Aerial view of the Festival of Contemporary Music, at Tanglewood. All FCM programs this summer were held in the open-air Shed. Here, Kevin Fitzgerald leads a TMC ensemble in Xinyang Wang’s “Between the Resonating Abysses,” during the opening chamber concert on July 25, 2021. Hilary Scott photography
At least it happened.
The year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, a standard bearer for new voices in music since the 1950s, took the stage in the Shed this summer for just three concerts, rather than its usual half-dozen.
In 2020 FCM didn’t happen at all, so this abbreviated festival, under post-pandemic restrictions, still felt like a blessing. As always, the music was performed entirely by the Tanglewood Music Center fellows.
At Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, everything felt smaller. Reduced to six long weekends, the BSO played all concerts at half-attendance in the voluminous, open-air Shed. There were no vocal concerts, and no intermissions.
FCM was curated for the third time by the BSO’s artistic partner, Thomas Adès. Although this year’s sample size was small, Adès strove for range: a dozen composers, from seven countries; thirteen works in all, from two women and ten men.
Composer Matthew Aucoin recently wrote that Ades was “one of the most influential musicians of the early twenty-first century—for his fellow composers in particular.” It’s hard to argue with that, and it gives an oversized importance to Adès’s choices at FCM.
But no judgements should be rendered on Adès’s choices for 2021. Firstly, after a year off, many old promises had to be kept. Adès barely had a dozen slots to fill.
He chose composers born from the 1920s through 1980s. Almost all the works were composed after 1990. Judith Weir, Andrew Norman, Sean Shepherd and György Kürtág—along with Adès’s works as well—had all been previously featured in Adès’s FCM repertory choices.
Adès added works from Steve Reich, Kaija Saariaho, Per Nørgård, Jeffrey Mumford, György Ligeti, Andrew Haig and Xinyang Wang (b. 1989), whom Adès met through 2020’s Toru Takemitsu composer competition.
FCM always gets jammed into the BSO’s regular Tanglewood schedule, but this year’s programs—a Sunday morning concert, then Monday afternoon and evening—felt more ghettoized than ever.
Sunday’s opener, well-attended even though the enormous Shed seemed empty, featured four works. It began with Sean Shepherd’s “Seagulls on High,” the slow movement from his 2007 Cleveland Orchestra commission “Wanderlust.” An ensemble piece with a swirling, hovering effect, it served as an overture to the festival.
It was followed by Andrew Haig’s “Replacing,” a joint commission from the Tanglewood Music Center and the Gewandhaus Orchester, premiered in Leipzig this June. Conducting fellow Adam Hickox led the ensemble.
No movements were marked in this 20-minute piece, but multiple distinctive moods unfolded: an extended ppp percussion figure to open; a brassy Ives texture that followed; an exotic pastoral section, with congas; and at the end, a buzzing, unison dis-chord that coalesced, then dissolved into noise. The part-writing was dense, multiple modulations heightening the atmosphere.
A world premiere of Xinyang Wang’s string ensemble piece “Between the Resonating Abysses” revealed an engaging, integrated compositional language.
Conducting fellow Kevin Fitzgerald led the highly textural work, a unique imagining of what a string ensemble can sound like. Remembering the tragic events of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, near where the composer grew up in Guangyuan, Xinyang Wang uses the swirling atmospheric textures of Debussy—with a jagged edge.
It looked like a tough conduct. Everyone has an independent part, and with the density and shifting tempos—Fitzgerald didn’t skip a downbeat, and the players needed that.
Kaija Saariaho’s “Graal théâtre” stands as an inspired representative of a contemporary concerto. Realized here in bravura style by violinist Momo Wong, and conducted by Fitzgerald, “Graal théâtre” is Saariaho’s reworking of the grail legend.
Momo Wong and the TMC orchestra performed the chamber version (1997) of “Graal théâtre.” The work premiered in 1994, with Gidon Kremer its first champion.
Saariaho’s international reputation rests comfortably on her stage works, notably the opera “L’amour de loin.” She has had a long relationship with the BSO, and the orchestra premieres her “Saarikoski Songs” this upcoming season.
“Graal théâtre” has the virtuosic challenges soloists thrive on, and the sonic attractiveness audiences ease into. An extended two-movement concerto, with single instruments sitting on a part, the orchestral colors are spare. In this chamber version the brass and winds gain some advantage over the single strings.
The solo part is virtuosic, overwhelming the ensemble in most sections. The two movements, Delicato and Impetuoso, are as different as their markings suggest. Even the structure of the second movement seems impetuous: it begins with a cadenza, and has multiple soloist diversions throughout.
Yukiko Tagaki and Steven Drury, backs to the audience, perform Andrew Norman’s “Frank’s House” with percussionists Ben Cornavaca (l) and David Riccobono, on July 26, 2021 during the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood. Hilary Scott photography
A sense of play characterized much of FCM’s middle program on Monday afternoon. Although its breadth of voices—from Kürtág to Weir to Adès to Norman—transcended a single mood, the pervasive sense of fun filled the Shed.
First, Nørgård’s sixty-second “Hut Ab!”
Then Adès’s own “Origin of the Harp,” which includes no harp.
Kürtág’s “Hommage à Paganini,” consisting of un-notated palm-banging along the keyboard.
Or Norman’s concert-closing “Frank’s House,” for two pianos and junk-yard percussionists.
Nørgård’s whisky-shot “Hut Ab!” (Hat Off) certainly set the comic mood.
“Hut Ab!” pits two clarinets echoing each other (hockets) outrageously—for the brief time it takes the audience to get settled.
A one-minute work makes a perfect concert opener. Those in the know are alert.
Those who aren’t get instilled with a sense of shame, for having missed out, and pay attention for the remainder of the performance. TMC clarinetists Jakob Lenhardt and Sangwon Lee traded at least a dozen leads, which also marked modulations, in this energetically wired duet from 1988.
Jeffrey Mumford’s “a garden of flourishing paths,” from 2008, was written as a centenary tribute to Mumford’s mentor, Elliott Carter. Eight short movements were distinctly Carter-like—angular, with a disinterest in tonality/atonality—but even more concise.
The quintet—flute, viola, cello, percussion and piano—needed conductor Adam Hickox. Textures shifted movement to movement, as different instruments stood out or joined forces. A taut surface sat over richer depths. A short Sonoro movement, a duet for piano (Barry Tan) and percussion (Jack Rutledge), stirred. The last movement (marked Sparso) epitomized them all: sparse indeed, but not detached.
Three clarinets, three violas and three cellos are joined by one percussionist—with enough gear for three, including water percussion—in Adès’s “The Origin of the Harp” (1994). The work was inspired by a contemporary painting, depicting the transformation of a nymph into a harp.
The 1990s were a particularly fruitful period for the always-fruitful composer, with breakthrough works including the chamber setting “Living Toys,” “Asyla” (for orchestra), the chamber opera “Powder Her Face,” and the quartet “Arcadiana.”
Adès also ignores the dichotomy tonal/atonal, which seems like a good idea. Unusual textures in the winds, pizzicatos and high harmonics in the strings, and the water-like sounds in the percussion aimed for an atmosphere of metamorphosis.
Mythological subject aside, this is not the high Romanticism of Adès’s “O Albion,” but thorny, eventful writing, offering only brief clues to larger ideas and then moving on. Dramatic conclusions to phrases suddenly appear from no phrase at all—illuminating what preceded.
Selections from György Kürtág’s ten-volume “Játékok” (Games) served as homage. Five works from his vast musical notebooks were realized by pianists Mathilde Handelsman and faculty Stephen Drury. Xin He’s offstage horn sounded a melancholy echo in the last of the five short movements.
Kürtág (b. 1926) persists, and his comprehensive “Játékok” brims with works to explore. Two pianos onstage provided a visual reminder of the composer’s closest collaborator, his wife Márta, who died in 2019.
The five selections were lovely and brief, ending with Kürtág’s “Hommage à Paganini,” thirty seconds of un-virtuosic palm playing, player’s choice, up and down the keyboard.
Handelsman was joined by Barry Tan for Weir’s “Ardnamurchan Point,” a misty tone poem conjuring the Hebrides coast.
Andrew Norman’s tribute to Frank Gehry, “Frank’s House” (2015), evokes the discombobulation of Gehry’s L.A. home, a confusing mix of high and low culture.
Two Steinways, lids off, posed side-by-side incongruously center-stage, keys facing the audience. They sat in the middle of an urban vacant: chain-link fence, wooden pallets, paper bags, and lots of garbage can–sounding percussion.
The quartet—Drury and Yukiko Takagi on pianos, with percussionists Ben Cornavaca and David Riccobono—hammed it up.
The pianists played with some extended techniques, together and alone. The percussionists ripped bags, crumpled paper, made shocking trash crashes, forced the pianists to play musical Red Rover, and mostly disrupted anything remotely serious. “Frank’s House” makes for perfect festival entertainment—all flash and crash, none of that brooding artist stuff.
Stefan Asbury conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra on July 26, 2021 in the Shed at Tanglewood, in “Reich/Richter,” composed by Steve Reich, film by Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz. One had to turn away to focus on the music, and maintain sanity. Hilary Scott photography
Monday’s concluding program featured Nørgård’s “Drømmespiel” (Dream Play), Ligeti’s violin concerto, and a film/music presentation composed by Steve Reich, “Reich/Richter.”
“Drømmespiel” offered a sequence of warring episodes. Half-a-dozen dream sequences, some lucid, some not, had contrasting textures, tempos and moods. TMC fellow Kevin Fitzgerald conducted.
György Ligeti’s violin concerto bookended Saariaho’s “Graal théâtre,” performed Monday. The Ligeti was conducted by Adès, his only stage appearance of the festival, joined by the outstanding violinist Anthony Marwood.
Both works, from the same decade, were brutally challenging—rigorous bowing techniques, strange pitch after strange pitch needing articulation, intense relationships with stage-mates.
Marwood explored, with his own expansive range enhanced microtonally by ocarinas. The trio of ocarinas even stood during fourth-movement Passacaglia, accenting their place as occasional soloists.
In five stirring movements, Ligeti builds a disturbingly arch sonic bubble, and stays in it.
Marwood shone in so many passages, particularly in the virtuosic, elegiac aria that opened the second movement.
Ligeti creates such a demanding pitch-world—some players were covering their ears, not for volume but for the shrieking, stretched tones—that when the pressure relents even a little, the tension vanishes. Adès contributed a culminating cadenza, as Ligeti suggests to other composers in the score. It was more like a coda, movement-length in ideas, structure—and length. The orchestra returned for one final quiet measure.
Steve Reich “Reich/Richter” was premiered in the other Shed—in New York, in June 2019. “Reich/Richter” is the soundtrack to “Moving Picture,” a collaboration with Reich, visual artist Gerhard Richter and filmmaker Corinna Belz.
Reich writes Reich. The work bears his elongated phrases, powered melodically here by a pair of non-stop marimbas. It’s a meditative, undulating score, made much less interesting by the visual accompaniment.
The music grows through long, stretched notes, expanding into phrases, slowly coalescing for the listener. The video opens with an entire screen of with horizontal colored lines, kaleidoscopes symmetrically into complex shapes, then lazily returns to the original stripes. Over the span of a half-hour. One had to turn away to focus on the music, and maintain sanity.
Although not officially part of FCM, the world premiere of John Williams’s second violin concerto on Saturday evening in the Shed provided another facet to the new-music weekend. Anne-Sophie Mutter, the dedicatee, realized the demanding solo part beautifully, and the composer conducted. Mutter was supported by harpist Jessica Zhou, BSO principal, who joined her at the front of the stage.
The concerto is a substantial work, leaning heavily on the soloist. It sounds aggressively quirky. Multiple cadenzas are sprinkled throughout, and the four listed movements were distinguished by changing moods, not pauses. The soloist dominates ideas, interspersed by several harp duets, and timpani duet (with BSO principal Timothy Genis) that leads to a late cadenza.
At its climax, Mutter plays alone, as softly and slowly as possible.
This second violin concerto—Gil Shaham has championed the first (1974/98)—joins concertos by Williams for cello, harp, tuba, bassoon, flute, trumpet and clarinet, a substantial catalog that joins the supersized catalog of popular film scores.
The 2021 Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, curated by BSO artistic partner Thomas Adès, ran July 25 and 26. Select programs from the 2021 BSO Tanglewood season are available for streaming at BSO/Now.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Leonore Overture and Musical America. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.