COLLECTING MATERIAL

'... a mélée of romantic and selective modern language ...'

Utilising the unusual -
with BASIL RAMSEY

With two biggish works following each other in brittle classic moulds yielding unclassic sounds and mixed in a mélée of romantic and selective modern language, one needs to ponder the result.

Jan Järvlepp's Garbage Concerto is skating on thin ice title-wise, and Imants Kalnins' 'Rock' Symphony, as with all these hybrids, must have required much fine tuning of form and content. That said, both composers are professional and provide the result of painstaking thought and work.

The concerto's garbage collection is the stuff we all regularly dump -- glass jars, cans and plastic bottles. Yes, they can all make sounds and can attract somewhat confused attention when given a rise in social status. Järvlepp admits the challenge of kitchen percussion, and presumably puts it to use as a 'wild' element requiring some discipline. The outer movements are therefore relentless to a point of obsession [listen -- track 1, 1:45-2:45], with some variety of colour. It is left to the second movement for the quiet chuff of blowing across bottle tops, a rather weird yet not unpleasant effect, especially in chords [listen -- track 2, 0:00-0:55].

The Latvian rock symphony proclaims a different relentless momentum. Basic material is simple, easily absorbed, and forces the ear to a compensatory resistance for the steady proliferation of elements that then overwhelm [listen -- track 4, 4:00-4:50]. Variety in the second movement takes some diversionary manoeuvres, all of which make their point. Overall, a strange mix of elements bound together with some skill and invention.

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.