Extremely high standards

Taking pride of place in the series of Contemporary Sounds within the Malta Arts Festival was a concert portraying the contemporary music scene on the island by a selection of works by Maltese composers of today performed by local chamber ensembles, held at the La Vittoria Bastion - Ospizio in Floriana.

It was very heartening to see that both entities - composers and performers - are mushrooming healthily on the island and just as importantly that they are being given a worthy space and opportunity to make themselves heard. It was also interesting to note that the standard was extremely high and made very pleasant listening even within a limited selection due to constrictions of time.

As stated in the programme, the selection of works presented a versatile approach to contemporary music composition and consisted of different facets of this, ie embellishment of folk material (Charles Camilleri and Albert Garcia), rhythmic permutations (Pawlu Grech), serialism (Joseph Vella) and fushion (Raymond Sciberras and Ruben Zahra). This diverse contemporary expression places the Maltese composer within a wider international context and reflects the trend developed by other European composers.

Pianist Tricia Dawn Williams played Pawlu Grech's Due Movimenti assertively, giving due importance to the persistently ostinato rhythm in the left hand, while the right hand expressed the melody. The Cosmos Wind Ensemble (Rebecca Hall - flute, John MacDonough - oboe, Godfrey Mifsud - clarinet, Ulrike Buhlman - bassoon) interpreted Albert Garcia's The Fishmonger and The Farmer with gusto. The first, reminiscent of the cries and calls of its namesake was jolly and fresh in its idiom. The prominent bassoon punctuated the entire piece with a steady rhythmic declaration of its presence - an element consequently echoed by the rest of the ensemble. Written in the same style, the second piece too was characterised by some marked punctuation, clearly highlighting the cohesion of the group as a whole.

The Denner Clarinet Quartet (Lino Pirotta, William Debattista, Neville Pace and Christopher Camilleri) next performed Raymond Sciberras's Tangible Illusions. In three movements, the piece was gripping, characterised by an ongoing dialogue between the four clarinets, with the central more lento movement manifesting traits of Ghana within a presto movimentato framework of the two outer movements. Joseph Vella's Segments No. 1, played by Robert Calleja - flute, Tatjana Chircop - violin and Ms Dawn Williams - piano, expressively started off with an interesting dialogue between violin and flute soon to be taken up by the piano, after which it developed into more robust ensemble playing. After a similar pattern, the piece moved towards its finale in which the piano asserted its major role before the entire piece came to an abrupt ending.

Three folk songs from Malta, Charles Camilleri's Il-Qarinża, Takriba, and Il-Kapċipa, performed by Lino Pirotta on the clarinet and Ms Dawn Williams on the piano, manifested the composer's kinship to Maltese folkloristic roots which were expressed in his typically later more unconventional style. The clarinet is endowed with a major role which took the form of a pleading motif as the performance developed and which was soon to be taken up by the piano.

The second part of the programme was dedicated entirely to the première of Mr Zahra's Pan the Goat-god, an interdisciplinary piece performed by the Crossbreed Ensemble (Mr Calleja - flute, Mr Pirotta - clarinet, Ms Chircop - violin, Ms Dawn Williams - piano and Paul Borg - tuba) in collaboration with visual artist Austin Camilleri. The setting lent itself very well to the presentation with the musical performers seated on stage while Pan (Adrian Azzopardi), suggestively sporting goat-hair agilely, leapt up and down a steep flight of steps and sprawled across a crude bastion wall by way of backdrop, serving also as a screen for a video projection of dancer Arlette Mangion who portrayed Syrinx to words by Manuel Cauchi.

The music to the piece was sinister, just as Pan was menacing so that the atmosphere evoked was ominous. Visually arresting, the piece worked well as a whole - one would have to judge whether the music would retain its attraction if the visual effects were to be removed.