aperture reviews
James Turrell: Kielder Skyspace at dawn
April 5, 2008
| The Radio Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra –
under the baton of Thierry Fischer – successfully
performed Aperture on March 29 in the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw.
In the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Peter van der Lint
praised the 'daring music' of Aperture: "With Fiumara,
the light shines blazing and extreme. Aperture is a
piece without compromise, [...] that doesn't try to
please the listener. Wagner's 'unendliche Melodie' is
here translated as 'unendliche Klang': a slowly
thinning string sound from high to low, mixed with
'unheimische' hits by two percussionists and a pianist.
Towards the end, the frequencies of the low tones of
the Maarschalkerweerd organ clash into each other more
and more. It seems as if nothing happens, but under the
skin it tosses and turns. As if a budle of light in an
empty house searches mercilessly for the dark past of
its earlier inhabitants."
In NRC Handelsblad, Jochem Valkenburg also wrote a
positive review of what he calls 'a logical extension
of Fiumara's existing oeuvre': "It breathes a serene
atmosphere, is straightforward and process-based, and
it intelligently uses well-tried canon techniques.
[...] The work starts with a Ligeti-like sound image,
as shrill strings descend gradually in different
tempos. But in spite of a warm vibrato, Fiumara keeps
the texture strikingly bare and without compromise. One
hears the process, nothing more – except maybe in the
slightly dramatized ending, where all the voices arrive
at their lowest point."
aperture in amsterdam
concertgebouw
Radio Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra
March 28, 2008
| On March 29, Thierry Fischer and the Radio
Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra perform the world
premiere of Aperture (2008) for string orchestra in the
acclaimed ZaterdagMatinee series in the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw. Aperture is a homage to the American
visual artist James Turrell, the Light and Space artist
who takes light itself and makes it his material. There
is no object in his art, no image, and no point of
focus.
Aperture — a homage not in light, but in sound slowly
inhabiting the space – was written for the Dutch Radio
Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Thierry
Fischer. It was commissioned by the ZaterdagMatinee
series and the Nederlands Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten+.
The work is dedicated to Kees Vlaardingerbroek,
artistic director of the ZaterdagMatinee series.
à.x. for nora mulder
Nora Mulder
March 9, 2008
| Dutch pianist Nora Mulder (performing in the
pouring rain on this photo) will be premiering À.X. for
piano solo in the Muziekenhuis in Nijmegen, on May 14.
À.X. (a hommage to Iannis Xenakis) is closely related
to Fern (2006) and Kranz (2005). Dating back to 2005,
it was the first sketch in a series of arborescences,
which was waiting for a performer to be finished in
this form.
In À.X. the sonic equivalent of the Lindenmayer axiom –
a fractal-like model of the growth of trees and
branches – is presented unfiltered, polyphonic and
relentless in the first part. À.X. is modelled after
piano pieces by Yannis Xenakis – virtuoso repertoire
that Mulder performs so powerfully and elegantly.
The sonic process of growing branches and diverging
polyphony is repeated as a chorale in the second part
(titled Phyllotaxis, the arrangement of the leaves on
the stem of a plant). In Phyllotaxis, a cloud of
singing cicadas inhabits the instrument; referring to
(in Xenakis' words): "The collision of hail or rain
with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer
field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of
isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as a
totality, is a new sonic event."