Varèse Huber Nieder @ Teatro Dal Verme, MITO, Milan, Sept. 18, 2024

Contemporary classical music has witnessed a significant increase in the use of percussion since the early 20th century. This trend, influenced by various cultural encounters and avant-garde composers, has reshaped the sonic landscape of classical compositions. A recent concert by the Percussion Orchestra Cologne at Milan's Teatro Dal Verme on September 18, 2024, showcased this evolution, presenting works spanning nearly a century of musical innovation. 

The integration of diverse percussion instruments in classical music can be traced back to cultural exchanges such as the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition. Here, Claude Debussy's encounter with the Javanese Gamelan profoundly influenced his compositional approach, introducing new timbres and rhythmic complexities to Western classical music. 

Concurrently, traditional instruments like the piano saw a radical reimagining of their role. Edgard Varèse's "Ionisation" (1929-1931) exemplifies this shift, employing the piano in a percussive manner with cluster notes played directly with the forearm. This groundbreaking work for 13 percussionists incorporates a vast array of instruments from various cultures, including sirens, gongs, and log drums, expanding the timbral palette available to composers. 

The Percussion Orchestra Cologne's rendition of "Ionisation" offered a contemporary interpretation of Varèse's seminal work. While slightly more "swinging" than traditional performances—perhaps a nod to Milan's reputation as the "City of Aperitif"—the execution maintained a commendable balance between elasticity and structural integrity. 

This "smart" version, while sacrificing some of the original's dramatic impact, showcased the musicians' remarkable skill in navigating the piece's complex layers. True to Varèse's concept of sounds detaching from one another like parts of an ionized atom, the performance demonstrated that "Ionisation" remains a pivotal work in the percussion repertoire, its influence evident in many subsequent compositions. 

The concert also featured two more recent works, illustrating both the enduring influence of mid-20th century innovations and attempts at further experimentation: "Herbstfestival" (1989) by Nicolaus Anton Huber played by Schlagquartett Köln for four percussionists initially evoked the explorative spirit of groups like the Art Ensemble of Chicago. However, it soon transitioned into a prolonged unison section that, while technically impressive, raised questions about its musical necessity. 

"Erdenmarsch" (2022) by Fabio Nieder, a student of Witold Lutosławski, that presented a 30-minute work for 13 percussionists. The piece incorporated a wide range of instruments and unconventional sound sources, including live-streamed radio content via iPhone. While dynamically engaging, the work's harmonic palette felt limited. Notable elements included a centrally placed large drum and theatrical interactions between musicians, though these at times seemed superfluous. 

The concert underscored the enduring impact of early 20th-century innovations in percussion music. While the performances of more recent works demonstrated technical proficiency, they also highlighted challenges in pushing the boundaries established by earlier masters. The virtuosity of the Percussion Orchestra Cologne was evident throughout, elevating even the less cohesive compositions. 

This evening of percussion-focused contemporary classical music, spanning over 80 years of compositional history, offered a compelling, if sometimes uneven, journey through the genre's evolution. It reaffirmed the pioneering spirit of early modernist composers while raising questions about the direction of contemporary classical music in the 21st century.

Olivier Messiaen “Quartet for the End of Time”, Milano, Teatro Dal Verme, 09.16.2021

The best way, for someone unfamiliar with contemporary music, to start listening to this genre is undoubtely, in my opinion, the Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen. Its vivid melancholy mixed with open meditative trascendency is something everyone can deeply appreciate. The story behind the composition of the eight movements is impressive too.

So, even if sometimes I listen to this work of art on my PC as many other music, I wanted to give it a deeper listening, and when I knew that there was the opportunity to listen to the Quartet live in a concert hall, I bought istantaneously the tickets for me and for a friend who never listened to contemporary music but that was deeply fascinated by the work and its performers.

More prosaically, the Quartet for the End of Time was created by Olivier Messiaen when he was a soldier in the French army fighting against the German Nazis during World War II. Hostage in a concentration camp, he mediated with a party official to leave him free to write some sheet, and since there were three other musicians in the camp, in 1941 Messiaen and his new friends were able to perform for the soldiers and the prisoners.

Messiaen music is full of references to carnatic music, the sacred music of the south of India, but transposed into a system he called ‘modes of limited transposition’ along with other elements taken from his first serial works. Also an ornithologist, he tried to convey the sound of birds into his own music. He said he was able to perceive colors while listening to sounds – a phenomenon known as synesthaesia – and so one of the goals of his music was to allow people to listen to colors: the second Quartet movement, as an example, is intended to give the listener the sensation of yellow and light blue.

As previously written, the music of the Quartet is divided in eight movements, some ensemble music and some solo music – all the instruments except the piano. The four musicians at Teatro Dal Verme yesterday afternoon were flawless, and this helped for sure me and the huge group of other listeners to enjoy the music. Giovanna Polacco is a talented violinist who studied at the Conservatory of Milan. After, she gain an impressive number of awards and played under the direction of Abbado and Karajan for a long time.

Clarinetist Sergio Delmastro started studying piano at a young age, then he passed to composition at the Turin Conservatory; after a huge number of recordings for Stradivarius, BMG and MGA (Paris), he started teaching composition at the Conservatory of Lugano. Nikolay Shugaev won his first prize as a cellist at the age 13, the first of a long series, and curated a long theory of first executions of authors like Fine, Falcon, Rosenblatt, van Geel and others.

And finally, pianist, harpsicordist and orchestra director Antonio Ballista played in the last decades under the direction of Abbado and Boulez among the others, and he can claim to have the major authors of contemporary music writen pieces directly for him: from Berio to Bussotti, from Sciarrino to Sollima. He toured also with Berio, Dallapiccola and Stockhausen, and collaborated to concerts of Boulez, Cage and Ligeti.

A deeply fascinating journey into the idea of time and transcendency, the Quartet is also full of references to contemporary philosophy. But, surprisingly, the way the musicians interacts the one with the other and intertwine the one with the other will be not unfamiliar to the usual reader of this blog. I’m not obviously saying that Messiaen music is similar to jazz, but that even if this is written music there’s almost an interplay in the way the parts are conceived in relation to the full scheme.

While the clarinet solo is what the words say, a solo of clarinet with all the other instrument muted, the solos of cello and violin are provided with a minimum of interaction with the other three players, giving life to some interesting small dialogues or conversations that can be intriguing for a lover of free improvisation. It’s not a surprise that many composers of free jazz or experimental music are taking this type of contemporary music seriously while studying. 

In the end, if you take in consideration the last works of Roscoe Mitchell and you think about it as a zen kind of music, with the sonorous masses as statements instead of being the developments of a given theme, something similar can be said of Messiaen music, whose praises to the eternity of Jesus and the consequently reflection on time are very tied to Mitchell’s. Sometimes, the difference between genres are only a matter of temperature. So, my final advice is: enjoy the music, wherever it comes from.