VoxCarnyx

City Halls, Glasgow

The last thing you want to do when presenting difficult music, not least the extreme experimentalism that defines such contemporary music festivals as Tectonics, is to do so with a sense of trepidation, even apology. 

Thankfully, there’s no danger of that in this annual Glasgow jamboree, which ran over the weekend with its intrepid founder/curator/conductor Ilan Volkov at the helm and – in the case of Saturday’s climactic opening night orchestral performances – the one band you can always rely on to tackle the most testing, sometimes near-impossible, demands of composers many of us have not yet heard of – the BBC SSO.

That guarantee of witnessing the music in its best possible light is what gives Tectonics the integrity it has earned, what encourages the fan base it has garnered over the years, but more importantly aids judgement on what works and what doesn’t quite pass muster. Any composer featured in Tectonics is given the best possible platform.

The SSO’s second performance slot on Saturday evening was a classic example of that. The two pieces featured – the UK premiere of Clara Ianotta’s strange bird – no longer navigating by a star and world premiere of Timothy McCormack’s a vapour (no body, no image) – were ravishingly played, but where the former proved hypnotically compelling, the latter, for all its detailed fascination, struggled to live up to the expectations of its stated programme.

There was no doubting the sincerity of McCormack’s intentions: a heartfelt musical reckoning on “how queer individuals learn of, reconcile, grieve, and hold space for the lost generation of queer and gay individuals who died during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s”. Yet for all its sustained and pained intensity, a lack of genuine bite conveyed more a sense of submission than successful intent. 

Nor was the work’s message sharpened by the stentorian growls of vocal performer Ty Bouque, strangely attired in string vest, presumably uttering words (from the journals of writer and AIDS victim Hervé Guibert) that were difficult to make out. Even the music’s final utterance – a dismissive orchestral chirrup – seemed frustratingly inconclusive.

Ianotta’s work is also about loss, based on poetry by Dorothy Molloy, yet her intentions proved so much more convincing in a performance that made a feature of the score’s nebulous fascination. Even where passions seemed to be suppressed, frissons of excitement persistently tickled the senses. Volkov’s ear for detail illuminated the textural subtleties – a sound world more suggestive than prescriptive, yet heaving with animated undercurrents – while his grasp of the big picture ensured a satisfying sense of completeness.

If any one work summed up the adventurousness of Tectonics, it was Øyvind Torvund’s 40-minute Symphony, previously championed by Volkov in Oslo and Bergen, now disclosing its thought-provoking unorthodoxy to a Scottish audience. It’s a piece whose perception is determined by the actions of the audience itself, and here’s why.

Firstly, sections of the orchestra and three soloists are placed in disparate areas of the entire venue. For Saturdays performance the strings occupied the first floor bar; the wind in the foyer outside the Recital Room; solo saxophone Kjetil Møster, percussionist Jennifer Torrence and synth/electric guitarist Jørgen Træen variously on stair landings and balconies, while the brass cut a noble presence as sole occupiers of the main auditorium stage. Linked to Volkov’s beat via TV screens, the combined sound was perceivable everywhere via speakers.  

In turn, we were instructed – without talking! – to walk freely around, each audience member effectively creating their own personalised “mix”. It was genuinely thrilling to be able to shift the emphases between the blanket density of the strings, the insistent chattering of the woodwind, and the profundity of successive brass flourishes by simply altering your vantage point. 

And that was the point. Volkov’s theme for this Tectonics was “the profound art of listening”. To give us control of that was a practical and visceral revelation. And a reminder that Tectonics is guaranteed to make you think way out of the box.

Ken Walton

[Images: Alex Woodward]