Tuesday evening in Temerty Theatre Brian Current and the GGS New Music Ensemble presented a three work programme that covered more or less the whole time span of composers writing “sounds rather than notes”; which is an interesting and useful way of thinking about this particular type of music.

We began with the world premiere of Christina Volpini’s Ways of Becoming.  This is a concertante piece for violin and chamber orchestra but doesn’t much resemble the conventional idea of a “concerto”.  There’s no flashy, or even particularly prominent, part for the violin soloist; here Joelle Crigger.  Rather the violin “reaches out” with sustained and occasionally distorted notes to dialogue with the ensemble or with groups of instruments.  The overall effect is quite eerie and mysterious.  It reminded me of Pelléas et Mélisande (though the musical language is utterly different!) and my partner of a marshy plain.  Curiously the harp has a role that sometimes seems more prominent than the violin and involves extended technique and even singing.

Then we were back to the roots of this kind of music with Edgard Varèse’s Offrandes of 1921.  This is scored for large ensemble, six percussionists and soprano.  It sets poems by José Juan Tablada and Vicente Huidobro but if the composer was writing “sounds rather than notes” I don’t think he was much concerned with the words either!  It’s very much a transitional work.  There are echoes of late Romanticism but also, especially where passages are percussion heavy, the sense that is being left behind.  The soprano part is a bit of a brute and it was very well handled by Daniela Carreon Herrera.

And to finish, a work that even by contemporary standards is avant-garde; Clara Iannotta’s a stir among the stars, a making way (2019-20) which is scored for large ensemble and nine cassette players; though these latter were replaced with a tape for this performance.  The “point” of this piece is that no instrument was being played in the way one normally hears it; guitars and brass were bowed, winds were struck or styrofam was inserted and so on.  The use of pre-recorded sounds and electric guitar blurred the line between acoustic and electronic sonic worlds.  The strange thing is that it didn’t, ultimately, sound particularly weird.  There were weird individual components but the overall effect was surprisingly gentle and rather beautiful.  Maybe it’s all in what one listens to and how?

As ever with this group’s concert there was terrific musicianship on show and the experience was greatly enhanced by Brian Current’s insightful and humane introductory remarks.