Colin Currie Quartet (NNF)
The end came too soon, in an evening that had flown by
Colin Currie seems an amiable and grounded fellow. A few days earlier, a colleague, while helping him load up his gear, had presumed him to be the van driver, such was his unassuming manner. Hard to credit that many consider him the world’s finest and most daring percussionist. His decision to kick things off with Joseph Pereira’s Mallet Quartet was perhaps a clue, however. It was certainly the evening’s most challenging piece, offering no concessions to the uninitiated, with its odd, discordant rhythms and tricky time signatures. A fine showcase for his skills, and those of his Quartet, but I did struggle to engage. Perhaps he was cunningly softening us up – everything that followed was far more easily digestible. Even Stockhausen’s Vibra –Elufar, a piece that sounded like the music from an experimental Soviet animation film from the 60s, it was nevertheless relatively melodic by comparison. Sandwiched between these two works, was a percussive piece in the most obvious sense of the word. Xenakis’s Rebonds B is scored, but it still brought to mind the extemporising of Carl Palmer, particularly when Currie was let loose on the woodblocks. Expertly delivered, it nonetheless felt more like ground work done in preparation for the main event ahead. Currie did, after all, make clear in one of his jolly chats between pieces, that the evening was not only a celebration of Steve Reich’s work, but also an exploration of the work that followed in his wake.
Reich’s Mallet Quartet proved to be exactly what we were waiting for, and with no disrespect intended to the other composers’ work, was on a whole, another level of excellence. Performed with two vibraphones and two marimbas over three movements – with typical Reichian simplicity labelled fast, slow, fast – the piece was played with unimpeachable skill, and was utterly mesmerising. The ideal primer for those less familiar with Reich’s music, it was also fabulous rendition for us fanboys, not least because the clarity and precision with which it was played was complemented by a purity and resentence of live sound quite unlike the reduced circumstances of recorded media.
It had been a perfectly balanced first half, and left me one wondering how Currie intended to follow it. If you’ll excuse me a brief digression, last week I attended Tenebrae, singing beautifully in the Cathedral, and yet left frustrated and a little deflated, almost entirely due to the curation of pieces chosen and their consequential emotional impact. By way of contrast, Currie cleverly introduced challenging work, but buttressed the shape of the evening by elevating the mood with ever bigger, bolder work, leaving his audience eager for more. Critically, it was an eagerness that was subsequently sated, with two more thoughtfully chosen works.
First, we were treated to Kevin Volans’s Four Marimbas, a UK premier and a piece the Quartet had only played once before, in Beijing. This was surprising news – having previously investigated its antecedents, I already knew Volans had written the piece back in 2015. However, when you see how hard it is to perform, such is the complexity of the work, all was made clear - I can’t imagine more than a handful of people are up to the task. Currie and his three co-performers hammered away tirelessly, while facing each other across those eponymous four marimbas, set out in a square. At times, it felt as if music was running away from them, as breakneck time signatures required nimble feet as much as able hands. Brilliantly executed, each of its seven phases performed by four musicians (as Currie said “You do the maths”) rolled over each other in a way that brought to mind the emphatic repetition of Glass’s Music in 12 Parts. It’s the sort of music that it jaw dropping in its complexity, is hugely impressive, and drives you just a bit bonkers.
Too soon, in an evening that had flown by, we reached the final work, as Currie returned to Reich with his seminal Drumming Part 1. A line of eight tuned drums, flanked on either side by two percussionists, made for a theatrical conclusion to what had been a brilliant night. Unlike the Volans piece, which now resides only in my memory, Reich’s is easy to track down, though recordings cannot do justice the extraordinary, visceral experience of seeing it played live. On a purely mechanical level, I simply don’t know how the rhythms offered were produced. Sitting somewhere between pure percussion and the semblance of melody, this was the playing of the highest order, as one performer phased in and out the repetitive beats of his fellow musicians (the musical equivalent of rubbing your tummy while patting your head). I had been counselled by my companion to avoid lapsing into cliché, but the effect really was hypnotic, and a stunning end to what was easily the best performance I’ve seen at this year’s festival. With a week to go I suppose it’s too early to claim that this concert will prove to be the high point, but I find it hard to imagine how it could possibly be bettered.
