Kafkaesque, in a good way
The repertoire for soprano and solo violin isn’t
large, but it does contain the masterful ‘Kafka
Fragments.’
MUSIC REVIEW
Los Angeles Times
January 9, 2007
By Mark Swed, Times Staff Writer
([email protected])
Ever claustrophobic, Kafka could not stomach big words. "If uttered by
a young woman, breathlessly," the marvelous Italian writer Roberto
Calasso notes in his magisterial recent study of the writer, "he had
the impression that they emerged ‘like fat mice from her little
mouth.’ "
That image alone should be enough to scare composers away from setting
Kafka texts, what with music’s fondness for fattening every
syllable. And how many young sopranos are willing to accept rotund
rodents as a side effect of song?
No Kafka-inspired opera has stuck. It might be tempting to argue that
Kafka simply does not call for music, were Gyorgy Kurtag’s "Kafka
Fragments" for the unusual combination of soprano and solo violin not
a masterpiece. Introducing a performance of the hourlong cycle at the
Colburn School’s Zipper Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon, violinist
Movses Pogossian aptly noted the difficulty in discovering just where
the Czech writer ends and the Hungarian composer begins.
Written in 1986, "Kafka Fragments" was immediately recognized as
something special. But so demanding on performers and so draining on
listeners is this cycle of 40 short musical incidents (ranging from
around 15 seconds to 7 minutes) that it was rarely encountered until
recently.
Two years ago, Peter Sellars staged it for soprano Dawn Upshaw and
violinist Geoff Nuttall as the devastating psychosexual inner life of
a wife cleaning house, watching Iraq disintegrate on television and
falling apart. Last year, in honor of Kurtag’s 80th birthday, ECM
released a new recording by Juliane Banse and Andras Keller of the
"Fragments" as intensely focused understated drama.
Pogossian, an Armenian violinist, and a young American soprano, Tony
Arnold, are now touring the "Fragments" in preparation for another new
recording on Bridge Records. Their powerful performance Sunday was
part of Dilijan, a chamber music series for which Pogossian is
artistic director.
Dilijan, named for a resort town in Armenia, has the mission of
furthering Armenian music, and Pogossian began the program with three
short works connected in one way or another to Armenia. All three were
also meant to further the soprano/violin duo repertory, of which there
isn’t much.
But first some praise for Pogossian, who is a terrific violinist. He
has the flair and the huge technique of a Romantic-era specialist, a
virtuosity and magnetism that he applies to newer music. Dilijan is an
ambitious and interesting series, which draws excellent musicians. But
its main flaw is that it thus far doesn’t seem to promote itself
outside the Armenian community. That is enough to fill about half the
415-seat Zipper. These concerts, and particularly Pogossian, deserve
much wider exposure.
The three introductory pieces were intriguing if minor. John
Asatryan’s "Dou Merzhetsir" was an arrangement for violin and soprano
of a somber work by a midcentury Armenian composer. Paolo Cavallone’s
"Frammenti Lirici" and Artur Avanesov’s "In Luys" were world premieres
by young composers. The first is an Italian avant-gardist’s
deconstruction of an Armenian tune used in Berio’s "Folk Songs." The
second is a rhapsodic rendering of Kilikian folk song with an
especially memorable violin part.
"Kafka Fragments" is a journey, and that is how Arnold and Pogossian
approached it. Arnold is an impressive singer, with operatic
projection and tremendous flexibility. She has recently made a very
good recording of George Crumb’s "Ancient Voices for Children," which
has been nominated for a Grammy. In the first half of the program she
was commanding.
The Kafka fragments selected by Kurtag from diary entries are
individual peerings into both the composer’s and the writer’s inner
life. Sunday’s performance seemed to separate the two.
Pogossian’s characterful, concentrated playing conveyed the complex
context that Kurtag give his music, cross-referencing earlier
composers, paying tributes to contemporaries and conveying his own
concentrated inner sound world.
Arnold, though, is more an overt illustrator. Some fragments go off
like bombs. "Slept, woke, slept, woke, miserable life" – the musical
shards are soft, shockingly loud, soft, shockingly loud. She sings
with her body, her face, her eyes, which can be very effective in a
Schubert song cycle.
But what I most missed was the deeper meaning of this journey. Arnold
appeared unchanged by Kurtag and Kafka. An hour passed by the
clock. Many small stories were told, many fat mice flew out of her
mouth. Then time was up. It should feel as though time slows down.
Unlike Arnold, Upshaw became a new and different, wiser and deeper
woman, and an audience could be altered too, after a clock-stopping
Kafka-Kurtag immersion.
Still, the dedication and attention to detail by Arnold and Pogossian
was moving, and I look forward to the recording. All Arnold really
needs is a good drama coach who doubles as a Kafkaesque exterminator.
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