THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 4, 1995 TAG: 9504040313
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: MUSIC REVIEW
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, MUSIC CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Music can be motionless, painfully high and searingly dissonant - and still be beautiful. The Norfolk Chamber Consort concluded its season Monday with a program including just such a piece, Tokuhide Niimi's ``Kazane: winds from the east.''
``Kazane,'' a 1989 work for clarinet, violin and cello, was the high point of an all-Japanese concert at Old Dominion University curated by clarinetist and Consort co-director F. Gerard Errante. The program's volume ranged from the quiet of ``Kazane'' and a flute and guitar piece by Toru Takemitsu to the rumble of a percussion ensemble. It was the kind of evening in which the Consort offers its most valuable service to Hampton Roads - illuminating lesser-known areas of classical music.
In his tireless labors for the cause of new music, Errante has traveled to Japan to assist composers at integrating electronics with the clarinet. But ``Kazane'' was unplugged and almost completely lacking in melody, rhythm and functional harmony. Niimi made the piece from keening high notes and cracks-between-the-keys dissonances, yet his writing was sensitive to texture and mood.
Errante also reprised a piece he had a part in creating. Keiko Fujiie completed ``The Blue Turban'' for clarinet and electronics while visiting Norfolk to work with Errante. It is a mercurial piece that displays its young composer's vivid sense of texture.
A synthesizer enables the performer to produce massive chords and multitudinous echoes.
But the piece also requires the performer to spend most of his time stepping on foot pedals to operate the electronics.
This is distracting to the audience and serves to telegraph every change of timbre.
Akira Nishimura was represented by ``Kecak'' and ``Tala,'' two drummy works for percussion ensemble.
``Kecak'' is an example of a piece being less interesting than the item that inspired it: the Balinese ``monkey chant,'' an outdoor drama. Seeing Virginia Symphony members slap congas and chant ``chak chak chak'' was entertaining, but the piece didn't go anywhere. ``Tala'' evoked the ring of the Balinese percussion orchestra but it, too, ended up at the conga drums.
The concert opened with the gentle, impressionistic ``Toward the Sea'' for alto flute and guitar by Takemitsu, the dean of Japanese composers.
Though Errante and guitarist Timothy Olbrych talked to the audience, they did not touch on the significance of ``Kecak,'' ``The Blue Turban'' (the title comes from Nostradamus) or why Takemitsu wrote a piece with a movement called ``Cape Cod.'' ILLUSTRATION: MUSIC REVIEW
The Norfolk Chamber Consort Monday at Old Dominion University. For
information about the group, call 440-1803 or 622-4542.
by CNB