For the past several weeks, I have been listening to pieces by composers mentioned in this article, “Ten Young Composers Who Are Redefining Classical Music," HERE. I am up to the sixth name on the list, Nico Muly. However, for this week I found a cello concerto by Muhly, but only the first movement was written by him. The concerto, "Three Continents," has three movements, and each was written by a different composer. The second and third movements were composed by Sven Helbig and Zhou Long.
With a startling and cacophonous clash -- plus a piercing pitch on the piccolo -- "Cello Cycles," the opening movement to the concerto, bolts to a start as the cellist pleads a desperate lament above fluttering woodwinds, plucked strings, moaning brass, and clanging percussion. At times it’s as if one were zooming a camera in on the determined melody line of the cello, but the lens isn't quite sure what to focus on with so much clamor going on in the background. Fortunately, at about three and a half minutes into the piece, the orchestral parts seem to intertwine more meaningfully with the cello’s focus, and there is greater cohesiveness to the auricular “picture.” At that point the fluttering, the plucking, the moaning and the clanging support the cello, and it all creates a full but dolorous vision. The transition from the woeful close of the first movement (including some formidable blasts from the low brass) to the funereal opening of "Aria," the second movement, is remarkable considering it was written by an entirely different composer. The two movements work so well together in advancing the piece’s unfolding story of agony, and the second movement is as beautiful as it is mournful. “I like a look of agony,” wrote Emily Dickinson, “because I know it’s true,” and Helbig’s piece is true and tragic passion. The start of the third movement, "Typsy Poet," calls to mind the opening of the concerto with a blast of cacophony and a shrill, high pitched piccolo. There are sliding tones here and there with whirls of woodwinds, flurries of strings, muted brass, and booms, bangs and blasts of percussion -- all above sustained low chords in the bass instruments. The mood is frenetic, but not frenzied. About two minutes and ten seconds into the piece (at about 23:17 in the video HERE), the mood was reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann’s suspense-filled soundtrack to “North by Northwest.” As a matter of fact, much of the final movement was Hitchcockian to be sure -- but with hints of Asian influence here and there. Believe me, there is more going on here than the undertakings of a “typsy poet.” Sure, there are hints of inebriation (check out 29:26 until about 30:37 in the video), but from 30:38 on, the piece races to a striking climax. Is this poet being pursued atop Mount Rushmore by agents of espionage? I’ll have to admit, when I first started listening to “Three Continents,” I was a bit tentative and uncertain about the piece -- the incongruous opening and lack of focus (to revisit my camera analogy) bothered me -- but overall, the piece is marvelous. Once you get into it, it is a gripping piece -- and certainly impressive that it was written by three different composers.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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