On the Cutting Edge
Music evolves as new styles, sounds and playing techniques develop. Also evolving at the same time are the technical means of delivering music to listeners. Music lovers today have CDs, internet downloads and streaming audio/video
broadcasts—not to mention the incredible world of youtube.com, along with live performances—allowing unprecedented access to works from all over the planet.
A new CD/DVD package has found its way into my hands. The two-disc set is entitled Big Eye and features music
performed by Erik Bosgraaf (recorders, PVC tubes, sax–recorder, double flute) and Izhar Elias (guitars). The CD includes 10 pieces by both modern masters (Toru Takemitsu and Giacinto Scelsi) and younger composers (Naomi Sato, Tomi Räisänen, Gabriele Manca, Luca Cori, Antti Auvinen and Matijs de Roo). The DVD includes five short films with soundtrack music played by Bosgraaf and Elias, plus a short live performance clip. Production values are excellent: great
sound, crisp video and plenty of supplemental material on the CD label’s web site, <www.phenomrecords.nl>. This is
a new label, based in The Netherlands, homeland of both of the musicians. Bosgraaf was born in Drachten in 1980, and has studied recorder with Pia Elsdörfer at the North-Netherlands Conservatory, subsequently studying with
Walter van Hauwe and Paul Leenhouts at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Elias was born in Amsterdam in 1977, and has studied at conservatories in The Netherlands and in Italy.
It is obvious from the superb performances on Big Eye that Bosgraaf is another tremendous recorder talent from The Netherlands. His playing is bold and colorful, virtuosic and highly expressive. He is currently working on “The Around
the Globe Project,” which entails facilitating the creation of new pieces for recorder and guitar from composers around the world. Big Eye demonstrates this by featuring composers from Japan, Finland, Italy and The Netherlands. I look forward to the emergence of further new works from this project. Bosgraaf is perfectly partnered with guitarist Elias. All of the pieces on the CD are real duos that never descend to the level of recorder with guitar accompaniment. And everything is worth hearing. Among the younger composers’
works, I particularly enjoyed A Truth under a Fake Sun by Sato, a 2005 composition that makes an effective opening
fanfare for the CD; and the wonderfully wild and percussive Duo di Follia, composed in 1998 by Manca. The real treasures, at least to my ears, are the performances of the two classics: Takemitsu’s Towards the Sea (1980/1981)
and Scelsi’s Maknongan from 1976. Scelsi’s music sounds like no one else’s: his method of composing in his later years involved improvising on keyboard instruments while faithful assistants transcribed the playing. Maknongan, his last composition, is for any low instrument, according to the composer. I have heard performances on tuba, string bass,
and contra bass clarinet; Bosgraaf plays the work on subcontra bass recorder.The sound, with echoes of tugboat and ocean liner horns, is truly memorable. The Takemitsu, originally for alto flute and guitar, is music of extraordinary
sweetness and impressionistic subtlety. Bosgraaf has effectively adapted the flute part to the recorder (the instrument he plays sounds like a bass recorder to me),
and there is no reason why this version shouldn’t become as widely accepted as the original, which has achieved classic
status among flutists. I may be biased, but to my ears the music is even more lovely on recorder than on flute.
Among the videos, the standout for me is Echoes of the Dunbar by Australian guitarist/composer Richard Charlton. Both the accompanying music and video for this 2006 work are by Charlton. The straightforwardly eloquent images evoke the wreck of the clipper ship “Dunbar” that foundered below Macquarie Lighthouse in Sydney, Australia, in 1857. One hundred and twenty people perished. The composer/filmmaker writes, “I live very near to the spot where this tragedy occurred and this work is a ‘resonance’
or an echo of those events. I have used an old English tune, ‘The Rigged Ship’ within the work and have built up other folk-like tunes of my own invention around this.” This music
provides a great contrast to most of the other pieces in the project, and it is no less effectively played by Bosgraaf and Elias.
This wonderful new release is highly recommended!
Tim Broege <timbroege@aol.com>
Review appeared in September 2007
copyright 2007 - American Recorder/ Tim Broege