Birtwistle said of Earth Dances that it is "like a giant labyrinth, whose formal units appear nearly identical, but wherever you are inside it, whichever corner you turn, there is some new aspect or perspective". The music has progressed from "foreground" and "background" shifts of emphasis to something more multi-dimensional. The title Earth Dances itself describes the music well. Comparisons have been made of this piece to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The ballet explored an ancient myth where maidens perform a dance in a circle of stones or megaliths. Just as Stravinsky combined different chords and twisted lines to describe the mysterious spells being cast, Birtwistle’s figures shift and change in mysterious, complex ways, as if he too were evoking, but in an abstract, impenetrable way, another Earth rite from an ancient mythic past. The composer said himself that he cast the material "in layers which could be compared to the strata in a rock face, such as on a cliff".
From the start, Birtwistle’s
massive blocks of sound pile up, layer
on layer, sudden flashes of percussion
flashing light up through the darkness.
The movement here is of vast tectonic
plates, continents moving together,
shaping continents. The movement is
inexorable, almost linear – the action
is within the densely textured units.
Boulez conducts these forces with mastery.
How difficult it must have been for
the person playing those reverberating
bass drums to hear the solo flute enter,
or for the players to co-ordinate their
separate parts without a conductor whose
vision of the music is so vivid. Boulez
keeps individual textures precise, despite
the overall density of sound. Earth
Dances is a favourite of many good
conductors, but Boulez, to whom it was
dedicated, brings tight clarity to this
performance: a muddy, undisciplined
reading would disintegrate into chaos. Ensemble Modern
was augmented by key modern music specialists,
to provide the vast forces. Virtuoso
playing like this can't be compromised.
I don't think there will be a budget
version of this by some jobbing orchestra
in a long, long time.
In Theseus Games (conducted by Martyn Brabbins and Pierre-André Valade), two separate conductors
participate, each conducting separate
parts of the Ensemble even though the
array of instrumentalists is smaller
than the number required in Earth
Dances. As with Charles Ives' Fourth
Symphony, this reflects the way in which
the composer deconstructs conventional
form. It takes repeated listening to
extricate the different ensembles, each
playing at different tempi, intertwining
and interweaving. This is like the
Labyrinth into which Theseus enters,
an adventurer into the Unknown. not knowing where it would lead, each
twist seeming to open new vistas, which
might suddenly and unexpectedly lead
to confrontation with the Minotaur.
What appears at first to be the "way"
is contradicted by the other, alternate
sound-world. A piece of music which
so involves a listener in this way is
inherently dramatic. Words would be
extraneous.
Eleven years ago, when I first head this combination of classic Birtwistle preoccupations I wondered where the composer was heading next. The Labyrinth, where Theseus confronts the Minotaur? Psychic powers ? Sure enough, Birtwistle's next big hit was The Minotaur (2008) about which I've written extensively, and discussed with Philip Langridge and Andrew Watts who created the critical scene where the Oracle is consulted. In Birtwistle's typically oblique way, the scene in which the whole opera pivots is concealed in a devious puzzle. There are parallels between Gawain and The Minotaur but I'll leave that til after Friday.
Please see my 30 or more other posts on Harrison Birtwistle. Part of the reason Julian Anderson's Thebans was badly received by some in the press was that they don't know Anderson's work. There is no excuse for anyone not to know who Birtwistle is.
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