Bryars - String Quartet nr. 1 & 2

I'm not sure what kind of composer Gavin Bryars really is. Earlier I have written about his Piano Concerto, which I found rather flaccid and uninspired. I also have his famous Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, an early conceptual piece from 1971 (featuring Tom Waits). But I don't think that I have listened to this more than three times.  Arguably these two pieces form only the tip of the iceberg that is a vast and very eclectic body of work, including music for voice, for the theater and for a wide variety of ensembles. However, the album that keeps Bryars for me in considerable standing is a 1995 recording of his two string quartets on the Argo label (now deleted).

I have listened to these two quartets oftentimes. Usually, I take them back to back. The Second Quartet (1990) seems to pick up where the First ('Between the National and the Bristol') leaves off. There are several commonalities between the pieces which renders their fusion in a 45-minute whole a plausible listening strategy. Both pieces are of almost equal duration (21:55 for the First, 23:46 for the Second). It feels like they are based on a shared compositional philosophy. Bryars seems to be a minimalist in a similar vein as Riley: his best music is 'simple', in a sophisticated kind of way. If the musical process is guided in any way by thematic development, I can't really hear it. The logic is much more narratively oriented, as a succession of clearly demarcated sections of 3 to 7 minutes' length (but in contrast to Riley's Salome, for instance, we don't know the story behind the quartets; also Bryars' suggestive titles for many of his works seem to confirm this narrative bent). Also the mood of both quartets overlaps: they are lyrical, faintly elegiac in tone. I don't think there is a fff anywhere to be heard. Tempos are slow to moderato. The texture is very often composed of two layers of which one consists of long, flowing lines with a gently lapping or more agressively pulsating layer underneath. Also important in both works is the use of harmonics, lending the music often an eery, silvery quality and trailing rustic, faintly Eastern European resonances in their wake. Given all these qualities, is it a surprise then that I'm invariably reminded of Milan Kundera's novels when I listen to these quartets?

I believe the superb rendition of these scores by the Balanescu Quartet is absolutely key here. This is the kind of music that in lesser hands simply falls apart. The Balanescu play these quartets with the most sincere conviction and supreme artistry, saving them from slipping into bathos. It's a pity we don't hear a lot anymore from this ensemble. It's rather more a fluid group of musicians around the pivotal figure of Alexander Balanescu (ex second violinist of the Arditti, ex leader of the Michael Nyman Band). (I have another excellent disc of them, with two superb quartets by Kevin Volans. I'll return to that very soon.) On the Bryars CD I would also like to single out the very sensitive playing by cellist Sian Bell (a principal with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra these days).

Bryars - Piano Concerto/Feldman - Durations, Coptic Light

Last week I was in Geneva to give a talk at a conference. Later I drove to the Valtournenche to discuss my Matterhorn photo project with a potential author for an essay to be included in the book. The rental car had a CD player but I forgot to bring any music. So I popped into the local FNAC and bought two discs for listening on the road. I must say none of them gave me particular pleasure. 

Bryars I've known for quite a while. I particularly admire his two quartets, recorded in the early 1990s by the Balanescu Quartet for the Argo label. As the Second Quartet seems to take off where the First ends, I have taken to the habit of listening to them back-to-back, as one single giant quartet. They espouse a sweet, lyric minimalism that is accessible but never dull. The Third Maconchy quartet I listened to recently has something of that same flavour (although likely the music is a little more muscular than the Bryars). However, I also have his Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (featuring Tom Waits) and I don't think this has been in the CD player more than twice. I bought this Naxos disc partly on the strength of the soloist. I think Ralph van Raat has offered some interesting programs on the Naxos label and I was eager to give him the benefit of the doubt in this Bryars recital. There are two solo pieces - After Handel's Vesper and Ramble on Cortona - and a Piano Concerto (The Solway Canal). Here Van Raat gives a little background on the genesis of the latter work and his appreciation of it. The concerto is indeed a rather strange work, half an hour long, in a single movement and with an unorthodox orchestration involving a male chorus The tempo and dynamics are almost static. The music meanders in much the same way as a river would. The piano part does not sound virtuosic at all. It is buried throughout into the orchestral and choral matrix.  It seems Bryars wanted to create a dreamlike atmosphere but it is a fine line between reverie and somnolence. I am tempted to tilt towards the latter. I don't have a problem with tonality, neo-romanticism and lyricism per se, but here there is simply not enough tension to keep me involved. I tend to agree with this Guardian critic who was baffled by the featurelessness and the lack of striking musical ideas. The same applies to the solo pieces which are curiously dull and seem almost deliberately under-composed. This is not minimalism anymore but a kind of forced dilettantism. I am not sure what the point is.

Onwards then to something very different compositionally, but strikingly similar aurally. I have always been intrigued by Feldman's Coptic Light (1986) but never had a chance to hear it. With Bryars it shares a floating kind of rhythm, a slow tempo, muted dynamics, and kaleidoscopic but subtle (if you wish) shifts in texture. Coptic Light sounds like a heaving, breathing animal, 23 minutes long. It deploys a huge orchestra but that is nowhere in evidence. Dynamics never seem to rise above forte. Towards the end it becomes a tad more engaged and sounds like a geriatric version of the Sacre, with just a hint of ritualistic frenzy. Durations I-V are a set of chamber pieces written almost 30 years earlier. Scored for various ensembles - including less obvious instrumenst such as tuba and vibraphone - they actually sound like miniature versions of Light. The same kind of wave-like, heaving patterns throughout. It's all not unpleasant to listen to. I easily cycled four or five times through the complete disc without it ever getting on my nerves. But it never really catches fire either. Maybe it's the recording or playing which is to blame (Coptic Light is played by the DSO, in principle a very good orchestra, conducted by Michael Morgan, who has apparently been assistant conductor of Solti and Barenboim at the CSO).