On Sunday, January 20th, 2008, a concert of new music by Lower Austrian and Canadian composers was presented in the Concert Hall of the House of Composition at 11 Ungargasse in Vienna. This is a stately old building with the charming ambience of Old Vienna: high-ceilinged rooms with beautiful chandeliers. Such is the Concert Hall of INOK, the Lower Austrian Composers’ group.

Even before the concert started, it was already one of those concerts of which living composers normally can only dream: the hall was packed, and several were standing. Those in attendance were a highly musically-literate audience (of course: this is Vienna!). The performers were a contemporary composers’ “dream-team:” Elena Denisova, violin, and Alexei Kornienko, piano. Denisova has been called “the Piaf of the violin,” and the reason for that nickname soon became evident. As for Kornienko, he is one of the best from the Russian school of piano playing. One will not hear a better pianist anywhere. More important is the wonderful ensemble they have between them. The performers are in perfect synchronicity with one another. Their performance gives the audience a sense of their many hours of working together on such difficult works as the ones they performed. Such a blend of artistry and devotion to new music is rare, and something to be very much enjoyed in and of itself. Indeed it was, by a very enthusiastic audience.

The third work, by Eberhard Boettcher, was the “oldest” one on the concert. It is his lovely Sonatine for Violin and Piano, from 1989. It is a work in a neo-Hindemithian idiom reminiscent of the mood of Hindemith’s Second Piano Sonata. It is lightly and skilfully contrapuntal, rhythmically perky in the outer movements, and quite lyrical in the middle movement. Boettcher’s work was the most traditional work on this concert, and yet easily held its own. It kept the listener’s attention beginning to end, and is an exceptionally well-crafted work for the violin which deserves a permanent place in the repertoire. It is of interest that Boettcher has had an extensive career in Norway. One might anticipate, in Boettcher’s music, the Nordic brooding quality so evident in, for example, Nielsen. Instead, his music seems to convey a positive, image. Even though it is so contrapuntal, it often has a lightness about it that is more characteristic of Grieg than of Nielsen–or for that matter, Hindemith. This Sonatine is a thoroughly charming and captivating work that one hopes to hear more often. Of all the works on the program, it is the one most likely to be the sort that an audience would go away humming. Of course, Denisova played it impeccably and with the finest of melodic sensibility.

There was a brief pause, for the performers, not the audience. Werner Schueltze, the President of INOK, and a fine composer in his own right, interviewed Wolfram Wagner, whose Passacaglia for Violin Solo (from 2007), the most recent work on the program, was on the second half. The interview was informative, witty, and in it Wolfram Wagner explained his use of passacaglia form versus chaconne, and described how he had incorporated some references here and there to standard violin literature. It seems the Passacaglia was divided into two halves, conveniently coinciding with the page turn. Gigue-like, the material was turned upside-down in the second part. There was an outstanding balance and distribution of textures and figurations throughout, and the overall shape was absolutely convincing. The work built very convincingly to a stunning climax; one often forgot one was listening to only one violin. Naturally, part of the credit for that goes to the astonishingly large sound of Denisova, and her absolute control of articulation, phrasing, and dynamics; no figuration for the violin eludes her mastery; all was in place, and the work received one of the warmest ovations of the day. (This work is the other dedicated to Denisova.)

Aris Carastathis’s work, Morphs for Violin and Piano, actually preceded the Wagner piece in program order. It is a fluid and fluent work, achieving a musical continuity reminiscent in some ways of Ravel, in others, of the opening of Smetana’s Moldau (Vltava). It dates from 15 years ago, and represents an earlier style of the composer. Yet, it shows maturity of compositional technique, and maintains a good balance between unity and variety throughout. It perhaps comes closer to the post-modern idiom than anything else on the program, and yet it is not entrapped by any “trendiness.” It is highly individualistic in its own way. It shows remarkable control of growth and development, subtle, always interesting, and always logical. It is refined, also much like Ravel, and seems to eschew emotional outbursts, making its musical points in a quieter way. It unfolds itself, builds, and subsides, without indulging in melodramatics and without ever losing the listeners’ attention. Again, the performance itself was an absolutely flawless interpretation.

The concert concluded with a powerful work by the rapidly emerging Canadian composer of Polish descent, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, whose work must surely bring feelings of pride to both countries. Grella-Mozejko’s Organigami, in this latest incarnation as a work for violin and piano, has also been previously heard as a work for saxophone and piano. Each must be considered separately, because the musical meanings and shadings take on an entirely different significance in each. The violin version is extraordinarily compelling. It is worth noting that in this year of Messiaen’s centennial, his influence is still strong, as witness the opening of this work of Grella-Mozejko’s. The very first bars evoke the mood, timbre, and melodic characteristics of Quartet for the End of Time. It is strong but graceful music, and moves along at a pace that is amiable, yet vital enough to carry one along with it. One would like to see it as a ballet–it has a lithesome, sinewy quality about it that would lend itself well to dance. The second movement is haunting, sombre, even somewhat elegiac in tone. Denisova’s effortless richness-of-tone lends itself particularly well to the sustained lines of this movement, lyrical without resort to clichés, completely free of banality. This is very high-minded music, but nevertheless uncommonly expressive. The last movement builds from a very quiet beginning. The comment of a listener in Saskatoon who has known Piotr a long time is quite interesting, and seems apropos:

“The third movement of Piotr’s piece reminds me of his daughter learning to play scales as a young child. She practiced many times the assignment which she had been given. This piece also makes me think of Piotr’s improvising at the piano, with its often driving, almost obsessive, quality.”

The comparison with the playing of a child is of note particularly in light of a comment Stravinsky made many years ago in a public lecture. He said that he had chosen the three notes of the basic motive opening The Rite of Spring based on the universal children’s melody because, as he said, “…what could have a more primal, innocent but ruthless, force than a child?” He further explained it as a basic will to survive and grow, and that is what this wild and powerful music of Grella-Mozejko’s does: it survives, it grows, and it overwhelms all before it as it explodes in triumph at the end.

The concert was a major artistic triumph, and the artists outdid themselves in playing these works in a fashion as close to artistic perfection as one will ever hear in a concert. It was a musical experience of the very first order all around, and INOK deserves the highest of praise for putting together such works and such performers. May there be many more such occasions!

Hannah Werkemann-Rahm

The first work on the concert was a spectacular beginning: Monte Keene Pishny-Floyd’s Sonata for Violin and Piano (2002), subtitled Incongruities and Connections, begins with a quote of Mendelssohn accompanied by a quote of Grieg. Almost immediately, one hears the familiar formula of a trill and a six-four chord, and the violinist launches into a cadenza. This occupies most of the first movement and subsequently quotes from many composers. (The audience in Vienna picked up on most of these quotes, including Mendelssohn and Grieg, but especially references to Bach, Beethoven and Mahler, all of which recur in various ways throughout this complex work.) The violinist tries to bring back the Mendelssohn toward the end of the movement, but becomes an annoying fly to the pianist who begins to swat the keyboard, and finally “smashes the fly.” The sonata has many moods: the second movement begins with an almost unbearably beautiful melody, a quiet, lyrical tune. This is brusquely interrupted by loud, raucous, almost violent chords and repeated notes in the violin. Finally, the lyrical tune returns, but only as a fragment, a shadow, and the movement ends with a haunting interval in the violin–a whispered lament. The third movement begins as a fugue which comes back in many forms between the two instruments. It is interrupted several times by startlingly contrasting material, ranging from gospel to Bach to Schoenberg, even “cool jazz,” but always comes back to the fugue in ever-increasing contrapuntal complexity. Finally the pianist tries to bring back the Mendelssohn as the violinist “saws away;” the pianist tries to end with Brahms, but gives up, throws up his hands, and the violinist keeps going, obsessively; an alarm clock sounds, and the work ends. Somehow, the composer brought together all the “Incongruities” and made his “Connections.” It is a highly effective, entertaining, and at the same time moving, work. It was a virtuoso showcase for the performers’ wide range of impressive musical abilities, and the audience loved it.

The second work on the concert, Il trillo del diabolo, Op. 29/3 for Violin solo, sub-titled “omaggio a Giuseppe Tartini” (“homage to Giuseppe Tartini”), by Karl Anton Huebner, was one of two on the concert dedicated to Elena Denisova. It is based on the famous (or “infamous”) “Devil’s Trill” Sonata of Tartini. Although not long, it is extremely difficult and makes full use of its namesake’s notorious trills. Yet, Denisova, whose technique transcends any conceivable difficulty, not only made it sound easy, but did so with that large, rich sound for which she is famous. No matter how fast the music, every last note and phrase is in place. It is an exciting piece which sounds at times like two or three violins, and the performance made it a real crowd-pleaser. It would certainly be an effective encore piece in future concerts.