26 Oct 2010

James GARDNER: Blessed Unrest

From Resound, 7:30 pm on 26 October 2010

This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.

James Gardner

James Gardner Photo: by Stephen Compton

This work by James Gardner is called Blessed Unrest, and it's written for a trio of violin, cello and piano. His investigation of extremes of colour, timbre, rhythm, dynamics and nuance is of prime importance, so the notation of detail in the score is highly complex and admirably meticulous. In short, this work is really difficult to perform. The skill and dedication demonstrated by NZTrio in the performance you are about to hear is beyond commendable. I’ve spent some time with James' score and I can assure you that their attention to detail is honest and accurate.

The work has a multitude of glissandi, various types of accents, many sudden changes of dynamic; a myriad of bowing effects, trills, tremolos; constant complex asymmetric time signature changes; technically fiendish passage work for all instruments - and on top of all this, the strings have to play microtones on a regular basis.

The end result of all this complexity in performance is what I know James will have been after; a piece that sounds almost like an improvisation, creating, as he puts it, "a sense of pent-up energy and its release in bursts".

In contrast to those bursts Gardner also presents us with softer, gentler textures where the cello joins the violin in its upper register as they glissando their way, almost in unison, through an implied melodic motive above atmospheric, pianissimo cluster harmonies in the piano.

The title Blessed Unrest comes from a statement by the American choreographer Martha Graham, about the concept of artistic expression:

"You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is ever pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

James Gardner is probably best known, in New Zealand, for forming the Auckland contemporary music ensemble 175 East in 1996. Until recently James was their Music Director and for 13 years he oversaw numerous top-drawer première performances of works by both New Zealand and overseas composers, which have gained the ensemble an undeniably deserved international reputation.

Since moving here from England in 1994 his own compositional achievements have been many, but he wasn’t always on the path of writing contemporary "classical" music.

Through the 1980s and early 90s Gardner worked with various pop music groups in the UK, and co-founded Apollo 440 in 1990. However in 1993 he decided to devote himself to composition, coming under the influence of Brian Ferneyhough and the wider "New Complexity" school.

This must have been a pivotal time in his career as I sense these influences in his more recent music too. New Complexity is a term dating from the 1980s for composers seeking a multi-layered interplay of extended techniques, usually abstract and relatively dissonant in sound.

- Kenneth Young

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