ex nihilo nihil fit

On 12.3.09, I went to a concert by dal niente, one of the many new music ensembles that have sprung up in the last few years--inspired, no doubt, by the success of eighth blackbird and ICE. Of those, dal niente seems to be the most likely to succeed, combining prodigious talent with a clear sense of identity. The demiurge behind the group, composer Kirsten Brøberg (sic), mostly culls musicians from Northwestern and focuses her programming on the traditions stemming from and interweaving around French spectralists and German timbralists. The two facets seem to have grown simultaneously, like calculus, in those two countries and now have flourished into a mostly Scandinavian tradition.

The concert was expertly performed, highlights being Gareth Davis on clarinets and J.Austin Wulliman on violin. Davis got in touch with his inner Henry Rollins in the middle of a slew of multiphonics and strange articulations during Lindberg's Ablauf. I enjoyed the insanity that the piece portrayed or, in some cases, induced, but I'm not sure I'd willingly sit through another performance of schizophrenic clarinet violently interrupted by bass drums cleverly situated behind the audience in the choir loft. Effective but unnerving.

Wulliman channeled Gidon Kremer in his performance of Kaija Saariaho's Calices, the work being a scaled-down version of her violin concerto Graal Théâtre. Though Saariaho uses extensive notations to produce various timbres, overtones, or noises, Wulliman made it seem as effortless as playing Mozart.

The first piece on the program, Jay Alan Yim's Songs in Memory of a Circle was the most interesting from a composer's perspective. Resembling one of my many unrealized ideas, Yim's piece is a series of pieces able to be played individually or in various simultaneous combinations. Amazingly, the three pieces chosen created a unified whole, a rich tapestry of sound, that actually moved between moments of calm and moments of fluttery activity. The piece was accompanied by a video that was manipulated live. The video was static and ugly compared to the richness in the music, and the manipulation seemed primitive and distracting--something that is not ready for public performance.

The grand finale of the concert was more of an anticlimax. Broberg's Origins received its world premiere. The work was dedicated to Gareth Davis and incorporated him on bass/clarinet in each of the five movements. Each movement involved a different instrumental combination of winds, strings, or mixed ensemble. Compared to the Lindberg work, the piece didn't seem to explore Davis's technical ability to the same extent. Compared to Yim's piece, the textures were less rich and sonorous and so did not hold my attention. It may have been that the work grew out of Broberg's new-found home soil in Minnesota with its deep winters and Scandinavian roots, and my big-city, over-caffeinated ears couldn't shift gears. At the very least, it would have been better situated at the end of the first half; by the end of the concert, our ears had already been worn out and needed something less demanding of our attention.

Overall, though, the ensemble continued to show its mettle and seems durable enough to last for a long while. I look forward to future dal niente concerts, in particular Grisey's Partiels in the Spring.