A NEW GENERATION PERFORMERS SOME NEW (AND SOME NOT SO NEW) MUSIC

Since arriving in New York, I greatly anticipated hearing some student performers from the music schools in the city.  The Juilliard School is of course one of world's great arts schools and its music program renowned for the legions of musicians who have studied there. While Juilliard is most well-known for developing musicians devoted to the great traditions of classical music, early music and recent music have not been ignored.  Axiom is a Juilliard chamber ensemble devoted to performing art music of the 20th and 21st centuries.  Their program on Monday, October 11 in the striking Peter Jay Sharp Theater provided some evidence of their range and diversity.  Like the James Joyce-themed program I attended at Carnegie Hall, this program featured three works connected in some way with Magnus Lindberg, the Finnish composer who is currently composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic.  Lindberg's audacious orchestra piece Kraft helped kick off the Philharmonic's fall season

The first piece on the Axiom program was Stravinsky's somber work dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, Symphonies of Wind Instruments. Stravinsky intended for the work to be viewed as "an austere ritual" and he succeeded admirably.  While maintaining a static quality without much direction or clarity of form (as Debussy would often do) he frequently combines the wind instruments in various ways for subtle changes of color.  This is not the Stravinsky of The Firebird or Le Sacre.

Strikingly different was Okho by the Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis.  Composed for three percussionists playing African djembes, this work expands upon basic African drumming techniques while also exploring permutations of rhythm for which Xanakis is well known.  The abilities of the performers to deal with extremely involved rhythms while creating a wide range of colors was astounding. This work also has political implications in that it was written to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Xenakis had strong political views and chose to emphasize the African connection so as to evoke the memory of France's colonial exploits of Africa despite the supposed goals of the French Revolution. Power trumps principle.

The final work on the program, Joy, by Magnus Lindberg, can hardly be considered a chamber work as it calls for enormous resources. Much of the work deals with various modes of contrast-- keyboards and percussion contrasted with strings and winds--static rhythm contrasted with vigorous rhythm--atonality contrasted with tonality. Hints of Stravinsky, Xenakis, Debussy, Sibelius and Messiaen can be heard.  The work is a tour-de-force of orchestration. It was with this work that the impressive abilities of the performers could shine through. The composer was present for the performance and seemed quite pleased.  

(The concert was given on Monday, October 11, 2010 at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard)