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Music Review | International Contemporary Ensemble

Creating Synthetic Sounds That Serve a Human Voice

By BERNARD HOLLAND
The New York Times original link
Published: September 6, 2007

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Tony Arnold performing on Tuesday night at the Spiegeltent.

Electronic composers don’t have to know how high a B flat clarinet can play or remember how many fingers a pianist has on each hand, but the prospect of near-limitless opportunity generated by computers and synthetic sound makers can be even more intimidating for them.

The International Contemporary Ensemble brought music by the French composer Philippe Manoury to the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport on Tuesday. In an abbreviated program (the original lineup ran long, and another act had booked the space afterward) two pieces offered examples of how differently machine-made sounds and acoustical instruments (albeit juiced with a little electricity) serve the human voice.

The voice in question was Tony Arnold’s. A soprano, Ms. Arnold sustained the languid pace of four sections of “En Echo” and managed the emotional ups and downs of the nine-part “Cruel Spirals,” both with distinction. “En Echo” sets poems by Emmanuel Hocquard lurking somewhere between legitimate erotic poetry and soft porn. Mr. Manoury’s synthetic sounds offered the usual rattles, barks, sudden explosions and even some feminine panting at (forgive me) climactic moments. Yet the general context had the modified Hammond organ sonority that describes caution more than adventure.

The other problem of electronic composition indicated here is its difficulty in getting along with the human voice. “En Echo” offered a matchup in which Ms. Arnold did not stand a chance. With the exception of several lovely moments, where recorded voices echoed vocal lines or else took them up in flight and built on them, the voice part was reduced to near obscurity.

“Cruel Spirals” was the more successful music perhaps because of the limits that human ability imposes on possibility. Jerome Rothenberg’s poetry offered jeremiads against the successes of the rich and powerful over the weak and the poor, and then a lament for the Holocaust. The instruments were a string quintet, guitar, flute, clarinet and percussion.

Funereal drumbeats taken up by other instruments were a recurring background for agitated rhythmic fragments, uncomfortable silences, frantic melees of close-quarters counterpoint and Mahlerian sighs. Not a very happy atmosphere, but then consider the subject matter.

Matthew Ward conducted this fine band of players. The Spiegeltent is evidently a relic from an earlier era of theatrical touring: circular and lined with red plush and gold. Drinks could be had and were. An unsubstantiated rumor says that Marlene Dietrich once played under it, but enough name-dropping.