VOCES INTERNAS: Contemporary Works for Cello
•
Jonathan Golove (vc); Stephen Manes (pn
1
); Emilio Tamez (perc
2
)
•
ALBANY TROY 1235 (74:13)
Nicandro TAMEZ
1
Introduccion al Duo I. Monomaquia.
ESPINOSA
1
Duo “De la Obscuridad a la Luz.”
LAVISTA
Cuaderno de viaje.
1
Quotations.
Omar TAMEZ
2
Las Voces Internas.
ELÍAS
Homérica
Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas, Manuel Ponce. After those three distinguished composers plus perhaps one or two others, most repertory collectors would run out of names were they asked to rattle off some Mexican composers. As a record dealer, I was always excited to come across recordings of composers from south of the border, because few records from Latin America were distributed up here in
El Norte.
Yet there exists an amazing wealth of classical music written by composers from this part of the world. We are fortunate here in Bloomington to have the world’s largest repository of such music at Indiana University in its Latin American Music Center. With this disc, Albany is helping to fill the lacunae in most collectors’ knowledge of this music.
However, be warned: The music on this CD is largely atonal and would appropriately be described as avant-garde. These may not be works for those just cutting their teeth on the music after Bartók. The recital begins and ends with two works by the short-lived (1931–85) Nicandro Tamez (give the booklet credence regarding his birth year rather than the tray card). His
Introducción al Duo I
is unrelentingly austere and foreboding in the atmosphere its composer creates through tone clusters in the nether regions of the piano, chromatic flights of virtuosity in the cello, and tremolo and other effects. It was written to “introduce” and “complete” a duet by Tamez’s student Leandro Espinosa, whose duo immediately (and appropriately) follows on the disc. The score is in graphic notation. As a rhapsodic work, structural unity is achieved through the use of
ritornelli.
As it is meant to do, Leandro Espinosa’s Duo “From Darkness to Light” flows seamlessly out of the Tamez work—if you’re not paying attention, you won’t notice that the one has ended and the other begun. The general effect of this piece is quite similar to that evoked in Tamez’s introduction, but it includes fewer special effects. The composer, born in 1955, describes the work as his contemplation of the firmament. Each note of the piano is meant to represent a planet or a star, and the harmony between them. I suppose this is Espinosa’s take on Kepler’s harmony of the spheres, although the notes make no mention of this.
Mario Lavista (b.1943) is one of the more prominent of living Mexican composers, having studied under Chávez, Héctor Quintanar, and Rodolfo Halffter. After a stint in Europe during which he worked with Stockhausen, Boulanger, Pousseur, and others, he returned to Mexico in 1972, where he founded Quanta, a collective improvisation group, and 10 years later,
Pauta,
one of the most important music journals in Latin America; he serves as its editor to this day.
Cuaderno de viaje
(Travel Log) for solo cello was first composed for solo viola, the strings of which are tuned exactly one octave above those of the cello. Thus the natural harmonics that exclusively comprise this two-movement composition work equally well on the larger instrument. In Lavista’s words, “To use harmonics is, in some way, to work with reflected sounds; each one of them is produced or generated by a fundamental sound that we never get to hear. We only perceive its harmonics, its sound-reflection.” By restricting himself to natural harmonics, Lavista produces a work that is ethereal in its effect, monochromatic, and less atonal than most of the other works on this CD, since there are not 12 chromatic tones easily produced via natural harmonics from the four open strings (C, G, D, and A) of the cello.
Quotations,
Lavista’s second work on the CD, is probably my favorite work in this recital. From its outset, it achieves a remarkable feeling of introspection and self-awareness. Barely audible sustained tones are interrupted by
forte
interjections by the piano, and are intermixed with flights of hushed
pizzicati
, harmonics,
sul ponticello
playing, and other such effects in the cello. The work’s title is taken from the fact that the composer uses micro-quotation of mainly European works, such as Debussy’s cello sonata and Webern’s
Drei kleine Stücke.
Don’t worry about those, though; there’s not enough quoted to recognize any of the pieces from which they are drawn.
Omar Tamez (b.1974) is the son of Nicandro Tamez, and began his studies with his father at the age of four. His university degrees include not only those in music, but also in philosophy and literature. In 1995, he organized a festival to memorialize his father, who clearly had a significant impact on his son’s musical language. The younger Tamez has also worked in jazz, and has participated in more than 2,000 concerts with his Non-Jazz group. Believe me, there is not the merest hint of what I think of as jazz in his
Las Voces Internas,
a nine-movement work for cello and percussion. The composer describes it as a journey through diverse emotional states, the disintegration of the individual and human form. This description does, I would agree, accurately reflect the impression conveyed by the work. Its use of graphic notation (according to the school of his father), combined with traditional notation and improvisation, convert it into an interactive work between composer and performers. As in the music of many avant-garde composers, silence plays an integral role in this piece.
Born in 1938, Manuel de Elías, like Omar Tamez, studied composition with his father, Alfonso. He later worked with Chávez at the Mexico National Conservatory. His
Homérica
is another work for cello alone, once again evincing a wide array of effects, including microtones. These are combined to produce a mostly slow-paced, declamatory piece, along the lines of an instrumental recitative. The composer has meant to suggest, perhaps, a single stanza of one of the epics of Homer. Through Elias’s use of varied timbres on a single tone, a sound traversing distance or time to reach its auditor is implied. Whether or not any particular listener will perceive this in the music is open to debate, but I find the piece quite effective.
The recital closes with a second work,
Monomaquia,
also for solo cello, by Nicandro Tamez. After several reiterations of an A♭in the middle-upper register of the cello, the composer begins to vary the register, articulation, dynamics, and other musical parameters. The title, taken from the Latin term
monomachia
(a combat between two single individuals, i.e., a duel), is meant to portray the fact that the soloist is dueling with himself in this work. I’m not sure who wins the duel, but I do like it.
While there may be no undiscovered masterpieces in this collection, the well-played CD should provide rewards to those interested in the avant-garde school of cello writing and playing. Jonathan Golove and his colleagues are up to the considerable technical and musical demands placed upon the performers of these works. Recorded sound leaves nothing to be desired, the cello being accorded plenty of warmth and presence. My main quibble is that more space should have been left between pieces on this CD. It is often not obvious to me where one leaves off and the next begins. Recommended to a select subset of
Fanfare
readers—you know who you are.
David DeBoor Canfield
