Remix.
Creation.
Incarnation.
Transformation (‘Anamorphosis’).
Re-writing.
Transcription.
Gestaltwandlung!
There are a number of words sprinkled across the various texts of this CD to describe the process Johannes Schöllhorn went through in composing his Anamorphoses Pour Ensemble (we have here six of the seven Contrapunctus and two of the four Canons). The cerebral text casts Schöllhorn's work as existing in the battle between the past and present (Kafka's ‘two wrestlers’), and I must admit that I was bracing myself for a jumbled and inscrutable listen, but the truth is that these pieces are a surreal, sometimes grotesque but altogether wonderful collection of compositions that cast themselves forward and backward with equal force and invention. Schöllhorn does embody most of the activities listed, but it's this joyful playfulness which makes the music really shine. The performances from the Remix Ensemble are delicate and pensive, and (recording engineer) François Eckert has done a beautiful job capturing a detailed and inviting sound.
The liner notes mention Schöllhorn's affinity for the re-instrumentations of the Society for Private Musical Performances (created by Schoenberg). His pieces take up a related sound world in their use of the accordion, which regularly reminds me of the familiar harmonium in the SPMP's orchestrations. The rest of the ensemble is relatively straightforward: clarinets, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass. Schöllhorn has allowed for these compositions to be performed – and, presumably, presented on this recording – in any order. Their ordering here (if anyone still listens to CDs straight through, anyway) suggests two quasi-sonatas, with three counterpoints each, followed by a canon.
The first four pieces are the more extroverted of the set. In particular, Contrapunctus VI and IX (tracks 1 and 3 respectively) bristle with energy, as Schöllhorn presents Bach through a rip-roaring process of Klangfarbenmelodie. These pieces really are great fun, and they carry the spirit of ‘rehearing’ a composer (Bach) through the ears of another (Schöllhorn) with verve. Contrapunctus IV (track 2) sits as a relatively mammoth (11-minute) slow movement between these two. The accordion and long clarinet notes played with slow vibrato douse the music in a kind of haze, and the music here sounds like nostalgia itself. The effect is haunting – perhaps a bit like listening to the piece on an out-of-tune organ in a too-resonant church, and it is totally enthralling from first to last. This set is wrapped up with the ‘Canon Per Augmentationem in Contrario Motu’, which has a circus-like atmosphere (especially in the brass writing) as the canons spin and are spit round and round the ensemble. I simply wished that each of these fast movements – and this canon in particular – had had one or two more (even more bizarre!) circuits.
The second half of the CD is altogether more introspective, and perhaps slightly less inviting. Contrapunctus XI is consistently punctuated by breath noises, with quiet, sul-pont tremolo strings whirring away in the background. The Klanfarbenmelodie is still present, but in the slower tempo it sounds altogether more considered, and Bach's original fugue here seems to exert a kind of gravity that holds these timbres in constant check; the explosive inventiveness of the earlier pieces is here replaced by a more logical or (depending on your hearing) plodding argument. Contrapunctus X (track 6) returns to the faster tempo, but it doesn't quite seem to regain the jubilant playfulness of the earlier movements. Here there's a sort of war on: virtuosic string lines being interrupted and shouted over by the brass. The clarity and balance of the recording here is particularly impressive, but on repeated listens I did wonder what the piece would sound like in a concert hall. Perhaps here the close details retained in every solo outburst make the argument a little overwrought. We're into the final long, slow counterpoint (Contrapunctus VIII) next. Delicate col legno touches on the strings, and that same sul-pont tremolo create a texture upon which the clarinet and accordion pass melodies back and forth. Amidst the quiet rhythmic murmurings of the ensemble, the clarinet playing on this track (Vitor J. Pereira) is particularly beautiful. Concluding this set, a second Canon (‘Canon in Hypodiapson’) roars onto the scene. I again found myself thinking of the circus from American Horror Story, and again the faster music ended too soon. It left me longing to hear the other canons (of which Schöllhorn has composed two more), to find out more about this composer in general, and – I hope this will be heard as the positive comment it is – to immediately spend a couple hours with the music of J.S. Bach. I hope to hear more from Mr Schöllhorn and the Remix Ensemble soon, too.
