Classical review: Bang On A Can and Theatre of Voices

Published on Friday 30 October 2009 18:22

PERTH CONCERT HALL ****

THE UK premiere of David Lang's Pulitzer prize-winning The Little Match Girl Passion, a joint commission by Perth Concert Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York, was the centrepiece of this concert. Simplicity is the keynote of Lang's score for four voices with minimal (at times almost subliminal) percussion, played by the singers.

Paul Hillier conducted Theatre of Voices in a refined performance of a work based on Hans Christian Andersen's tragic story, cast in a scaled-down model based on Bach's St Matthew Passion, in which Lang alternates narrative and commentary with gospel passages. The delicate vocal textures were often very beautiful, and Lang built in ample variation within his beguiling structure.

The other vocal work, Berio's A-Ronne (1974), unravelled an impressive array of avant-garde vocal techniques around Edoardo Sanguineti's collage of found texts, but felt very much of its time.

The vocal music was flanked by two sets of instrumental music from Bang On A Can and the Talujon Percussion Quartet.

The opening piece, Julia Wolfe's Dark Full Ride for four drummers, combined rhythmic precision with subtle percussive colours. The other works were all by Steve Reich. Clarinetist Evan Ziporyn fluffed a couple of notes in an otherwise poised performance of New York Counterpoint; drummers David Cossin and Michael Lipsey again brought crisp precision to Music for Pieces of Wood, and the full ensemble dispatched the substantial Sextet in impressive style.