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Les critiques de disques se retrouvent dans les pages de chaque disque (via l’onglet discographie).

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Let’s get the “review” out of the way first, so we can talk about the music. This two-CD set of quartets and quintets by the American composer James Tenney (1934-2006) is one of the finest recordings to have come my way recently, essential listening not only for anyone interested in Tenney’s music or in microtonality in general, but for anyone wanting to understand some of the ways in which new music has developed in the past three or four decades. That’s a weighty claim but I stand by it. Relatively little played for much of his lifetime, Tenney’s music became better known only in the last dozen years of his life and now the ears of the new music world are wide open to it. With this new recording we have a Tenney release that offers superb performances of a collection of some of his finest, most individual works (here represented by Quintext, Saxony, and Koan) together with some tougher nuts that nonetheless prove tastier as time goes by (works like Cognate Canons, Diaphonic Study, and his last work, the string quartet Arbor Vitae). Previous fine Tenney discs have appeared (Marc Sabat and Stephen Clarke’s recording of the violin and piano music on Hat Hut, the Barton Workshop’s of the Postal Pieces on New World Records, among others), but for all the excellence of the playing these earlier discs have often tended to offer works from what feels to me like the periphery of Tenney’s achievement rather than the centre. If you don’t like the music on this Bozzini Quartet release, you can conclude that Tenney is just not for you. The Montreal-based Bozzinis have established themselves beyond question as one of the finest new music quartets on the scene, skilful and dedicated young players with a consistently adventurous approach to repertoire. Their performances here are never less than outstanding.
Tenney’s explorations of microtonal tunings began in 1972, more than a decade after his brief and argument-filled “apprenticeship” with Harry Partch at the University of Illinois in 1959. Tenney’s theoretical writings offer an expansion of many of Partch’s tuning concepts, placing Partch’s interest in extended just intonation (“extended” through the use of harmonies derived from the seventh and eleventh partials) in a broader conceptual framework that acknowledges the complexities of our perception of pitch and the sophisticated mechanisms our brain uses to process aural data. Not all of Tenney’s post-1972 works employ just tuning, although most of them use harmonic relationships made possible by the expanded pitch world of microtonality — more specifically, through a particular navigation of that world by means of a pitch matrix that Tenney termed “harmonic space”, which offers quantitative measures of “harmonic distance” between two or more pitches. These theoretical ideas, brought to sonorous life in his compositions, are described in his article “John Cage and the theory of harmony” — Soundings 13: The Music of James Tenney, ed. Peter Garland, pp. 55—83 (Santa Fe, NM: Soundings Press, 1984).
At the conceptually simpler end of Tenney’s spectrum is a work like Saxony (1978) , originally for saxophone with tape delay but heard here in one of its various possible incarnations, for string quartet with delay. This piece, like several others laced through his output, takes its pitch material from a single harmonic series. The series is revealed gradually, in an ever more-dense texture, with the delay system catching the long tones and phrases of the players and re-injecting them into the texture. Characteristically for Tenney, this music avoids drama or incident (more so than does much of the contemporaneous “spectral music” from France, with which it otherwise has several things in common) and offers instead a rich listening context in which the listener’s perceptual experience seems to count for more than the decoding of any “message” from the composer. Koan, a 1984 reworking for string quartet of a much earlier solo violin piece, is a twenty-minute exercise in slowly moving string glissandi set against steady drone pitches. Conceptually elegant and perceptually engaging — if one is in the mood for it — the work can be a real challenge for many audiences not sympathetic to its particular sort of austerity. The Bozzinis play it superbly (with special praise due to violinist Clemens Merkel, who has to negotiate slow glissandi evenly and musically over long spans of time in a steady eighth-note rhythm continually crossing two strings).
For me the real gem of this set, and practically a textbook of Tenney techniques, is the 35 minute Quintext, never before recorded (and rarely, if ever, played complete). Subtitled “five textures for string quartet and bass”, this dates from the all-important year 1972. The individual movements are: “Some Recent Thoughts for Morton Feldman”, “Clouds for Iannis Xenakis”, “A Choir of Angels for Carl Ruggles”, “Parabolas and Hyperbolas for Edgard Varèse” and “Spectra for Harry Partch”. As the subtitle indicates, each movement creates and sustains a texture without dramatic change of any kind, and each has a connection to the work of the composer invoked in its title — although Tenney’s homage could never actually be mistaken for the music of the composer concerned. The first movement is a study in soft, sustained, non-developmental, dissonant vertical harmonies, an obsession in much of Feldman’s early work (especially, perhaps, the Vertical Thoughts series, from which Tenney derived his title). However, in “Some recent Thoughts for Morton Feldman”, the harmonies specified are microtonal, and tuned just intonation (using a scale of intervals analogous to the first 13 odd-number harmonics), one of Tenney’s own obsessions, but a concept totally at odds with Feldman’s devotion to equal temperament. The second movement is a tapestry of sound and silence, with the ‘sound’ sections being a homage to the string cluster textures of Xenakis’s Metastasis and other works, albeit randomly derived. The third movement is a sort of textural parody of Ruggles’s Angels, this time involving actual quotations of chords from Ruggles’s score, though once again in just intonation; it is played sul ponticello throughout, invoking the muted brass of the original. The fourth movement, with its continual but irregular glissandi finally converging around middle C, evokes the parabolas and hyperbolas that Varèse wanted to create in sound by use of instruments like the siren; again, however, the movement is technically speaking almost antithetical to Varèse’s own compositional methods, with its use of graphic notation and consequent degree of randomness. Finally, “Spectra for Harry Partch” proposes yet another sort of homage. In terms of its sonority and its compositional approach the piece is quite far from the sound of Partch’s music, yet the complex scordatura that Tenney specifies for the strings yields music that uses the most complex fabric of just intervals he had so far employed (surpassing in complexity, thanks to its use of intervals derived from prime number partials as high as the thirteenth, the harmonic resources of Partch’s own musical language).
The two other quintets on this disc are much later works. Cognate Canons (1993), which adds a percussionist to the quartet, is dedicated to Nancarrow, some of whose rhythmic techniques it employs. (Among his many other achievements Tenney was among the first to study the music of the long-neglected Nancarrow, contributing detailed liner notes to the recording of Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano released by Wergo in the late 1980s.) Tenney gave me a cassette of Cognate Canons shortly after its premiere (by the Arditti Quartet and Robyn Schulkowsky), but it has taken me all these years to warm to it — here the persuasive playing of the Bozzinis and the sympathetic sound of the recording (by Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt) do much to help a work whose material at first can seem rather anonymous and even stilted, its rhythms well calculated but not especially vibrant. The piano quintet Diaphonic Study is a thorny (and perhaps overly prolonged) exercise in dissonant counterpoint of the sort explored by Ruth Crawford and her husband Charles Seeger earlier in the 20th century, here recast in a microtonal tuning system. This work seems, at least initially, to resist straightforward aural comprehension in the way that Saxony or Koan positively revel in it, although for those listeners prepared to invest the necessary time Diaphonic Study offers its own particular rewards.
The set also offers two early, short quartets — the String Quartet in One Movement of 1955 (a student piece; interesting, but to my ears not really more), and the Stochastic String Quartet of 1963, one of Tenney’s (and the world’s) first computer-generated compositions. While perhaps not especially engaging as a listening experience, the Stochastic String Quartet is representative of a way of working by means of which Tenney creates a field of musical experience mid-way between the architectural calculations of Xenakis and the intention-free indeterminacy of Cage. His last work, the string quartet Arbor Vitae, like the Stochastic String Quartet of more than forty years earlier, is also algorithmically derived, its expanding/contracting pitch range and increasing/decreasing temporal density having been worked out with the programming skills of the young composer Michael Winter during Tenney’s last illness in the summer of 2006. It’s a piece I found hard to make much sense of at first but, here again, repeated listenings reveal a world of sonic fascination and ever-more audible structure. The Bozzinis commissioned Arbor Vitae, and their stunning recording of it and the seven other works on these discs is a monumental achievement, a fitting testimony to a composer whose real stature is becoming clearer with every year that passes.
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“The British may not understand music but they absolutely love the sound it makes.” So quipped Thomas Beecham, and he certainly put his finger on something. For while the conductor and one-time pillar of the British musical establishment was no friend of the musical avant-garde, one of its guiding principles has none the less been to liberate the sound music makes from the various kinds of ’understandings’ with which it has been reined in.
It should be no surprise, on Beecham’s account, to find that the British play host to one of the best-loved avant-garde music festivals, where musicians from all over the world come each November to witness the latest fruits of musical experimentation in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. That said, with the festival reaching its 30th anniversary, this year’s event had a distinctly retrospective flavour to it, with the closing event consisting of a modified recreation of a John Cage concert organised in 1958 by the artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
The original concert was a riot, the musicians protesting as loudly as the audience against the minute unpredictability of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra, an hour-long work in which the pianist struggles through 60 pages containing 84 different kinds of notation. The Huddersfield recreation, masterfully handled by Philip Thomas and the Apartment House group, was an altogether tamer affair, a reminder that much of Cage’s output is, while still fresh, classic primarily in the documentary sense of that term.
The first part of the concert, though, revealed Cage at his lasting best — in particular the Webernesque miniatures of 1934’s Six Short Inventions and 1943’s muted She is Asleep — and the second part departed from the original by presenting six new compositions. Witty tributes from Alvin Curran and Philip Corner framed offerings from younger composers — short pieces by Markus Trunk and Claudia Molitor confirming that Cage’s musical influence remains a powerful force.
Stockhausen was also well served during the festival, particularly by the mesmerising talents of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, who performed his 1968 work Stimmung. Performers of Stockhausen must be accomplished acolytes as well as musicians, and witnessing the weird sounds and occult antics required by ’the master’ in performance can yield the impression of a musical L Ron Hubbard, perpetrator of an inconceivably vast aesthetic con trick. Stimmung consists of six voices passing around intricately worked-through motifs, interrupted by occasional ejaculations spoken in various languages. “C’est complètement nul!” one of them shouts, some way in, seemingly inviting the obvious affirmative response. But in fact the piece both anticipates and quickly absorbs any attentive audience’s responses, literally ’reattuning’ them to their environment.
The great discovery of the festival for me was James Tenney, a theorist and composer who worked with both Stockhausen and Cage. Before he died in 2006, Tenney amassed a significant and still relatively untapped body of extremely concentrated work, unfolded in a series of three concerts by the enterprising and gifted Canadian string quartet Quatuor Bozzini. Though diverse in terms of the techniques employed and soundworlds explored, Tenney’s œuvre is unified by its single-minded investigation of the listening experience. Especially memorable was Koan, a work in which five melodic lines move steadily towards and away from each other by microtonal degrees. There’s nothing to ’get’, no complex puzzle to solve, simply blissful sounds sliding into and out of existence, like patches of forest floor illuminated fleetingly by the sun’s slow arc above the canopy.
Two further highlights included the Piano Baschet, a visually and aurally arresting exploded piano mechanism fitted with pyramidal cones which catch the eye as well as sustain and alter the vibrations of the instrument. Of three newly composed works for the object, reconstructed by Pierre Malbos, only Pierre Alexandre Tremblay’s imaginative evocation of the casting of bells seemed to make full use of the instrument’s oddly restricted sonic capabilities. Another was Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz’s Prana, which uses electric-magnetic bows to turn a piano and three guitars into powerful sustaining instruments, generating slow-moving progressions, rich in overtones, to unfold a minutely constructed eternity.
Fundamentally static, devoid of the grand emotions associated with the classical repertoire, such music prompts many to ask what the point of it is. After a concert of Tenney and Stockhausen, when you emerge into the dull, cacophonous roar of the city, you may find that it suddenly yields a gentle, secret harmony. At this point, though your question may remain unanswered, you’ll certainly have forgotten why you asked it.
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The eighth annual Suoni per il Popolo spanned a month and covered a huge range of musical genres. Over 50 concerts took place in two venues located across the street from each other in Montréal’s artist-filled Mile End neighborhood. It gave fans of free jazz, experimental rock, avant folk, contemporary classical, electronic, and improvised musics plenty to get excited about. Add a workshop with the Sun Ra Arkestra, street performance art, DJ sets and an outdoor day of music and children’s activities, and you have an unbeatably eclectic event. […]
The festival kicked off with two shows that exemplified what it does best. The more intimate Casa del Popolo was the venue for a free jazz blowout with saxophonist Glen Hall, bassist Dominic Duval, and drummer William Hooker, […] Hall keeps a relatively low profile, despite having studied with Ligeti and Kagel and played with the likes of Roswell Rudd, Jimmy Giuffre and John Scofield. The compositions in the first set paid tribute to some of his influences, while the second set shifted to freely improvised territory, with Montréal’s young trumpet luminary Gordon Allen sitting in to add blistering sound blasts and overblowing to the mix. At times this resembled the more noise-based music Hooker has made with Thurston Moore. […]
Allen was a fixture at the festival, playing in seven shows during the month, including guitarist Rainer Wiens’ version of Riley’s In C.
Another evening featured the debut of All Up In There, a trio of Allen, Michel F Côté on percussion, and Frank Martel on Theremin. Martel often played the theremin as if it were a stand-up bass, while Côté, when not playing kit, obtained a surprising variety of sounds from winging two mics around Pignose amps. The overall effect was more like a group of virtuosic Martians than a standard jazz trio. […]
Christof Migone’s performance piece Hit Parade took place outside on a busy Saint-Laurent Boulevard, taking over the sidewalk and one lane of traffic. Eleven people lay face down on the pavement, each pounding a microphone into the ground exactly one thousand times, at varying speeds. The sound of a giant asynchronous metronome prompted ironic thoughts in this listener about the usual meaning of the phrase “hit music,” and about pounding the pavement as a metaphor for life. […]
The Quatuor Bozzini, a string quartet dedicated to contemporary music, performed a selection of pieces by experienced improviser/composers. Malcolm Goldstein’s four-part structured improvisation A New Song of Many Faces for in These Times (2002) was by turns gentle and harsh, agitated and introspective, as melodic and rhythmic fragments were passed from one member of the quartet to another. Goldstein himself performed Hardscrabble Songs, a 13-minute solo piece for voice and violin. Jean Derome and Joane Hétu’s Le mensonge et l’identité (“Lies and Identity”) is an hour-long tour de force with a strong socio-political component. The Bozzinis’ spoken contributions (both live and on prerecorded tape) ranged from pithy quotes from philosophers and politicians to personal anecdotes. The music deliberately unraveled into chaos, the players moving music stands and chairs about the room in response to unsynchronized metronomes, tipping over stands as the scores on them were completed. […]
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So you missed this double effort, you say? Contributor Mathieu Bélanger provides a full rundown from a remarkably distinct evening of music.
On June 3rd, the Quatuor Bozzini with special guest Malcolm Goldstein performed at La Sala Rossa as part of the 8th edition of the Suoni Per Il Popolo. The concert happened in two parts. The first part featured two compositions of Malcolm Goldstein. The evening began with A New Song of Many Faces for in These Times, a string quartet the Quatuor Bozzini commissioned in 2002. Goldstein himself then played his Hardscrabble Songs. The second part saw the Quatuor Bozzini perform the North-American premiere of Jean Derome and Joane Hétu’s Le Mensonge et l’identité.
Malcolm Goldstein’s musical practice could be described as two-folded. The first aspect of his work relates to improvised music, that is music where no decisions are taken in advance in order to leave the sound follows its own path. The second aspect would encompass composition and scored pieces. Yet, such a distinction would be too simple for it would overlook one crucial fact: composition and improvisation, as a sound production method, are indissociable in Goldstein’s pieces. Indeed, these are structured improvisations. Here, a structured improvisation would be best-described as a piece whose overall structure is fixed through a score and is hence composed, but whose actual sound material is up to the musician and produced through improvisation.
Based on the above considerations, A New Song of Many Faces for in These Times is genuine Goldstein. As stated in the program notes, this string quartet comprises four sections (I. a gently flowing song; II. a brutal song; III. an agitated song; IV. a song of inner vision) and a coda. The score specifies the global development of the piece in addition to the sound signature of each section, but the specific sounds are left for the musicians to decide within the prescribed frame. The sections suggest various melodic lines and, through their sound signature, show them in different colors in accordance with their respective titles. Pizzicato notes and strong attacks and bow pressure give its brutality to the second section while the extensive use of sustained tones, muted strings and harmonics give a contemplative color to the fourth one. The coda, which amounts to about a quarter of the 19-minute piece, is a long rendition of a melody to which other segments taken from Ives and Beethoven — according to the program notes again as one can’t really identified them — are incorporated.
As a composition, Hardscrabble Songs is a series of four songs, each evoking aspects of the history and politics of the United States since the 1940s. It is of course no coincidence that the covered time frame goes from Goldstein’s youth up to now. Moreover, the word “song” is appropriate since they feature extensive lyrics and melodies although most of them are fractured and deconstructed through Goldstein’s unique style. For example, the first and last songs respectively reference Frank Sinatra’s The House I Live In (That’s America to Me) as well as The Star Spangled Banner and Jimi Hendrix. Interestingly, this particular interpretation of the Hardscrabble Songs put forward the words as they were pronounced with greater clarity than in previous times. In conjunction with the large space that is La Sala Rossa, it contributed to make Hardscrabble Songs softer.
Le Mensonge et l’identité, a 60-minute composition for string quartet and tape by Jean Derome and Joane Hétu, was premiered last April as part of the Forum Neuer Musik in Köln and was a commission of the Quautuor Bozzini and the Deutschlandfunk (that’s a radio by the way). As mentioned above, the Suoni Per Il Popolo marked its North-American premiere.
Le Mensonge et l’identité clearly puts forward a reflection on the notion of identity. This reflection happens on two levels — the identity of the individuals and that of the entity — and participates both to the form of the piece and to its musical content.
On the formal side, the composition is in three parts, each representing a step in the unraveling of the string quartet. In the first part, the music is strictly notated and the quartet plays a single entity, that is according to its traditional conception. The second part marks a certain departure from this unity while the third part irremediably breaks the string quartet as an entity into four singular entities: two violinists, a violist and a cellist. At this point, the musicians are no longer performing a common score through individual parts. Actually, they are no longer playing a part, but are simply playing individually. Not only could they choose to go to one of the 20 or so lecterns placed on the floor, but each presented them with a score made up of general indications. An improvisational component thus entered the picture.
This unraveling reflects itself in the scenic organization. In the first part, the musicians played side by side, faithfully to the traditional configuration of a string quartet. In opposition, during the third part, the four individuals were moving around on the “scene” — which was the floor of La Sala Rossa for the occasion — carrying lecterns from one point to the other, sometimes turning their back to the audience, etc.
On the content side, the individuality of the musicians is emphasized. On the tape, each introduced himself, both as a person and as a member of the Quatuor Bozzini. This statement included biographical information such a name, date and place of birth, civil status, ownership of domestic animals — Nadia Francavilla has two cats for example — reasons for playing in a string quartet, administrative role in the Quatuor Bozzini as a organism — Clemens Merkel is in charge of concerts abroad to mention but one —, etc. Moreover, each member used a different language: Italian for Isabelle Bozzini, French for Stéphanie Bozzini, German for Clemens Merkel and English for Nadia Francavilla.
Musically, the string work was on the soft and airy side. It actually was strangely reminiscent of Feldman’s later piece for strings in terms of touch and continuity, although without the perpetual permutation of patterns so typical of the late American composer. Strange because Derome and Hétu’s esthetics usually have little in common with Feldman’s, but nevertheless were pleasantly surprising. Speaking of Feldman, it is interesting to note that, at one point during the third part, violist Stéphanie Bozzini played for a few minutes a melody that was very reminiscent of the famous one that closes Rothko Chapel. On the other hand, the first part featured some quotes from the likes of physicist Hubert Reeves, comedian Brigitte Poupart and writer Madeleine Gagnon. Those inscribed themselves in an exploration of everyday nature quite prominent in Hétu’s work, and to a lesser extent in Derome’s, but proved to be less convincing in this particular composition for their effect withered quickly and their pertinence failed to establish itself.
According to the program notes, in Le Mensonge et l’identité, the string quartet, as an entity, is considered a microcosm of society. The exploration of identity that occupies the piece thus inherits a social dimension. Yet, the one question that is not addressed directly through the form and content of the piece, or at least the one that is not resolved explicitly, is that of the lie, of the “mensonge”. In the end, Le Mensonge et l’identité tends to suggest that the lie is the one we, as a society, have been building for ourselves and comforting ourselves in for the last 40 years by refusing to identify ourselves through society, that is by believing one’s identity can be independent of that of a more global ensemble to which we participate and which partly defines us…
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John Cage’s later string quartets — the String Quartet in Four Parts (1949-50), Thirty Pieces for String Quartet (1983) and Four (1989) — are not perhaps immediately accessible. They are exercises in sonic quality, manipulating time and space to make room for a soundscape that is at once strange and mesmerizing. Our perceptions, too, are manipulated; patterns repeat and slowly evolve, so that even the slightest bowstroke becomes familiar, and dissonances are played so tenderly we forget they’re supposed to sound harsh. Cage was a fearless experimenter, and his techniques skirt the boundaries of our tolerance. In Nearly Stationary, the third movement of the String Quartet in Four Parts, it’s the nearly that’s vital. The music isn’t static, but suspended — a hiatus from real time.
Which is why the Quatuor Bozzini’s immersive all-Cage program worked so well on Saturday evening. Hearing the three pieces in succession allowed us to transition into an altered mindset, where it’s impossible to be hurried or preoccupied. McGill’s Tanna Schulich Hall — an ideal room for this kind of concert — was near full, and the audience was breathtakingly silent. This was Cage lovingly played and received.
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Bien sûr, le Bozzini aurait pu marquer le centenaire d’Elliott Carter, toujours vivant, avec une intégrale de ses quatuors à cordes. Il a choisi l’agitateur John Cage (1912-1992) et ses trois opus spécifiquement destinés à cette formation.
Sauf erreur, une première à Montréal pour un compositeur qui nous a pourtant visités à quelques reprises. L’exploit — car c’en fut un — avait attiré 125 personnes samedi soir au nouveau et acoustiquement excellent Tanna-Schulich Hall de McGill.
Le programme se déroule dans l’ordre de composition des quatuors. Tout d’abord, de 1949-50 et donc d’un Cage assez jeune: String Quartet in four parts, le «parts» faisant référence au nombre de mouvements. Au total: 21 minutes de très petits accords secs et dissonants proclamant le refus absolu de toute émotion. Tout Cage est déjà là, avec les premiers balbutiements que d’autres s’approprieront plus tard et baptiseront «minimalisme». À la toute fin, la plume laisse échapper un début de mélodie. Qu’on se rassure: elle ne commettra plus jamais cette «erreur».
Suivent Thirty Pieces for string quartet, de 1983. Comme le demande Cage, les musiciens sont postés aux quatre coins de la salle. Certains auditeurs ont la chance d’avoir, par exemple, et ce fut mon cas, la violoncelliste à quelques pas. Pendant 30 minutes, les quatre coéquipiers se partagent — se lancent, en fait — une musique beaucoup plus complexe, assortie d’une multiplicité de signes concernant les accents et la dynamique.
Dans la salle flotte un nuage d’hypnose, que l’entracte allège à peine et qui provoque même plusieurs départs. On termine avec Four, de 1989. Encore 30 minutes où, cette fois, la stérilité atteint son comble. Libres de jouer leur musique ou celle du pupitre voisin, les musiciens donnent carrément l’impression qu’ils accordent doucement et longuement, et toujours plus doucement et toujours plus longuement, leurs instruments, produisant continuellement les mêmes petits sons autour des mêmes notes, sans avancer. En fait, les Bozzini pourraient faire exactement la même chose, sans partition.
Un gros mot vient évidemment à l’esprit: fumisterie. Pourtant, on ne s’est pas ennuyé un seul instant pendant ces quelque deux heures. Parce qu’à chaque instant, Cage crée quelque chose avec rien. Il ne répond à aucune de nos questions, mais il a le don d’en susciter beaucoup!
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The way the world looks today, maybe it’s not so strange that artists in all genres are responding by lifting forth the most clean sense of beauty. Evil does not let itself be fought with something equally crooked, with power or violence, when life itself is in danger. This is how I experience the singularly skilled and brave Canadian Quatuor Bozzini’s choice of expression free from all outward ornamentation to reach the musical core. Performing the first two of Boras native Lars Hallnas’ string quartets — of ten planned — they were very much at home. Not a vibrato during the whole evening, giving the abstract quality of the music an unusual effect.
In both quartets Hallnas seems to have extracted the most magic moments of vibrating stillness and through-lit harmony in the spirit of Schubert or Beethoven. However, he stores such moments — varying in length from short to very short and minimal — after each other, 24 movements in each quartet. The effect is surprising. After the first two or three glimpses of this exquisite beauty the listener adjusts. We quickly enter a state of meditative listening where timelessness, concentration and reflection are created. Typically enough, Hallnas calls himself a hopeless intellectual, with intuition limited to perhaps ten percent and abstract thinking making up the other ninety percent.
The musicians made a grand performance, although the first quartet perhaps had too soft and reticent character. With a somewhat more powerful performance, the second was given larger lines and deeper shadows, although never of the angst-ridden kind. It was more like sitting in the shadow of a huge oak tree, calmly reflecting on nature’s constantly changing details. The effect was in part minimalistic, but here beyond chance and seeking of effects. With his quartets, Hallnas takes his place among the most influential of contemporary composers.
The experiment to allow the same quartet to take on Schubert and Beethoven are among my most exciting musical experiences of all time. As a whole, Schubert was the most successful. To meet what this 17-year old produced of beauty and richness in nuance was like seeing the eighth wonder of the world. Beethoven’s late a minor quartet didn’t have the same overwhelming effect in the first two movements, but in Heiliger Dankgesang and thereafter to the end, the fantastical sounds became larger and braver, more beautiful than perhaps anything I have heard. The people of Boras have had the chance to hear one of the most meaningful and finally most successful art-esthetical experiments we know of. Imagine, this was the first time that Bozzini took on this Beethoven quartet.
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The Bozzini played two contemporary pieces that exploit extended techniques and raw sonorities, many of them percussive and harsh. They also played a piece by Brahms that sounded, at first, to have the same raw quality as the earlier pieces, but seemed out of place and unpleasant here. Gradually, it dawned, that the Bozzini touch, so raw, made the Brahms sound fresh and new and gave much pleasure.
Claude Vivier’s Pulau Dewata is a Balinese inspired ‘single line’ score that does not specify any musical instruments. Since its birth in the late ‘70’s this piece has been arranged for saxophone quartet, solo percussionist and chamber orchestra. Tonight’s performance was arranged for the Quattuor in 2002 by composer Michael Oesterle and has been recorded by them.
On hearing the first few minutes of Vivier/Oesterle’s repetitive, percussive, staccato short phrases, one could easily imagine the sound of it in winds or brass or percussion—an altogether pleasant and interesting effect. There is very little in the way of melody until the very end. The musicality of Pulau Dewata relies on alternation and combination of thinly orchestrated queer pitches and timbres, changes in rhythms and dynamics.
The music is stark, repeatedly focuses the attention and relaxes it into a pregnant calm. The Quattuor Bozzini convey the authority of their understanding of the music and their enthusiasm for it.
Thomas Steigler’s Namenlose Garten [String Quartet No. 3], (2003)” is a 20 minute piece, commissioned by the Bozzini and recently recorded by them. The writing is based on eighth, quarter, and semi-tones, which allows some very smooth, glossy textures that are attractive. Even the passages of silent and almost silent bowing give the illusion of a mirrored surface. Many of the sonorities are onomatopoeic, often resembling whale sounds, and lugubrious, electronic, guttural, digestive tract sounds, sounds from the margin of the musical palette. Based on a portfolio of garden drawings, Steigler’s sonic environments are intriguing.
The themes that open Brahms’s third and last string quartet are happy, scherzo-like and polka in rhythmic interplay, and one could not quite connect with the Bozzini’s account which seem to carry over much of the high contrast, stark, not to say ‘harsh’ tones of the previous experimental pieces. However, the second movement, which is lush, slow and improvisatory, seemed to come out as a refreshing blend of Brahms and Bozzini. Passages bore their signature glassiness; disjointed timing and harsh timbres in other passages seemed to bring out new and attractive textures in Brahms’s music.
Clemens Merkel, a deft player, intrigued by getting fluty sounds out of his first violin during the third movement, in which the voice of Stéphanie Bozzini’s viola, moody and passionate, also distinguished itself. The theme and eight variations of the finale showed the Bozzini at their best. Though the main thrust of this group seems to be in New Music (they have recorded Steve Reich, Jurg Frey, Jo Kondo, Howard Skempton) I would welcome another chance to hear the sound they make playing great music of the past.
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James Tenney (1934-2006) had a long history at California Institute of the Arts, known to many simply as CalArts. He taught there before he moved to Toronto in 1976, and he was invited to return in 2000 to take the Roy E Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition. His landmark series of ten Postal Pieces was composed there between 1964 and 1971, though most were written during two-weeks in 1971. These sometimes-long pieces, each scored on one side of a post card, bring attention to aspects of form, acoustics, and performance gesture. On the first night of the festival, nine Postal Pieces were played simultaneously in stairwells, corners of hallways, practice rooms, and other locations throughout the CalArts building, while listeners moved freely from one piece to another. At each site, one could hear no interference from the other performances, but while wandering in search of locations one often heard echoes of distant music, which filled the building with the resonance of Tenney’s music. The building came alive with sound as the many musicians and listeners circulated through it. Harold Budd, for whom (night) was written, played this intimate work for solo piano in a darkened room, while James Fulkerson, who produced the New World Records CD of Postal Pieces, played For Percussion, Perhaps Or… (night) on solo trombone with live electronics.
Events throughout the festival combined a sense of warmth and affection with the highest standards of musical performance. All events were free to the public, and all performers and organizers donated their time. The festival carried an entire community into dynamic connection with Tenney’s music and with one another. We heard the world premieres of two Tenney pieces, Arbor Vitae for string quartet, and Last Spring in Toronto for gamelan and small orchestra. Arbor Vitae is Tenney’s last composition, commissioned by Montréal’s Quatuor Bozzini, who played it with intense musicality and immense sensitivity. It was completed shortly before Tenney died, with assistance from composer Michael Winter, who studied with Tenney at CalArts a few years ago. The composition brings Tenney’s concept of harmonic space to new heights, incorporating pitches based on such complex numerical ratios that the players have to rely on frequency counters while performing. The piece successfully combines timbre and harmony for the listener, and demonstrates the validity of Tenney’s theory of harmonic space in what seems, paradoxically, to be a pitch-free context. The piece begins with high overtones playing unidentifiable harmonies, in a wash of sound that presents an acoustic unity that would be impossible if random pitches were used. As the piece progresses, lower pitches emerge, but the overall sensation that we are listening to sound, in the physical sense, and scintillatingly beautiful sound, renders irrelevant any concern with the usual musical identifiers. Tenney’s last piece is thus conceptually similar to his Postal Pieces. Arbor Vitae is notated in careful detail, yet the emphasis remains on sound as experience, as simple form, as something a listener can become immersed within—something that frees the aural imagination.
Last Spring in Toronto brought the CalArts gamelan into the foreground, with a small orchestra behind it, in a pointillistic exploration of register change and the impact of changing pitch ranges on the combined timbres of the instruments. The piece has much in common with Tenney’s early computer music pieces, composed at Bell Labs, which present sounds organized into large-scale formal shapes using computer-controlled operations that take place at progressively smaller scales. A listener is free to focus on the musical events taking place at any of these levels and to shift attention from one to another. This is a rather permissive way of listening, and Tenney structured the piece in such a way that he avoided telling us what to listen for, or what to pay attention to, again freeing the aural imagination from preconceptions.
The three days of the festival were filled with amazing performances of wonderful music. All the films that Tenney did music for were presented. Critical Band, a piece that clearly defines Tenney’s concept of harmonic space, was played by an ensemble of almost forty musicians. The performance of In a Large Open Space again brought the building into a state of resonance, played with such quiet focus that it drew attention to the impending silence of Tenney’s absence.
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With an audience twice as big as normally come to these concerts, Quatuor Bozzini (who make a virtue of performing almost completely without vibrato and with extremely clean intonation) gave another of their dream performances last Wednesday evening. First a fine show of new world minimalism, thereafter examples of the old world’s more melancholic moods in three such fine versions that it bordered on the sublime.
Three quartets by Alvin Lucier made use of microscopic changes in pitch, in the piece Navigations, down to a thousandths of a half tone. Obviously this is impossible to hear, but is still perceived as beatings in the slowing tempo and dynamic — almost the same feeling as when the smallest sounds become more present in thick fog.
Even more extreme dynamic variations down to the barely audible were presented in the next piece, a thoroughly exquisite quartet by minimalist legend Terry Jennings.
Could anything be cleaner, deeper, more precious? Well yes, old Europe won the game, at the same time of course as the Bozzini’s brought forth maximum closeness and stringence.
Jeney’s Ricercare captures the whole spectrum, from Gregorian chant to bitter contemporarity.
Of Allgen, a first performance of his whole notes movement from the gigantic Quartet No 3 composed in 1943 — a chorale of eternity performed as though on an organ, a deeply touching simplicity, even more elevated translated to four strings.
And still, as usual Aldo Clementi was the one to finally open up the heavenly gates with his masterwork Momento.
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The chamber music society’s contacts with Rikskonserter gives interesting possibilities for unusual performances, as in last Monday when Canadian Quatuor Bozzini perfomed in Alfven-salen. The name of the group is taken from the last names of the musicians in the two lower voices, violist Stephanie and cellist Isabelle. The two violinists are Nadia Francavilla and Clemens Merkels, who took turns playing the first violin part.
Among Canadian composers Claude Vivier holds a prominent place and the quartet had chosen to begin its concert with Pulau Dewata, inspired by native Balinese music. The title translates as “The Island of the Gods”, and it was quite possible to imagine how it could sound on the island, even though the instrumentation would most likely be completely different. Changing rhythms, accents, viola and cello in octaves with violins as birdsong, and finally a traditional signature which the composer, according to the program, wished to present to the people of Bali. We happily accept the offer of such a fine example of Canadian art music.
The next piece, an unfinished string quartet by Franz Schubert, was a huge contrast to the first. It has been touted as a precursor to later masterworks, and shows clear indication of the melodic charm which we recognize from the music of Schubert. Nadia, playing first violin in this work, was maybe unnecessarily discreet in her role.
The ensemble playing continued to be excellent.
Last year the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dmitri Schostakovitch was celebrated all over the musical world. That the year has come and gone does of course not mean that his works won’t be performed any more. The quartet had chosen his 11th string quartet, in f minor — a seven movement work which provided ample opportunities for impressive ensemble playing and exciting sonorities. The composer switches between elegiac moments and rather merry ones, all performed in changing constellations, keeping the listener engaged in the music.
Finally yet another of the masterworks of the quartet repertoire, Johannes Brahms’ Quartet in B Flat Major opus 67, written in 1875. Despite the fact that the year had seen much music of newer styles, Brahms stays in an almost classical expression. Here is the romantic side, the melodic as in the second movement’s hymnal character, or the carnival mood of the third movement. In this movement the quartet succeeded remarkably well in bringing out the transparency of sound and to let the melodic material move freely between the four voices. The variations in the final movement included a beautiful section with the two violins playing legato against the lower string pizzicatos, all leading towards a powerful ending. Warm applause will follow the musicians on their eight concerts tour.
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[Traduction] […] Luckily, in the rest of the [Festival] program, aside from some pieces which were merely well-crafted and were more appropriate compulsory "New Music" exercises for a subscription-series concert than for a new music festival, there were also some overwhelming moments. One of them was the string quartet Gradients of Detail by the Berlin-based Canadian Chiyoko Szlavnics, performed by the outstanding Bozzini Quartet from Quebec, who successfully realised the rather simple glissando-processes as free flowing moments musicaux, which are not apparent when referring to the conceptual idea, but which have been intensively developed from graphically-notated progressions by the composer. A twenty-minute enigma for the ears, one which never allowed our attention to slacken.
[…] Zum Glück gab es im restlichen Programm neben einigen bloß handwerklich ganz gut gemachten Stücken, die vielleicht in die Pflicht der Abonnementskonzerte, nicht aber in eine Neue-Musik-Messe gehörten, auch große Momente. Einer davon war das Streichquartett Gradients of Detail der Berliner Kanadierin Chiyoko Szlavnics, aus dessen eigentlich simplen Glissandoverläufen das überragende Bozzini-Quartett aus Quebec Momente losgelösten Musizierens schlug, die sich aus dem Konzept nicht erklären ließen, die von der Komponistin allerdings intensiv — aus ursprünglich graphisch notierten Verläufen — erarbeitet worden waren. Ein 20-minütiges Rätsel für das Ohr, das die Aufmerksamkeit nie erlahmen ließ.
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Impossible de ne pas le remarquer: le Quatuor Bozzini faisait mardi soir salle presque comble — lire quelque 300 personnes — dans ce même vénérable Redpath Hall de McGill où notre autre «quatuor moderne en i», le Molinari, en attire habituellement 100. Et il a attiré cet auditoire en dépit des conditions atmosphériques et, qui plus est, avec un programme entièrement local.
Il est vrai que le concert faisait partie de la saison de la SMCQ et comportait une création de Walter Boudreau, le pittoresque directeur de l’organisme. Le milieu du contemporain y était bien représenté, notamment par plusieurs collègues de Boudreau et des deux autres compositeurs au programme, Denys Bouliane (partenaire de W. B. dans maintes entreprises) et Jean Lesage.
Le quatuor de Boudreau créé mardi soir devait l’être, à l’origine, par le Molinari, mais les circonstances ont voulu qu’il passe éventuellement au Bozzini. Autre rapprochement entre les deux ensembles: mardi soir, on avait placé le Bozzini le long d’un mur latéral et les sièges (d’ailleurs tout neufs) en demi-cercle autour. On y voyait mieux les musiciens; surtout, on entendait mieux. Musica Camerata suit aussi cette formule. Le Molinari devrait y venir à son tour.
On peut ignorer le titre donné par Boudreau à son quatuor. Ce qui compte, c’est ce qu’on entend: de lointains échos de Victoria (Tomas Luis, bien sûr!) savamment imbriqués dans le tissu musical et créant avec celui-ci des contrastes très forts et très poétiques. Il y a là pour 28 minutes de plans sonores différents et d’agrégats dont certains sont absolument nouveaux en langage de quatuor à cordes. Une immense réussite, à réentendre. Le troisième Quatuor de Jean Lesage, également en création, et une reprise de Denys Bouliane complétaient le programme et reçurent, comme le Boudreau, des exécutions absolument magistrales de la part du Bozzini. De riches dissonances chez Lesage, des bruissements extrêmement raffinés chez Bouliane, mais il n’y a ni chez l’un, ni chez l’autre, l’originalité de Boudreau. Mardi soir, en tout cas.
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Ce concert de la SMCQ mettait en valeur des créateurs québécois confirmés. Au-delà de la simple juxtaposition, la première partie, consacrée à Boudreau et Lesage, donnait l’occasion d’entendre deux compositions reposant sur la transformation d’un matériau préexistant, respectivement le motet à quatre voix Tradiderunt Me In Manus Impiorum («Ils m’ont livré aux mains des impies») de Victoria et un fragment de la 5e Symphonie de Schubert.
Le Grand Méridien s’inscrit dans un cycle comportant notamment Le Voyage et Golgotha, partitions qui s’inspirent également du motet de Victoria. À l’épreuve du quatuor à cordes, Boudreau élague la profusion quasi anarchique qui gangrenait Golgotha. Les récurrences fragmentaires du motet de Victoria sont plus fréquentes, plus lipides, comme un moyen de se ressourcer dans le tumulte. À l’image du compositeur, Le Grand Méridien est une partition viscérale. Mais il y a beaucoup plus ici, notamment dans le jeu sur la métallisation du son par un incessant balancier entre le «sul ponticello» (sonorités métalliques et grinçantes) et le jeu normal, dualité à laquelle se superposent la circulation des fragments entre les instruments et les écarts dynamiques très creusés. La dernière section, qui débute par l’indication «grave» et débouche sur un solo de violoncelle, instrument qui, in fine, portera la citation complète du motet, est remarquable d’efficacité et de raffinement dans les couleurs.
Je n’ai pas trouvé cette finesse d’esprit, cette matière et cette subtilité chez Jean Lesage. Le compositeur part d’une citation textuelle qu’il désintègre progressivement. L’oeuvre repose de manière redondante sur des processus de fragmentation de cellules de plus en plus divisées. Mais le traitement sonore et linguistique du quatuor à cordes par Jean Lesage me paraît bien moins imaginatif.
Denys Bouliane, par contre, a apprivoisé ce médium, l’interaction entre les instruments et les sonorités que l’on peut en tirer. Quoiqu’on pense de ces divers tableaux, moins organiques en apparence, Bouliane a subtilement traité le sujet. Dans son commentaire de la création de l’oeuvre (2003), François Tousignant avouait avoir découvert un Bouliane «totalement profond». Dans sa manière de scruter le son, assurément.
Ces compositeurs ont une chance extrême de pouvoir compter sur un quatuor aussi impliqué, sûr et imaginatif que le Quatuor Bozzini, qui évolue au top-niveau international en la matière.
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Il y a longtemps que l’on attendait un disque du Quatuor Bozzini et c’est avec sa propre collection (distribuée par DAME) que l’ensemble se lance enfin pour nous offrir ces premiers extraits de son répertoire. On y entend la trèss surréaliste Daydream Mechanics V de Michael Osterle, qui signe aussi un très bel arrangement de Palau Dewata de Claude Vivier, et des pièces de Jean Lesage et Malcolm Goldstein. Une collection qui nous réserve bien des surprises.
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Le premier marque les cinq ans du groupe; le second est tout juste né. Portrait Montréal, premier disque attendu du Quatuor Bozzini voué au répertoire contemporain, paru récemment chez DAME (voir critique dans nos pages), est sans conteste une excellente carte de visite pour le groupe et une vitrine sur quatre créateurs d’ici. L’autre, il s’appelle Félix, nous dit la mère, Isabelle Bozzini, et naquit le lendemain de l’entrevue, comme un cadeau de Noël avant l’heure.
Les bonnes choses n’arrivent donc jamais seules peut-on dire pour le Quatuor Bozzini qui a atteint l’âge tendre de 5 ans, seuil parfois critique pour les petites entreprises. «Au départ, on s’est demandé s’il y avait de la place pour um autre quatuar à cordes en musique contemporaine à Montréal, précise Isabelle Bozzini. Mais le Molinari et le Bozzini ne font pas tout à fait la même chose et à l’image des nombreux ensemblés baroques à Montréal, on se démarque en abordant les zones moins fréquentées.» D’ailleurs, la reconnaissance du milieu est venue deux ans après la création officielle du groupe lorsqu’il a été nommé Découverte de l’année aux prix Opos 2001. Mais a fond, les prix, qucssa’donne ?
«Évidemnment, le prix en argent donne toujours un sérieux coup de main à un groupe qui démarre dans le milieu, et ça paraît toujours bien dams une biographie, répond Isabelle. Mais on est davantage reconnu par le répertoire qu’on choisit et la façon de le présenter. Affirmer notre personnalité, c’est ça qui paye vraiment en bout de ligne.» Le Bozzini n’a pas attendu les prix et les éloges. Il a foncé droit devant dans un parcours marqué par le travail, la découverte et surtout, le souci de faire connaître les compositeurs canadiens (dont Rea, Bouliane, Godin, Rizutto) et nord-américains (dont Ives, Crumb, Reich), ici et à l’étranger. Pas une année depuis ne s’est déroulée sans qu’ils interprètent leur répertoire dans des festivals importants notamment en Allemagne, en Angleterre (Huddersfield Conternporary Music Festival), à Dublin (Crash Festival) ou au June in Buffalo. Le seul fait d’être réinvité dans ces pays confirme une certaine reconnaissance, et les critiques lues dans leur dossier de presse sont éloquentes à ce titre.
Un premier disque
Et le contenu de Portrait Montréal? «Mis à part l’oeuvre de feu Claude Vivier (Pulau Dewata), on a voulu souligner le travail de nos collaborateurs réguliers, dont Malcolm Goldstein (A New Song of Many Paces for in These Times) aujourd’hui établi au Québec, Michael Oesterle (Daydream Mechames V), et Jean Lesage (Quatuor à cordes II), précise Isabelle. D’ailleurs c’est expressément pour nous que Jean Lesage a écrit ses deux premiers quatuor à cordes, et il a le projet d’en écrire quatre.» Marqué par l’éclectisme, Portrait Montréal distille des atmosphères sonores étonnantes dans une facture relativement accessible pour le néophyte. Un plus pour cette musique qui est loin de rallier les grandes masses. «Si l’auditeur écoute le disque dans son salon, devient curieux et réfléchit à ce qu’il entend, il mettra peut-être le pied dehors pour venir nous écouter en concert. Ce sera déjà un grand pas.»
Le Quatuor Bozzini a connu deux changements d’effectifs. «On a maintenant trouvé la formation définitive tant au plan de l’expérience que dé l’intérêt pour la musique contemporaine», précise Isabelle. Depuis plus de deux ans, la violoniste Nadia Francavilla s’est jointe à Clemens Merkel, violon, Stéphanie et Isabelle Bozzini, respectivement altiste et violoncelliste. C’est avec cette nouvelle formation que le Bozzini a entrepris de résider jusqu’en 2005) au Théâtre La Chapelle. «Ce laboratoire nous a permis d’explorer d’autres approches, de provoquer des rencontres avec les autres arts de la scène comme la danse, de sortir du modèle du concert classique, et de jouer pour un autre type de public, ce qui n’est pas négligeable.»
À venir pour le groupe, d’abord une pause de quelques mois, maternité oblige, et retour aux instruments pour préparer les concerts de la deuxième moitié de la saison. Sur disque, dans leur série «qb», plusieurs projets mijotent mais un programme centré autour des quatuors du compositeur suisse Juerg Frey est déjà enregistré et paraîtra au printemps 2005.
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Le Théâtre La Chapelle (TLC), à Montréal, est un lieu particulier où se sont déroulé, depuis 15 ans, de nombreux grands moments de musique nouvelle («actuelle» ou «contemporaine»). Son directeur artistique, Richard Simas, invitait en 2003 le Quatuor Bozzini pour une résidence de deux ans; «Nous voulions, écrit-il dans le programme du prochain concert du Quatuor, établir un dialogue entre notre lieu de création-diffusion et ce brillant ensemble de cordes. Nous croyions pouvoir offrir des perspectives et des possibilités dans le but de participer à une étape de leur évolution. Nous voulions aussi simplement pouvoir entendre le son de leurs cordes et leurs voix chez nous, en répétition, en discussion, en recherche, en travail technique, en spectacle, en lecture de nouvelles pièces.»
Le Quatuor produisait l’automne dernier un grand événement autour du collectif allemand Wandelweiser en invitant aussi le compositeur Christian Wolff et l’ensemble américain Augenmusick. Cette fois-ci, tout juste de retour d’une série de concerts en Suède et en Allemagne, les membre du Bozzini nous présentent un programme moins éclaté, mais qui ne manque pas d’ambition.
La violoncelliste Isabelle Bozzini explique: «Nous avons choisi ces deux pièces de compositeurs américains pour leurs thèmes: celle de George Crumb, Black Angels-Thirtteen Images from the Dark Land (1970), pour sa référence à la guerre du Vietnam, et celle de Steve Reich, Different Trains (l980), pour son évocation de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Le concert porte le titre In tempore belli (En temps de guerre), et propose donc un parallèle entre les situations évoquées par les compositeurs et celle que nous vivons ces dernières années.» L’altiste Stéphanie Bozzini précise: «Outre leur programme, les œuvres ont aussi en commun le recours à l’amplificadon, celle de Crumb étant pour quatuor électrique et celle de Reich pour quatuor et bande; nous trouvions donc que les deux pièces allaient trés bien ensemble.»
L’œuvre de Reich a ceci de particulier que le quatuor joue en étant accompagné par un enregistrement de trois quatuors à cordes. Depuis la création de l’œuvre, l’enregistrement qu’utilisent tous les quatuors qui l’interprètent est celui réalisé par le Kronos Quartet pour la création. «Nous avons décidé de faire nos propres enregistrements, explique le violoniste Clemens Merkel. En utilisant le CD stéréo du Kronos Quartet, on doit ajuster notre jeu au leur et il n’y a pas de place pour une interprétation différente. Nous sommes le premier quatuor à réenregistrer les pistes d’accompagnement (16 heures de studio pour 27 minutes). Le son est donc différent (c’est le nôtre!), le mix aussi, et ça nous permettra éventuellement de faire paraître une version surround. Steve Reich en était trés heureux et il a hâte d’écouter le résultat.»
Le quatuor lancera aussi ce soir-là son premier disque: «Nous avons notre propre collection, "QB", dans le catalogue de la compagnie de distribution DAME, explique Isabelle Bozzini. La violoniste Nadia Francavilla précise:«i1 s’agit d’œuvres de Jean Lesage (Quatuor no 2), Michael Oesterle (Daydream Mechanics V), Claude Vivier (Pulau Dewata, arr. Oesterle) et Malcolm Goldstein (A New Song of Many Faces for In These Times), réunies sous le titre Portrait Montréal.»
Au printemps, le Quatuor poursuivra sa collabaration avec le TLC par un grand projet, un Marathon canadien, sur lequel nous reviendrons.
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Les Concerts M, très actifs ces temps-ci, offrent en mars un événement-échange très stimulant avec des musiciens d’Irlande. Les concerts Voyages Dublin-Montréal seront présentés du 12 au 16 mars à la salle Oscar Peterson de l’Université Concordia. Au programme, il y aura quatre concerts (dont un électroacoustique, en collaboration avec Réseaux), une vingtaine de compositeurs, plus de 25 oeuvres, dont une dizaine de créations et plusieurs premières montréalaises, 6 conférences… Le 13, le Quatuor Bozzini interprétera des pièces des Montréalais Scott Godin, Jean-Franç ois Laporte et Jean Lesage et des Dublinois Gerald Barry, Raymond Deane et Barbara Ellison; le 14, le concert électro nous fera à son tour voyager entre les deux villes, avec des oeuvres des Montréalais Robert Normandeau et René Lussier (sa Chronique irlandaise) et des Irlandais Roger Doyle et Conor Curran. L’Ensemble Crash, de Dublin, rendra la pareille au Quatuor Bozzini en jouant les Montréalais Michel Frigon, Michel Gonneville et Marie Pelletier avec, également, des oeuvres de compositeurs dublinois. Cette semaine d’activités se terminera par un concert conjoint de l’Ensemble Bradyworks (l’autre entité des Concerts M, avec le Quatuor Bozzini) et Vox 21 (de Dublin), où l’on entendra des pièces de Frédéric Roverselli, Ana Sokolović, Tim Brady et Ben Dwyer. Les liens qui unissent les deux villes sont de plusieurs ordres, que l’on pense à la situation politique, économique, aux problèmes d’identité culturelle et à la présence de compositeurs pionniers. Ce programme d’échanges institué par les Concerts M se poursuivra donc et amènera nos musiciens en Irlande à l’automne 2003, pour la reprise de l’événement. On ne peut qu’applaudir l’initiative de cette société de concerts qui donne un nouveau souffle au milieu de la musique contemporaine par son énergie, par l’audace de ses projets et par son ouverture à des répertoires variés.
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Faisant peu à peu son chemin, le quatuor à cordes Bozzini peut se féliciter d’une année bien remplie. En effet, c’est à l’automne de l’an 2000 que cette jeune formation fit sa première percée en s’associant avec le guitariste compositeur Tim Brady, le chevronné directeur de l’Ensemble Bradyworks et l’organisateur des Concerts M. Fort de sa première saison, ce quatuor semble désormais sur sa lancée, comme le confirme sa feuille de route des derniers mois: première tournée européenne en Allemagne et en Suisse (fin d’avril, début de mai), résidence au Festival June in Buffalo, concert estival à Montréal en août, «L’Odyssée du quatuor à cordes»(un ambitieux programme de trois concerts en une soirée au Théâtre de la Chapelle le 15 septembre dernier), trois prestations à New York, au Kitchen et au American Festival of Microtonal Music, dans la dernière quinzaine du mois, bref, de quoi susciter l’envie de plus d’un ensemble de musique de chambre.
Fondée en 1998 par les soeurs Bozzini (Stéphanie à l’alto et Isabelle au violoncelle), cette formation montréalaise mise principalement sur le répertoire contemporain, donc de compositeurs de notre temps, comme le souligne la violoncelliste, mais cela ne l’empêche pas pour autant d’inscrire des pages de Haydn, de Mozart ou de Chostakovitch dans ses programmes de concert. Comme deux et deux font quatre, l’ensemble compte aussi sur deux violonistes expérimentés, soit Clemens Merkel (un virtuose spécialiste en musiques contemporaines, qui a quitté son Allemagne natale pour s’établir au Québec) et Geneviève Beaudry (une interprète d’expérience qui a trempé dans tous les répertoires, tant ancien, baroque que contemporain).
«Le quatuor est l’aboutissement de notre expérience commune», explique Isabelle, à peine de retour d’un second séjour européen qui lui a permis de jouer en duo, avec son conjoint Clemens, dans le prestigieux festival Ultima à Oslo.» En fait, c’est au moment de poursuivre mes études à l’Université de Montréal que j’ai formé un premier groupe avec ma soeur, le Quatuor Euterpe, et celui-ci nous a permis d’explorer un large éventail de musiques, tant “classiques” que “contemporaines”.» De Ives à Feldman, voire de Webern à Nono, l’actuel quatuor dispose d’un solide répertoire de référence, mais ce sont aussi les créations de nouvelles oeuvres qui lui donnent son cachet. Plus que jamais, cette belle équipe poursuit son travail d’approfondissement des musiques de notre temps en exécutant un nombre accru d’oeuvres québécoises et canadiennes, dont des créations récentes de pièces commandées à Jean Lesage, à Justin Marriner et à Michael Oesterle. Par-delà les titres qui composent son répertoire, cet ensemble cherche toujours à faire reculer ses frontières et sa récente Odyssée du mois de septembre lui a d’ailleurs donné l’occasion de présenter des programmes complets de musique microtonale et «électrique».
En dépit du rythme croissant des activités du quatuor, il n’en demeure pas moins que la partie est loin d’être gagnée. «Nous sommes des musiciens pigistes après tout», renchérit Stéphanie, la soeur cadette, «car on doit encore faire toutes sortes de musiques, qu’elles soient baroques, classiques ou simplement alimentaires. Cependant, j’ai eu de la chance, parce que j’ai pu travailler dans plusieurs ensembles européens lors de mon stage d’études de deux ans à la Musikhochschule de Zurich.» Outre des cours particuliers qu’elle donne à l’Université Concordia, Isabelle est, elle aussi, active sur plusieurs fronts, notamment au sein des ensembles Arion et Kore.
Comme tout nouveau venu qui cherche à se tailler une place au soleil, le quatuor place l’enregistrement au coeur de ses préoccupations. À ce chapitre, les nouvelles semblent prometteuses, car deux projets sérieux sont sur la table en ce moment. «À la suite de notre tournée européenne du printemps, précise la violoncelliste, nous avons eu une réaction favorable de la part de la maison Wandelweiser en Suisse, et elle se dit bien intéressée par nous, mais rien n’est encore arrêté en ce moment.» Désireux de diffuser la musique de chez nous, le quatuor compte aussi graver un autre disque vers la fin de l’été 2002, quoique les recherches se poursuivent toujours pour trouver du soutien.
Bien lancé dans sa deuxième saison des Concerts M, le quatuor ne ralentira en rien ses activités durant les prochains mois et on pourra d’ailleurs l’entendre à cinq reprises d’ici mai. Parmi les rendez-vous prévus, le plus ambitieux de tous sera celui du 12 au 16 mars, lorsque le Quatuor Bozzini et l’Ensemble Bradyworks se diviseront les honneurs d’un événement conjoint (Voyage Dublin [Montréal] avec deux formations irlandaises, le Crash Ensemble et Vox 21. D’ici là, on pourra voir le quatuor dès le 11 novembre prochain, à 20 h, dans la salle de récital des Jeunesses Musicales du Canada (305, avenue Mont-Royal, 845-4108). Fidèle à sa vocation de présenter la contemporanéité musicale selon ses époques, le quatuor interprétera une oeuvre de Malcolm Goldstein, en plus d’une de Sciarrino et d’une de Webern.
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