New Zealand Numerous: Darroch/DeHart Duo (Hannah Darroch [flutes], Justin DeHart [percussion]). Previous Library, Whangarei, New Zealand, 25.8.2024. (PSe)
Lou Harrison – First Concerto for Flute and Percussion
Takemitsu – Towards the Sea
Celeste Oram – Notes on the Nocturne Custom
Gareth Farr – Kembang Suling: Three Musical Snapshots of Asia
Helen Fisher – Te Tangi a te Matui
David Lang – lend/lease
Daniel Corral – Heptomino
Amy Williams – Cinescape 1
Andy Akiho – Karakurenai
For a few years, it appears, percussion has been more and more decided to get out of ‘the kitchen’. For example, final yr Whangarei Music Society was royally entertained by the percussion duo Double Shot (overview right here), who ably demonstrated the expressive potential of their devices. And now right here is extra, from the Darroch/DeHart Duo – though, I hasten so as to add, certainly not ‘extra of the identical’, as a result of half of this duo performs flutes, and their purpose is to make a musical marriage of those unlikely ‘bedfellows’.
New Zealander Hannah Darroch and Californian Justin DeHart each excel in a variety of musical genres, train (College of Canterbury, NZ), are extremely certified, extensively travelled, and have garnered a wealth of expertise. Reassuring this can be, however extra vital is that these two displayed apparent empathy and shared enthusiasm for speaking with their viewers.
This was evident within the very structure of the efficiency house: somewhat than being lined up like a barricade, the massive array of percussion devices was unfold ahead into the viewers space, enfolded, ‘within the spherical’, by a full semicircle of seating – thus actually deciphering Chamber Music NZ’s motto, ‘Music up Shut’. Nonetheless, this didn’t contain Justin continuously operating from one instrument to a different; it quickly grew to become clear that the devices required for each bit had been fastidiously grouped, in order that between items he and Hannah merely moved at leisure from one station to a different. In passing, I’m most likely not alone in my ignorance of the names of a number of the devices – so I apologise now for any made-up names couched in quotes.
I’ve come to count on that programmes that includes oddball instrumental combos will largely include preparations. Refreshingly, this one bucks the pattern, in addition to which its opening merchandise hints at simply what number of years percussion has been searching for its liberation and provides us some thought of how lengthy flute and percussion have been partnered: Lou Harrison wrote his First Concerto for Flute and Percussion method again in 1939! The primary motion concerned a tom-tom, a wooden block and a ‘Y-shaped shaker’ with tambourine jingles, while within the second the flute’s fluid, languorous lyricism was set towards the delicate, atmospheric sounds of gongs, tom-tom and (I feel) a crotale. The third discovered the flurrying flute nigh-on gabbling towards a hypnotic rhythm of güiro, tom-toms and a ‘tin coconut shell’.
Commissioned by Greenpeace for its ‘Save the Whales’ marketing campaign (early Nineteen Eighties), Takemitsu’s Towards the Sea exists in three variations; the one we heard being for alto flute and marimba. Takemitsu stretched the flute’s capabilities to mimic the sound of the shakuhachi. Hannah put this throughout so successfully that, particularly within the second motion, it vividly dropped at my thoughts the shakuhachi in his November Steps, a recording of which I acquired – fairly unintentionally – after I purchased Ozawa’s LP of Turangalîla-Symphonie in 1968. The flute – when not imitating ‘the sound the wind makes when it blows by a decaying bamboo grove’ – and marimba blended beguilingly.
Celeste Oram’s Notes on the Nocturne Custom for percussion emerged from her persevering with fascination with Alison Glenny’s 2021 poetry pamphlet, The Hen Collector, and took kind following an invite to write down a bit for Justin. Interweaving the efficiency with recorded speech, meant (I presume) to ‘immediate’ the marimba’s gildings, could have been a good suggestion in concept – however folly in observe: I missed a lot of the music as a result of I used to be making an attempt, frantically however fruitlessly, to make out the phrases! Nonetheless, Justin’s command of the music’s intricacies was spectacular in itself – and I did spot a verbal reference to ‘gamelan’ that gave me one occasion of phrases and response.
Final earlier than the interval was Gareth Farr’s Three Musical Snapshots of Asia for marimba and soprano/alto flutes, once more involving gamelan (first motion) and shakuhachi (second motion). The previous was cyclic, fast and agile, fascinatingly interweaving and rippling, the latter contrastingly otherworldly; the flute haunting, the marimba rolling mysteriously; mild music, like swirling mist. The third snapshot evoked Southern India by a vigorous instrumental competitors, whose notes flashed ever quicker.
As half I ended with a Kiwi, so did half II start, with Helen Fisher’s Te Tangi a te Matui (‘The Cry of the North’), which demanded appreciable experience: breathy sounds, microtones, a lot note-bending – and singing. Fortunately, Hannah’s soulful singing voice matched her flute for purity, and he or she was a whiz at mixing the 2, by bringing the flute to her lips whereas singing, a magical impact.
Subsequent got here David Lang’s lend/lease, written for a London Sinfonietta birthday – fairly how the World Battle II ‘lend-lease’ programme got here into it I’m not in any respect certain. Nonetheless, the vaguely ‘Chinese language-accented’ mixture of piccolo and wooden blocks, which have comparable tessituras, had a lovely sound and a sure simple allure.
Daniel Corral’s Heptomino is a type of works whose ‘inspiration’ is contrived. A heptomino is any of a set of polygons, every comprising the define of seven equal squares related edgewise. This piece includes a flute utilizing any seven consecutive quarter tones and a percussionist taking part in on any seven resonant (‘discovered’) objects. Would it not make any materials distinction if, say, the flute performed the seven tones of a diatonic key, or the percussionist occurred to have discovered 9 objects? Of extra curiosity is that the percussion sounded considerably like Harry Partch’s Spoils of Battle, and that a number of the music hints at Partch’s model. Anyway, this virtuosic piece featured a number of well-varied intriguing sounds and was all of the extra fulfilling for being ‘on the wild aspect’.
Drawn from a set written for an ingenious audio-visual undertaking, Amy Williams’s Cinescape 1 was scored for alto flute, bass drum and crotales. It’s fascinating music of timbre and texture, in components possessing immense rhythmic drive, in components amorphous. Hannah once more confirmed her technical prowess, tossing out harmonics, ‘breath notes’, ‘bent notes’ and what-have-you like there’s no tomorrow; whereas Justin gleefully traversed a complete catalogue of bass drum results, together with finger and heel-of-hand drumming, brush-dragging, flicking, ‘rim photographs’, even ‘making an attempt to burst the drum-skin’ – all good, clear enjoyable!
Lastly got here Andy Akiho’s Karakurenai (‘international crimson’), initially meant for ‘ready metal drum’ (an idea to conjure with), however – based on Akiho – ‘might be carried out on any mixture of devices’. His invitation was taken up by Hannah’s flute and Justin’s marimba. With the flute chanting towards the marimba’s gamelan-style ostinato, the music step by step obtained livelier and adopted a modestly jazzy really feel: a splendid finale.
Did the Hannah and Justin obtain their purpose? I’d say that they not solely efficiently wedded flutes and percussion, but in addition celebrated the union with a veritable feast of leisure.
Paul Serotsky