Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sylvain Cambreling with Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Kioi Hall, March 19th 2019

This concert season will be the last for Sylvain Cambreling as the principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. With lots of recordings for the Kairos label under his belt, a label specialized in the most hard hitting kind of contemporary music, Maestro Cambreling has always been a champion of the avant-garde. For this evening, in one of his last concerts as a principal conductor of the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, he chose a program of rarely performed pieces from the last century.

The concert took place at Kioi Hall, a building that, just like its bigger brother The Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, quotes European traditions from a late 20th century urban modern perspective. The acoustics were top notch as proven by the number that opened the evening: Octandre by Edgard Varèse. This piece for eight wind instruments and a double bass revealed some interesting crescendo and diminuendo dynamics in a live setting that are tough to discern in the recordings. Its brief length and unassuming dadaist stance was the perfect start for the program.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard joined the orchestra for a performance of the Japan inspired Sept haïkaï by Olivier Messiaen. Wind instruments were again predominant in this orchestra configuration; their timbre ideal for the piece’s intentions. Messiaen, renowned for his fascination with birdsong, reproduces the sound of nature as he witnessed it in a visit to Japan in the early sixties. The reproduction is, of course, more of a cubist deconstruction. Dissonant motives, unbounded from the Romantic tradition, suggest the type of abstraction that Kandinsky, and later Pollock, explored. Lines are still present, but they are there not to draw shapes but to provide mood. It was possibly the most challenging number of this night’s offering. Aimard, who was a student of Messiaen’s wife, Yvonne Loriod, shined with a nimble touch as an ensemble player and in the passages in which he soloed. Percussion was also an essential element, at times reproducing the sound of traditional Japanese instruments.

After the intermission -and following the painters similes- we moved into Rothko territory with Giacinto Scelsi’s Quattro pezzi su una nota sola (Four Pieces on a single note). This piece is pure atmospheric bliss and it was a treat to witness it being performed live. The first two movements build up from an intense beginning to a more ethereal mood, colored by the brass instruments in the third movement. As described by its title, Quattro pezzi is a fascinating exploration that reduces choices to the minimum in a drone whose pace and construction are reminiscent of basic human functions like perception or breathing. When we reach the fourth movement with its intense climax that fades into a hushed finale, we are reminded of a maxim of late 20th century art that was build from a paradox: everything that appears to be static it’s really in constant movement.

In the same vein the last piece in the program stretched the possibilities of sound. Gérard Grisey was considered as one of the main figures in spectralism, a compositional technique that uses computer analysis of timbre and sound as the base for compositions. Partiels’ opening is the result of orchestrating the sonogram analysis of a low note played by a trombone for an ensemble of 18 musicians. A rambunctious drone accentuated by some harsh strokes from the double bass at the bottom end that evolves into a series of free fluctuations and finally counterpoint. This music covers the spectrum from freedom of expression to scholastic harmony. 

If Scelsi’s approach is solemn Grisey’s is somewhat more irreverent. I guess it’s an example of the eclecticism of postmodernism. There’s a section that evokes the sound of cars in a distance rumbling through a freeway overpass. This urban landscape is later reenacted by the musicians shuffling the pages of their scores and the conductor wiping a red handkerchief over his head. The theatrics of the piece reaches a climax at the end when all the lights in the theater dimmed until a single spotlight was pointed directly to a percussionist who gesticulated with arms wide open, cymbal on each hand, as he was about to splash a grand finale. But the splash never came. The stage went to pitch black darkness, the music ended with complete silence.

This humorous statement about the pomposity of concert halls and museums resonated now that Cambreling is leaving the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra. He definitely proved by choosing this program as one of his last that he’s a risk taker. This incredible panoramic survey of 20th Century music was a unique opportunity of getting exposed by music not often performed at concert halls. It was also, in all honesty, food for the spirit and the mind.

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