AGATA ZUBEL Cleopatra’S Songs

AGATA ZUBEL Cleopatra’s Songs Agata Zubel Katarzyna Duda Klangforum Wien . Johannes Kalitzke Ensemble intercontemporain . Guillaume Bourgogne OMNO-Ensemble / Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej . Szymon Bywalec © Łukasz Rajchert Agata Zubel (*1978) 1 Cleopatra’s Songs (2017) 28:11 for voice and instrumental ensemble text by William Shakespeare 2 Double Battery (2016) 23:05 for instrumental ensemble and augmented sound space commissioned by the Ensemble intercontemporain ( World Premiere) • 3 Violin Concerto (2014) 16:05 for violin and chamber orchestra TT 67:25 • This is a concert recording of a performance of the Festival Musica Electronica Nova at the National Forum of Music, Wrocław. 3 1 Agata Zubel, soprano 2 Ensemble intercontemporain 3 Katarzyna Duda, violin Klangforum Wien Sophie Cherrier, flute OMNO-Ensemble / Vera Fischer, flutes Philippe Grauvogel, oboe Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej Olivier Vivarés, clarinets Alain Billard, bass clarinet Alicja Molitorys, flute Bernhard Zachhuber, clarinets Mathieu Steffanus, bass clarinet * Tomasz Stencel, oboe Christoph Walder, horn Adrien Pineau, percussion * Jadwiga Czarkowska, clarinet Virginie Tarrete, harp Vassilena Serafimova, percussion * Piotr Otręba, bassoon Hsin-Huei Hang, piano Jeanne-Marie Conquer, violin Mirosław Kuchlewski, horn Björn Wilker, percussion Hae-Sun Kang, violin Tomasz Soswa, trumpet Sophie Schafleitner, violin Lucia Peralta, alto * Mateusz Konopka, trombone Annette Bik, violin Éric-Maria Couturier, cello Wojciech Herzyk, percussion Geneviève Strosser, viola Aurélienne Brauner, cello * Adam Bonk, percussion Andreas Lindenbaum, cello Guillaume Bourgogne, conductor Dorota Wyciślik, piano Johannes Kalitzke, conductor Marta Mogielnicka, harp Irena Kalinowska-Grohs, violin Agnieszka Lasoń, violin Krzysztof Batog, viola Danuta Sobik-Ptok, cello Łukasz Bebłot, double bass Szymon Bywalec, conductor * extra musicians —non-members of the Ensemble intercontemporain 4 Give her some music! “Give me some music!” These words ElettroVoce duo, which she formed from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleo- with Cezary Duchnowski. As a singer, patra, which open Cleopatra’s Songs, she rejects neither the melody nor the seem particularly well chosen to char- semantics of the word, but her voice acterise Agata Zubel’s relationship to can also become, when needed, a liv- music. Music: a vital need, a thirst. But ing synthesiser producing unprece- also something that you give. In order dented types of sound. to write a coherent biography of this Polish composer, born and musical- Composition, at which she has tried ly brought up in Wrocław – a city with her hand since childhood, has become strong cultural dynamism, to which its for her a way of organising her musi- Philharmonic has been giving a lot of cal imagination and regulating the re- music since 2015 – we would no doubt lationship between intuition and con- need to study the key points of her tri- struction. Cleopatra’s Songs (2017) ple musical activity as performer, im- for voice and instrumental ensemble proviser, and composer. However, this sound less like a suite of six songs multifaceted activity forms one organ- with an instrumental interlude, and ic whole that seems difficult to break more like a monodrama with a uni- up into separate segments. Her child- fied dramaturgy. The text consists of hood percussion practice opened up a collage of excerpts from Antony and for her a universe of sound that es- Cleopatra, borrowed from Acts II, IV, capes strict temperament. She ex- and V. From the beginning, one cannot plored this world further within the help noticing the bitter-sweet strange- 5 ness of a harp tuned a quarter note The fourth song generates a tension “augmented sound space”, obtained lower than the other instruments. This inversely proportional to its appar- mainly through amplification and rever- microtonality opens up a vast harmon- ent quietness. The overtone-produc- beration, this piece metaphorically sug- ic world that does not constitute a hy- ing strings are used as sympathetic gests a battle, first between the two perchromatic space, fully mapped out strings that highlight the main pitch- bass clarinets placed behind the audi- and codified, but rather endows the es of the vocal part and create a shim- ence, later – between the two percus- musical discourse with a flexible ex- mering effect comparable to that of sionists. Like the saturated sound of pressiveness, and evolves as a contin- the Japanese shô. The last two songs the bass clarinets’ juggling slap tongue, uum rather than a grid. bring, in the same intimate register, a overblowing, tooth sounds, and multi- very simple melody, surrounded by the phonics, the predominantly enharmon- Agata Zubel demonstrates a sub- aura of a slight echo/pre-echo sung ic sounds emanating from the two sets tle sense of orchestration, to which by the fluteplayer into the instrument of percussion testify to the untem- her stage experience is certainly no (“As sweet as balm, as soft as air”), fol- pered sound universe developed by stranger. It is one thing to apply “ad- lowed by a sustained moment where the composer, in which quarter notes vanced performance techniques” on the D flat pedal resounds like the tam- find their full legitimacy. Whether we instruments and accessories repre- pura in an Indian raga (“I am fire and are dealing with fragile tones or pow- senting a wide acoustic spectrum, air”). But Zubel also likes high-voltage erful sound masses, the amount of de- and another – to do so outside the music. In the third song, it is the virtu- tail in the writing translates into a very somewhat anecdotal aesthetics of ef- osity of an agitated and brilliant vocal- lively musical organism, which at times fect. Using rather economical means, ise that dominates the whole, while in incorporates the sensation of freedom the composer succeeds in opening the fifth she calls for the “chest voice” in the improvised musical flow. up a space that is both acoustic and that a rock singer would certainly not dramaturgical at the same time. The deny, and makes the bass clarinets The battle taking place in front of the second song is typical of the way she and steel drums take over the scene. audience is essentially based on alter- can do much with little means: a sim- nating offensives in the form of an im- ple “ghost” doubling of the voice, per- The orchestral interlude that precedes itative antiphony. The energetic struc- haps the influence of the Icelandic the last song lets loose a furious tut- ture of the piece is quite simple but singer Björk, with the whistle tones of ti whose saturated sound is remi- particularly effective; the first part a flute, turns out sufficient to endow niscent of the one that runs through builds up strong force, and the second Cleopatra with a magnetic presence, Double Battery. This tutti alternates part seems to resonate with the resid- in a very light environment created by with improvised sections of the per- ual energy, and derive from the kinet- the harp and the muted strings of the cussion. Premiered in 2016 in its ver- ic energy, of the first. A convergence piano. sion for instrumental ensemble and an of registers towards the high register 6 marks the culmination of a quasi-twin chestral language certain harmonic Agata Zubel’s pragmatism with regard duo involving the two bass clarinets textures or qualities of sound linked to to the implementation of her musical and the flute/oboe pair. the world of electronics. In addition to ideas means that she prefers intuition the effect of the ensemble’s harmonic to overly systematic formalisation. This Percussion is also eminently present in relays selectively sustaining the solo- intuition, however, is subject to trial by the Violin Concerto (2014), again main- ist’s part, which she uses quite exten- ear. It is probably this way of compos- ly for its untempered and enharmonic sively in this concerto, she twice opts ing that endows her works with both acoustic contributions, complemented for a totally vertical type of writing in a tension and a dynamics capable of by a fairly strong microtonal element the form of a mixture reminiscent of producing solid, though never total- that asserts itself strongly in the solo the sophisticated digital harmonisers ly fixed forms. Her music is not afraid violin part. The solo violin acts as an commonly used at IRCAM or in other of abrupt breaks, which contribute to initiator of musical events, which the studios. It is noticeable that she works its dramatic and emotional power. It instruments of the ensemble then take rather little with polyphony, or that she is held together by the gravitational up, with a narrow margin for improvi- does so above all to generate an over- force of a highly personal language, in sation offered by the partly indetermi- all texture. Moreover, just as some of which drama underpins construction, nate notation. In this concerto, the in- the soloist’s double-stop sections pro- while the use of the material outlines strumental writing reflects even more duce microtonal “scrambling” rather the drama. Let me end with another clearly the composer’s experienc- than linear polyphony, so also the fair- (slightly distorted) Shakespeare quote: es with live electronics, which is natu- ly intensive use of quarter notes with- “If music be the food of emotion, play ral to her as a performer, but which, as in the ensemble obscures the con- on!” she knows, can limit the circulation of sonances, thus producing a type of a piece of music, as its implementation sound whose harmonic

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