Why the music of the excellent Dutch minimalist Louis Andriessen isn’t played more often on our stages is beyond me. Of course, we can fall back on good recordings, but even so, they’re not that frequent, compared with the American equivalents Glass and Reich. Yet Andriessen is one of the most influential and unique composers of the 20th (and early 21st) century. His opera De Staat is a masterpiece.
That said, although this Neuma release won’t fill you up completely, you can still soak your ears for a good ten minutes with “Hout” (Wood), a landmark piece from 1991 for an unusual quartet: saxophone, electric guitar, piano and percussion. “Hout” is an exceptional test of collective coordination. The performers play the same melodic lines at sixteenth-note intervals from each other (in a ‘tight canon’). Needless to say, you have to be dead on beat and ferociously concentrated. Like Steve Reich, but more urgent. Fantastic reading by Hypercube quartet.
The other piece on the programme is by Michael Fiday, a composer who studied with Andriessen. “The Force for Good” is a set of variations on Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” written for the same instrumental ensemble. Fiday’s music is reminiscent of jazz (however just a little), but much more of his mentor’s music, through the use of a pulsating rhythmic energy that is much more choppy, less linear and operating in highly contrasting dynamic episodes that sometimes follow one another in violent succession. Fiday’s chromaticism is also more modern than Andriessen’s in Hout. A tribute to two seemingly disparate figures in 20th-century music that holds together skilfully.
Hypercube’s four musicians are to be commended for their impressive individual and collective musicianship.
This album is a delight, but at less than thirty minutes of music, it is too short.
Hypercube was in Montreal for a concert on April 30, read my review
Hypercube:
Erin Rogers, tenor saxophone
Jay Sorce, electric guitar
Andrea Lodge, piano
Chris Graham, percussion
