175 East at Hopetoun Alpha

Reviewed by William Dart


It is frustrating to wait until late June for the first concert of 175 East's 2004 season, but Sunday night's programme was ample reward for the patient.

With an ensemble of up to eight players, director James Gardner presented the usual sampling of sounds from the cutting edge.

Of the three New Zealand commissions, Rachel Clement's txt msgs explored the dark side of droll, its feisty messaging between Ingrid Culliford's flute and Gretchen Dunsmore's clarinet was delivered at a speed that phoning fingers could never replicate.

Dorothy Ker's le kaleidoscope de l'obscurite opened the evening, a shortish piece showing the composer's skill in caressing sound out of her four instruments.

Ker mixes poetry and piquant humour, Proustian reflections alongside Satie-like stipulations to "build texture without hesitation like a washing machine building up to a spin".

175 East followed them all to the last semiquaver.

At the other end of the evening Dylan Lardelli's bas revealed the rare gift of ebb and flow. There was eloquent solo playing from cellist Katherine Hebley, but the heart of the piece lay in the natural, effervescent counterpoint between the three woodwind players.

Of the two international offerings, Bryn Harrison's Octet, subtitled "study in variation and repetition", presented all eight instruments slipping and sliding around the one musical turf. For the players it was a study in articulation, magnificently achieved; for the audience it was an absorbing, if testing, sonic immersion.

This concert was the long-awaited "Night of the Microscores" - throughout the programme, 175 East delivered 25 half-minute scores that had been composed especially for the group, sound bytes with verve, ingenuity and a welcome dash of humour.

Tim Sutton's Dogtroep had a group howl dissolving into a cello phrase that could have slipped off a page by Richard Strauss, while Chris Watson's Waltz was a twitchy, jittery delight.

Over and over again, brevity proved to be the true parent of invention. And, in an evening where dissonance largely ruled, the emotional concentration and telling chordal progressions of John Elmsly's Micro-lament reminded us there is as much to be gained from occasionally looking back as constantly striving forward.