By Roel Weerheijm
How deep do you want to dig?
Gabi Sultana states on her website that she specializes in contemporary classical music. "I have been drawn to contemporary classical music from a very young age, perhaps from the age of 8," she explains. "I think that was the first time I heard a number of piano pieces from Bartók and I immediately fell in love with it. Every time I heard a contemporary classical piece, I immediately became intrigued. My piano teacher in Malta saw my passion and kept my interest high by always keeping contemporary pieces in my repertoire. "
Despite her enthusiasm, it often appears that contemporary classical music is outweighed by the great, well-known masters. Gabi knows too well about listeners' prejudices about supposedly ugly, dissonant and difficult-to-access music. "As in all genres, you also have bad, good and great music in contemporary classical music. It mainly depends on how deep you want to dig to get to the big pieces. But the structure of the program is also very important. It's about balance between the pieces. And the place where you perform also makes a lot of difference: contemporary music is much better at some festivals or venues than at other places. "
Stop turning the wheel
In addition to negative prejudices about contemporary classical music, it can also be recognized for having broken many boundaries; it introduced many innovations and liberties for performing musicians. In all respects, the limits of music have been stretched to a maximum: think of atonal music, the illustrious 4'33 ”by John Cage, but also of quarter tones, tone and chord clusters, unorthodox ‘musical instruments’ and time signature, prepared pianos , water (!) and the introduction of chance, spontaneity and coincidence in music. And one should also consider the importance of America as a classical music country in the twentieth century with, besides Cage, more famous composers such as Ives, Bernstein, Adams and Glass.
John Cage plays one of the leading roles in twentieth-century American music. He has dealt with many of the above-mentioned innovations and experiments. His "Experiences no. 1", which is also on the program tonight, is, striking for Cage, written more in the style of Satie. "I try to understand his music," says Mirek, "by going to the most fundamental basis of music, and I mean music as a structure, as a framework of sounds. As soon as you start listening to that framework, the boundary between experimental and "real" music, such as "Experiences no. 1", begins to blur. This is one of the reasons why his music can be used well in music workshops with children, for example. After all, they do not have the same expectations as adults of what music or art should be, or how those expectations have grown and changed over time: they immediately perceive the sound and respond to it. I find it very refreshing to look at it in the same way. "
Morton Feldman was also such a progressive, experimental composer. Among other things, he was a pioneer in the renewal of music notation. Feldman was one of the most important followers of Cage and he also allowed musicians many liberties in performing his works. "His liberties may feel overwhelming in the beginning," says Mirek, "but it is very important to continue to trust your instincts. As a musician you are trained to use your ears properly, so that you get to a personal interpretation within certain standards. Those rules can be strict to a greater or lesser extent. It is essential to really immerse yourself in the repertoire and in the ideas of the composer. That teaches you a lot about, for example, their idea of timing. "
Feldman wrote music that was very daring in his thrift. One of his music pieces (Extensions 3) has a melody of fifty-seven notes in forty bars. It is a very specific form of "minimal music": Feldman slowly grabs your attention and boosts your concentration. Certainly during certain of his compositions that take hours, listeners experience a change in their experience of time and duration of musical structures. Mirek reacts slightly ironically: "Seven minutes is perhaps a bit short to realize such an experience with the audience. Nevertheless, even a shorter piece of music such as "Piano Four Hands", which is on the program tonight, can stop turning the wheel. Feldman forces the listener into the moment, forcing him to concentrate on the pure sound of every interval and every chord. In the right place in the right program, this shorter piece can also feel as curiously beautiful as Feldman's longer works. "
In addition to this highly innovative movement, contemporary American music also has a much more accessible, conservative side. Frederic Rzewski, whose Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues has been programmed, falls into that category. Rzewski reminds me in an associative way of Shostakovich, because Rzewski, like him, weaves a political agenda with a strong artistic vision. "He is," Mirek explains, "a very important composer and remains one of the most interesting Americans to this day. I recently heard his "Songs of insurrection". That work beautifully combines the political and artistic side of his oeuvre. Rzewski’s music has many layers. I love this kind of music, which is not just for the music itself, but on the other hand tries to convey a story or a (political) concept. Rzewski knows how to do this extremely well in most of his pieces. "
The essence of music
For the piano duo Sultana and Coutigny, the approach to contemporary music hardly differs from the approach to canonical composers. Of course, Gabi says in the interview, you approach American composers differently than European ones, just as you approach Chopin differently than Liszt. But it is more difficult to put into words what the difference is. Gabi and Mirek emphasize that it is really about studying the music itself, digging and searching for the essence of the music you want to play - and that is the same with every composer, regardless of which century, country or style.
The difference with canonical composers, however, is that Sultana and Coutigny have more work to do with modern American composers when it comes to performing their repertoire. "Contemporary music generally has many mysteries, not just American contemporary music. I do not necessarily think that it is undervalued, but there is little offer of these composers for the listener. Normally this offer comes from the larger concert halls, which still stick to the same classical music repertoire every year, fearing that they will lose the larger audience if they start programming more experimentally. "
But it is not the challenge, Gabi emphasizes, to "win" the audience. "Playing this music has no challenge in terms of persuading the audience. But it gives a lot of satisfaction if the audience responds well to a certain program. "