. There was a bit of stylization of Renaissance music in the second half of the piece, after which it turned back to "modern" music.
"Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon" for saxophones and percussion by Luxembourgish composer Marcel Reuter was a contrasting, texture-conscious piece, with very tastefully elaborate timbral effects and sharp contrasts between loud sonic eruptions and long, subdued sounds. The main percussion instruments used were gongs and vibraphone, which were used in a moderate and tasteful way, altogether forming an impressive work, which was somewhat shorter than the musical material in use suggested.
Luxembourgish composer Camille Kerger's "No way out" for saxophones and percussion was a tonal, minimalist piece with regular, repetitive scalar movements sounding like Philip Glass, though the minor mode and elegaic mood made it sound closer to Arvo Part, with a rather episodic development. There were some rather heavy percussion effects, but the diatonic harmonies were preserved throughout. It was a rather eclectic piece in its texture and development, though some of the ideas in it were very good.
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At the picturesque village of Marnach, the next concert was held in the Church of Marnach, featuring music for solo flute, performed by Carlo Jans, and for solo violin, performed by Vania Lecuit.
"Agra" for flute by Australian Mark Zadro was a lively, virtuosic piece, with changes of textures and motivic ideas every minute and a delightful assortment of the most varied extended techniques, giving the piece a pleasant, jovial character, despite the fact that it was not formally very coherent and had enough musical material for several contrasting pieces.
"Puntas" by Silvia Suárez from Uruguay, another avant-garde piece, was more rhythmically regular and did not contain any extended techniques at all. It had very recognizable, recurring intervallic patterns and a vivified, jovial mood.
A world premiere of "Soliliquy" for solo violin by Albanian Thoma Simaku sounded out next in the excellent performance of Vania Lecuit. It was a very invigorating and emotional piece with a spirited mood, imaginative motivic development and textural usage, especially impressive effects with harmonics and glissandi. This was the most impressive piece in the concert, also due to the wonderful performance.
"Meditations sobre Abya-Yala" for flute by Mexican composer Graciela Agudelo was a five movement moderately lyrical, emotionally reserved composition with a very serious tone and mood and a tasteful usage of extended techniques – whistling, flutter-tonguing, buzzing sound – used adequately for dramatic effect or developmental treatment. An important feature of the piece was the repetition and moderate variation of motives, which was derived from Central American Indian folklore, the modal language of which blended successfully with the mostly atonal language of the piece. This piece was the most interesting and advanced among the compositions for flute in this concert.
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At the beautiful Medieval-looking town of Diekirch, in the Old Church of St. Laurent, the next concert took place, featuring the Arta Woodwind Quintet from Munich and an ensemble of three flutists, Lena Frieden, Carlo Jans and Carine Forget playing an unforgettable program.
Woodwind Quintet by Chilean composer Carlos Zamora was a traditionally, Neo-Classically styled, harmonically tonal piece in four contrasting movements, very happy and dancelike in its mood, though a bit superficial in its substance.
"Deformation" for three flutes by Seungwoo Paik from Korea, was an abstract-sounding, atonal piece, which started with the three instruments playing in unison, then passing through stages of motivic, canonic weaving, then disjunct lines, homophonic chorale phrases, and then more abstractly irregular passages, showing the musical parallel of the artistic expressionistic technique of changing or distorting natural forms of objects subjectively to express the artists' inner state.
"5 Momente efemere" for Woodwind Quintet by Romanian composer Doina Cojocaru in five contrasting movements was a curiously intriguing composition, the main idea of which were juxtaposition and interconnection of disjunct musical phrases, which were connected together and then separated into short separate notes alternately during the course of the composition.
"Four Brazilian Songs" for Woodwind Quintet by Liduino Pitombeira from Brazil was a rather traditionally styled four movement piece, Neo-Classical in its aesthetics and tonal in harmonic language, which, nevertheless contained a 12-tone row, utilized in a way, sounding very diatonically. The four movements corresponded to the Classical structure, were contrastingly fast, jovial and dancelike or slow, lyrical and intricate in mood.
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At the town of Ettelbruck, after stopping at the town's psychiatric hospital to have dinner in the hospital's cafeteria (a humorous touch on the part of the organizers of the festival), we were brought to the "Centre des Arts Pluriels Edouard Juncker", where we were shown three video and sound installations: "Caprice" by Alice Hall from Canada, "Medusahead" by Andre Greenwell from Australia and "Le Grand Appui" by Steve Kaspar from Luxembourg. These were in fact miniature abstract movies, showing concrete images, sometimes distorted to an abstract level, at other times almost containing a "plot" or "story" with rather abstract-sounding electronic music, though supposed to be on equal footage with the visual effects, often tending to be subservient to the latter in its usage.
Next, the famous German ensemble, Ensemble Modern performed an extensive program.
"Entre Belaqua et Nell" by Montreal composer Michele Boudreau was a long, instrumentally elaborate and dramatic piece, influenced by the work of Samuel Beckett, featuring an assortment of elaborate instrumental touches, such as dramatic fadings in and out of held chords, played by different instruments, as well as fast, scurrying dramatic passages for winds. In one memorable spot, the percussionist spoke out a quotation from Beckett, outlining each syllable with a beat on the drum.
"Maze" by Raffaele Marcellino from Australia was a dynamic, sonoristic work with continuous percussion effects, long held brass chords, fast, scurrying effects for winds, sporadic changes of texture in all the instruments, an extended formal development and an almost Wagnerian, exhalted spirit (though not in terms of literal style), all of which resulted in a very impressive work.
Wolfgang Rihm's eccentric piece "Jagden und Formen," a continuous work-in-progress (this concert featured the piece, as far as it was completed by October 2000), with fast, loud, busy and dramatic textures, sometimes bordering on a grotesque sound-world, and, generally speaking a very innovative musical language, though containing a Romantic expressive spirit. The chief drawback of the work was that it was longer in size than the musical material it used really called for, having essentially said all that it needed to during the first ten minutes of its presentation. Nevertheless, the technical proficiency of the work gave the Ensemble Modern a chance to display their brilliant technique and profound musicality of their performance skills.
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The noon-time concert on October 5 at the Cercle Municipale featured a set of more traditionally style orchestral works, performed by the Grand Orchestre d'Harmonie des Guides, conducted by Norbert Nozy.
"Masada" by Russian-born Israeli Boris Pigovat, describing the Jews' last stand of resistance against the Romans in A.D. 70, was a loud, dramatic piece of a traditional style, combining late Romanticism and an adherence to a Shostakovich tradition, a work invigorating in its own way.
Norwegian composer Guttorm Kittelsen's "Concert Piece for Symphonic Band and Percussion" was a loud, bombastic piece, rather academic in style with an overdose of percussion effects, and a misbalance of loud effects for full orchestra, and an abundance of standard Romantic orchestral cliches, some of them resembling movie music. The work, nevertheless, had some very effective dramatic touches in certain places.
"Minimo" by Kresimir Seletkovic was another loud, bombastic piece with heavy use of percussion and an abundance of movie music effects, though with a few intricately orchestrated textural effects of good quality all the same.
"Phantasmagoria" by French composer Regis Campo, though also containing a fair share of bombastic movie effects, was a much more inspiring piece with interesting exquisite orchestral effects, especially in a place where the xylophone and bells were juxtaposed with the full orchestral sonorities.
"Danse funambulesque" by Belgian composer Jules Strens was a tonal, Impressionistic piece, resembling Rimsky-Korsakov and Debussy, featuring a very pictorially descriptive, epic type of music. It started with slow, soft music, featuring many passages for solo instruments, particularly flute, then gradually gained momentum and resulted in a loud, bombastic dance.
The last piece on the program was a tribute to a 19th century, featuring the "Marche du Premier regiment des guides" by Luxembourgish composer Valentin Bender (1801-1873), which was a standard 19th century overture, resembling Offenbach or Johann Strauss, featuring very happy, theatrical kind of music with plenty of trumpet fanfares and drum rolls, which would be very effective if played outdoors by a wind band. It seemed that the orchestra, being in effect a military band, was most effective when playing this kind of music, than when playing the modern compositions, since the loud effects of the pieces were clearly overdone in performance, especially considering the overly resonant acoustics of the hall.
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The evening concert of October 5 took place in Metz, France in the Arsenal concert hall, about two hours away from Luxembourg city. The Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, performing the concert, was conducted by Fabrice Bollon.
"Konzertstuck fur Orchester N.2" by older-generation Lithuanian composer, Vytautas Barkauskas, was a loud, fast, neo-classical piece, bustling with an energetic, happy mood resembling a carnival, pronouncedly tonal harmonies, and some imaginative, exquisite textures within an Impressionistic/Neo-Classical framework, particularly percussion instruments such as woodblocks. The piece had some very exotic textural effects in the slower middle section.
"Canticum Tremulum" by Japanese Hiroyuki Yamamoto, an avant-garde, atonal piece, a very impressive and inspiring work, had an abundance of tasteful exotic textures, containing strong elements of Japanese folk music aesthetics, modified with Western avant-garde means. The main idea of the work was the unstandard textural effects, some of which were violin glissandi in upper registers and unusual percussion effects.
"Rondo for Piano and Orchestra" by Swedish composer Lars Ekström was an extended dramatic concert piece, atonal in harmonies, featuring virtuosic piano playing, though generally at a subdued dynamic level, containing trills, octave passages, occasionally switching to loud, resonant bell-like chords, dramatically played on the piano. The orchestra part, subservient to the piano part, held chords for lengthy periods of time, occasionally switching to more active participation, at times adding in some exquisite textures, including some Chinese music exoticisms, the latter manifested in occasional recurring loud, solitary slaps on the drum.
"WU-YU" by Chinese-born, Australian-based composer Julian Yu, had a striking coincidence between his name and the title of the piece, the latter referred to Chinese rain-making ceremonies, performed in times of drought. It was a very impressive and effective composition, exotically textured and emotionally expressive, with atonal harmonies and a wide textural palette, especially prominent in the imaginative and tasteful usage of percussion; the latter suggested some Chinese exotic elements of folk music, used in a very intricate and appropriate manner.
"Duodramen" for soprano, baritone and orchestra by the famous Mauricio Kagel was a dramatic work, though atonal and avant-garde, still written in a Romantic trend, extremely different from his more well-known pieces. The orchestration of the work was very imaginative and emotionally expressive, with a wide palette of imaginative orchestral effects, such as glissandi in strings, though containing some more traditional effects, such as march effects produced by double-bass pizzicati. The soprano and baritone sang short, successive lines, suggesting a dramatic narrative story, or even an opera scene, with occasional incursions of Sprechstimme, at other times their singing being interrupted by long orchestral interludes. One section of the piece had a very strong tonal harmonic slant, even slightly alluding to a folk song or lied element. The piece produced a most favorable effect by its dramatic qualities and imaginative orchestral effects.
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The daytime concert of October 6 took place at the Villa Louvigny in Luxembourg city and featured the famous German "Musikfabrik" chamber ensemble with guest conductor, American-born and German-based James Avery, the artistic director of the Freiburg-based "Surplus" ensemble. They performed four very accomplished works for large chamber ensemble with a masterful technique and great musical insight.
"Codename Orpheus" by Finnish composer Johan Tallgren was a subtle, soft avant-garde piece with sparse, delicate textural effects – among which were string instruments playing on and over the bridge and taping on wood, winds playing in undertones and whispering, as well as fluttertonguing – a moderately cerebral approach and an overall intricate, introversive mood.
"Annäherungen" by German composer Gunter Steinke was a very texturally advanced, avant-garde type of piece with subtle effects and extended techniques, including a lot of undertone string and wind textural effects and the pianist tapping on the piano wood and playing inside strings. It was a very well-balanced piece, the most impressive work on the program, well-built in terms of form and harmoniously blending a cerebral approach with a lyrical, introversive mood.
"Apoteosi del blu" by Valerio Sannincandro from Italy was a fast, loud, impulsive and emotionally challenged work with the most innovative extended techniques and imaginatively varied instrumental effects: shrill, loud shrieks by wind instruments in the upper register, gentle, soft, undertone string effects, gentle percussion taps. Occasionally interspersed in this motley sound collage were almost entirely tonal or modal melodic fragments, juxtaposed with a totally different type of music without producing any dissonance hereby.
A world premiere of British composer Ian Wilcock's "Grave" concluded the concert. It was another avant-garde, texturally innovative piece, intriguingly eccentric in sound and form, with imaginative unusual sound effects. In the beginning, a few vertical chords started and stopped abruptly, then the piece went in full sway, featuring full, loud, elaborate tutti ensemble textures and some unusual effects, like tuba staccatos, resembling double-bass sound, as well as some exotic percussion effects, all of which successfully added up to produce a very effective, imaginative and inspiring work.
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For the afternoon concert of October 6, we took a trip to Saarbrücken, Germany. The concert featured musicians from Luxembourg, Portugal and other countries, playing chamber pieces from various countries, predominantly Portugal. The musicians were respectively: flutist Paula Azguime, percussionist Miguel Azguime, French pianist Alain Neveux, saxophonists Guy Goethals and Leana Sealy and recorder player Tosya Suzuki.
"Réitérations" by Portuguese composer João Rafael for piano solo was a moderately short, atonal and texturally varied piano piece, featuring a well-formed combination of sporadic disjunct arpeggiated passages, sparse, pointillistic effects (the latter frequently as isolated notes), bell-like sounding chords, some more dynamic, busy textures and a few more cerebrally-sounding passages – all of which combined into a successful, expressive piece, performed in an effective way by Alain Neveux.
"Salamander II" for solo recorder by Japanese composer Hiroyuki Itoh, performed by Tosya Suzuki, was a delightful, lively, atonal, texturally varied, innovative piece with a free form and sporadic development, which started on a shrill, loud note in the extremely high register, then continued in a fast, lively, rhythmically varied way, swiftly and freely changing dynamics from soft to loud and registers between high middle and low.
"De l'Étant Qui Le Nie" by Paula Azguime from Portugal for piano and electronics, performed by Alain Neveux, was a loud, fast, lively and energetic piece with a jovial mood and many innovative textures for both mediums, the piano and the electronic, which mixed together quite well, at times the electronic textures being derived from modification of sampled piano textures.
"The Trap for Two" for two saxophones by Julia Gomelskaya from Odessa, Ukraine, performed by Guy Goethals and Leana Sealy, was a loud, dramatic and somewhat humorous piece with a jovial mood, containing plenty of loud passages in cluster microphony, isolated soft, subdued notes, fluttertonguing effects and sequentially repeated phrases, all of which combined an avant-garde sound world with a humorous mood. In one memorable spot, the players whispered the words in English "trap for two," successively repeating them on and on, after which they went back to playing lively musical passages on their instruments.
"Pulse Code Modulation" for electrically amplified bass flute, percussion and electronics by Miguel Azguime from Portugal was an exotic, brightly and innovatively textured, dramatic piece, with plenty of varied, diverse textural effects for the instruments – toneless whispering on the bass flute, loud isolated beats and some loud solo passages on bass drum and tom-toms, and varied, dramatic electronic effects, including busy bell-like sounds and more static organ-like sounds. The piece was interesting and imaginative, though in some places the loud volume and the coordination between the three sound media was strikingly out of balance.
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The evening concert of October 6 in the Large Concert Hall of the Funkhaus Halberg in Saarbrucken, Germany featured the Sinfonieorchester des Saarlandlischen Rundfunks (The Saar-lands Radio Symphony Orchestra) conducted by Oswald Salaberger, soprano Ksenia Lukic. Tenor Christoph Späth, baritone Yaron Windmüller and the Saarbrücken Chamber Choir under the direction of Georg Grün.
"Aurora Australis" by Slovenian-born and Australian-based Bozidar Kos was a pictorial, almost impressionistic work with elaborate orchestration, featuring an assortment of delicate textures and imaginative sound effects, but no real unified idea, containing an assortment of succeeding musical ideas with broadly diverse subject matter, fit for several diverse compositions. Despite the drawback of the extremely eclectic form of the work, the orchestral writing in it was extremely imaginative and delightful.
A world premiere of "Orchesterstück N.7" by Austrian composer Herbert Grassl sounded next. This was another eclectically formed piece, which combined the most varied assortment of imaginative orchestral ideas together, building a compound, complex form, built on the succession of these disjunct musical ideas. Despite the eclecticism of the subject matter, in this case, it seemed to merge together much better into a unified, albeit eclectic and unusual form. The orchestral effects themselves were quite imaginative and diverse in style, ranging from passages almost resembling Mozart arias to those with more pronouncedly avant-garde textures.
A performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata N.56 opened up the second half of the concert, interpreted in a graceful and elegant manner, though with too much of a 19th century Romantic approach.
The performance of the Cantata proved to be very well programmed, being very connected to the next work on the program, a large, dramatic vocal and orchestral composition "Die Erde ist eine Schale von dunkelm Gold," a "Konzertscene" for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus and orchestra by German composer Rolf Riehm. The work consisted of two movements or scenes, and was a large, dramatic work, atonal in harmony, utilizing some of the most innovative textures and intricate effects – high range squeaking effects for violins, static chords, held through long periods of time, clusterry effects in the brass. At the same time, it was quite Wagnerian in its Romantic, emotional qualities, heavy orchestral textures, – alternately busy, spirited, dramatic and slow and static – and an almost declamatory orchestral style. Towards the later part of the work, there were occasional incursions of tonal harmonic language, first in tertial chords, held in the brass, and then in frequent quotations from Bach, namely the Musical Offering, as well as fragments of Bach stylizations. It was a very narrative piece of music with an almost operatic approach of combining the singers and orchestra. A short but recognizable fragment from Bach's Cantata N.56 sounded toward the very end of the piece, which altogether proved to be very inspiring and effective.
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The last day of the festival, October 7th, featured an impressive excursion into the unforgettably impressive pastoral settings of a number of small towns and villages of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The morning concert of 11 AM took place in Orangerie of the Domaine Thermale in the small town Mondorf-les-Bains, and featured pianist Béatrice Rauchs and violinist Vania Lecuit who performed an extensive program, with Rauchs playing solos for most of the concert and Lecuit joining in just for the last piece.
"Three Monothematic Pieces" by Ljubo Rancigaj of Slovenia was a set of rather traditional, academic piano pieces, the first piece being slow and bearing a slight resemblance to atonal Schoenberg, the second being tonal and Neo-Classical, with a regularly rhythmic ostinato, and the third one being slow with mysterious, sonorous chords, being the most successful in the triptych.
"Prelude and Fugue" for piano by Vladimir Bokes from Slovakia was a moderately traditional piece in four movements: after the slow and soft Prelude with richly sonorous chords and a faster sounding Fugue with more busy textures and a more academic approach, came two more movements, both of which were fast, dry-sounding and mildly energetic in mood.
"Portrett N.6" for piano by Snorri Sigfús Birgisson from Iceland was another traditionally textured, mildly atonal piece, moderately expressive in mood, with a discursive quality, a moderately fast, lively tempo, alternating with a few slower and more meditative passages. The piece contained a fair share of polyphonic effects, alternating with an almost Chopinesque texture, at times approaching tonality from a distance.
"Ciurlionis' Sketches" for piano by Lithuanian Anatolijus Senderovas, a piece honoring Lithuania's greatest painter and composer of the turn-of-the-century, was a lyrical character piece, possibly quoting or at least stylizing Ciurlionis' own short piano pieces, alternately straight-away tonal and atonal in harmonies, with rather traditional, lyrical, Romantic piano textures, at times alternating with Neo-Classical textures.
"Enigma" by Lucia Alvarez from Mexico was a conglomeration of diverse Romantic Nocturne piano textures, at times swaying into robust Neo-Classical textures, as well as into some slightly more modernistic detached, sonoristic textures, altogether proving itself as a very eclectic piece with no thematic or formal unity whatsoever.
The last piece, "Where two became one" by Israeli composer Nurit Jugend, for violin and piano, was by far the most impressive work on the program. The performance by Vania Lecuit on the violin and Beatrice Rauchs on the piano was one of great merit, being very inspiring by its great musical insight and sensitivity. The piece, written under the impression of the composers' visit to Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1998, was meant to depict a statue in a place in the city where two rivers merged into one. Clearly the most impressive piece on the program, with a variety of interesting, innovative and dramatic textures and sonorities for the two instruments, contrasting between a static, sparse beginning with isolated notes for both instruments, and a more robust, dramatic, broadly emotionally expressive full-textured climax, which still never lost a certain reserved quality of the music. The piece contained a moderate amount of extended techniques with the pianist playing inside the strings and the violinist playing fast, scurrying passages tremolo and pizzicato.
After the concert, we were taken on a cruise on a ship along the Mousel river, where we had lunch on board and enjoyed the spectacular rural views of Luxembourg on one coast and Germany on the other.
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In the picturesque small town of Ehnen, on the coast of the Mousel, in the Ehnen Church the next concert took place, featuring chamber music performed by four musicians: soprano Mariette Lentz, Aude Rocca-Serra on the harp, Dimitris Marinos on the mandolin and Isabelle Kayser on the flute.
A world premiere of "Trois Chansons d'Amour" for soprano, flute and harp by Luxembourgish composer Johny Fritz, set on the texts of French 18th century poet Evariste Parny, was performed by Lentz, Kayser and Rocca-Serra. It was a rather traditional and harmonically tonal piece with a few chromatic digressions, an overall lyrical, melancholy mood, a rather Impressionistic textural language, resembling Debussy and Ravel and a fair share of exoticisms, produced by subtle, intricate instrumental effects. It was very impressively pictorial and descriptive in its nature, evoking Romantic images of medieval town, castle or forest surroundings and did full justice to the poetry that it utilized.
"Contrapuntal Variations" for mandolin by American composer Craig First was second on the program, performed by Dimitris Marinos. It was a subdued, delicately textured piece in three movements, though with an air of being a theme and variations in its manner of development. It was almost entirely modal in harmony, utilizing a variant of a minor mode, with a moderate amount of exotic textures for the instruments, such as the famous tremolos, as well as some harmonics in the upper range. It had an elaborate usage of counterpoint and a tasteful contrast of textures and moods especially in the different movements.
Luciano Berio's famous "Sequenza N.3" for solo flute, containing the large amount of theatrical effects and extended techniques, was performed in a masterly manner by Mariette Lentz, who competently performed the whispering, muttering, laughing and hissing, present in the piece in a dramatic and humorous way, adding such dramatic effects as twisting around, bringing her hands up to her head and then stretching them out at her sides, using an assortment of theatrically comical facial expressions and lying back on the chair. It seemed that Berio himself would have been very pleased and proud of this performance, had he had the chance to see and hear it.
The last piece, "Serenade for soprano and harp" by Japanese composer Harue Kunieda, was an elaborate atonal, avant-garde piece, starting with the harp playing some exotically textured passages, after which the soprano entered, singing in a limited pitch area. The piece featured elaborate extended techniques for the harp, carried out in a very musical manner and atonally virtuosic yet lyrical and expressive lines for the soprano. The piece had a very gradual form of development, utilizing limited pitch areas (suggesting the limitations of Japanese modes, though keeping the atonal harmonies throughout) and limited textural units, featuring just a little material at a time, which gradually changed or developed into a new textural idea. Despite the piece's strong modernistic qualities, it had an ever-present lyrical mood.
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After the concert, we went back to the ship, which took us along the Mousel River from Ehnen back to Mondorf-les-Bains. During the cruise back, we were given, as a treat, a piece of Luxembourgish exotic extravaganza – an operetta by the famous 19th century Luxembourgish composer, Edmond de la Fontaine (also known by his pen name, Dicks), "Die Scholdschäin", composed in 1855, which was the first musical comedy in the Luxembourgish language. Performed by soprano Sophie Proost, mezzo-soprano Yannchen Hoffmann, tenor Fernando Presley Jr., baritone Carlo Hartmann and pianist Marco Bettendorf, the work featured extensive conversations of the characters, intermingled with light-weight 19th century style popular songs in the vein of Gilbert and Sullivan or Offenbach. Despite the fact that the style and genre of the piece was totally different from most of the music at the festival, nevertheless, for most of us foreigners the exotic novelty of the spoken and sung Luxembourgish language (a curious half-way blend between German and Dutch) proved to be music for our ears, and, moreover, a new and intriguing linguistic-musical experience, causing this operetta to fit perfectly into the category of "contemporary" or "avant-garde music," and thus perfectly validating its inclusion into the program of the festival.
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The evening concert on October 7 at 8 PM, which took place at the Luxembourg Conservatory, featured four diverse compositions, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra of London, the first three of which were conducted by Pascal Rophé.
"Giro" by Finnish composer Esa Pekka Salonen was a very impulsive, dramatic piece, with a moderately avant-garde style, an atonal harmonic language, which frequently seemed to approach tonality from a distance, never embracing it straightforwardly, and an inspiring, heroic mood, which was expressed with tasteful moderation, without the least bit of excessive bravura.
"Variations" by British composer Hugh Wood was a fast and busy piece, with plenty of rhythmically-regular polyphonic lines, the texture bordering on a Neo-Classical approach. The piece had a complex, dramatic formal structure with substantial development of the initiative thematic material, despite the fact that it was not very long.
"The Stations of the Sun" by British composer Julian Anderson was an extensive, dramatic piece, moderately traditional in style, with a strong Romantic flavor. The work had a tasteful amount of contrast between the loud and impulsive sections, with the soft, lyrical and pastoral sections, as well as a well-built form and inherent dramatic substance.
"The Gate, Orchestral Theater IV" by Chinese composer, living in New York Tan Dun, was conducted by the composer and featured Peking opera actress Shi Min, soprano Nancy Lundy and puppeteer Zehuai Zhuang. This was an extravagant multi-media performance, in effect a short opera, with strong theatrical elements, featuring singers and actors walking around the stage, acting out the dramatic play about three women, who committed suicide out of love, awaiting judgment at a gate where souls await to be reborn. The music was a rather traditional, theatrical type, with a strong flavor of Chinese exoticism, inherent in the pentatonic harmonies and the strong allusion to Chinese traditional folk music by the orchestral textures. A very effective dramatic touch was in the presence of a video screen on stage, which magnified and showed on screen respectively the conductor, the singers and the actors, emphasizing their importance in this musical-theatrical production. Despite the slightly excessive theatrical slant of the music, the whole performance of the last work was very impressive, and was successful in bringing yet another dimension to the festival, namely that of the theater.
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All in all, the World Music Days Festival provided a vibrant creative atmosphere, a lavishly and generously rich musical program, and a chance for musicians to meet with other talented musicians from al over the world, as well as hear the music of their colleagues from the most remote parts of the world, as well as to establish friendly and creative connections with these musicians. This festival ensured a secure place for Luxembourg on the scene of the Western European contemporary music scene.