October 1, 2021
livestreamed video
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC
Frank Schultz, lap steel; Scott Burland, Theremin.
A program of improvisation.
(Reviewed via internet stream.)
Giorgio Koukl | 1 OCT 2021
On Thursday, September 30, Black Montan College Museum and Arts Center presented a performance by Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel: musicians Scott Burland playing Theremin and Frank Schultz playing a lap steel guitar in an improvisation session.
Back Mountain College is well known for the presence of John Cage during the fifties, which created a fair amount of entirely new approaches to music still in use today; it is only logical to expect excellence in less traditional musical genres.
Let’s say it right at the beginning: Shultz and Burland are observably accustomed to playing together, with no or minimal eye contact, yet being able perfectly well to create huge arches of sound masses, which have their logic and consistency and also a certain degree of development—if in such sort of music that is the right word.
I have to confess that I had to research “lap steel,” this being a not-so-usual instrument here in Europe. Mr. Schultz played it in both possible ways, touching the chords with a metal tube known as a “guitar slide” or using a classical violin bow.
It was precisely one hundred years ago when a young Russian inventor named Leon Theremin (or better Lev Sergeyevich Termen) invented the first musical instrument playable without any physical contact. It is also regarded today as the first electronic musical instrument. Mr. Theremin was not a musician, and his main interest was in developing the first television for the USSR. He was also an inventor of “The Thing,” a listening device used for espionage targeting the American Embassy in Moscow.
A few years later, in Paris, France, Mr. Maurice Martenot invented a somewhat similar device called Ondes Martenot, which in its frequent use by the musicians of that period, like Messiaen, Honegger, Milhaud, and many others, became far better known than Theremin. This was due in part to the plain refusal of Leon Theremin to allow mass production of his invention.
Mr. Theremin had quite an adventurous life, touring Europe extensively to demonstrate his invention. He finally decided to remain in the USA, where he continued to make some changes to his instrument, partly with the help of the great physicist Albert Einstein who was also an amateur violinist.
At a certain point, Leon Theremin disappeared, somebody supposed even kidnapped and imprisoned in one of Siberia’s most terrible Gulag prisons. He managed to survive and, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, even briefly returned to the USA.
Today a few theremin players still use his invention, Scott Burland being one of them. Mr. Burland uses a straightforward technique of producing sound, with no finger virtuosics, probably to merge better into the Lap Steel sound.
Anyway, seeing Mr. Burland moving his hands mysteriously in the space has something of magic or maybe evoking Tom Cruise in the film Minority Report. This music inevitably produces a sense of marine images; one could easily accompany it with old Jacques Cousteau underwater films of the sixties.
Both musicians use a highly complex computer enhancement system to obtain a seductive sound cloud consisting mainly of a persistent chord with tiny variations.
This hypnotic music is very apt to start psychedelic visions. After a while, the listener begins to produce images in his head. Maybe some Kandinsky mixed with the old psychiatric device called Rorschach test cards, perhaps some strange underwater worlds. It depends on what your fantasy can create from this music.
Maybe it is better this way because a less sensible listener could easily get distracted after less than five minutes.
What I missed most was any form of pulsation, or any readily apparent rhythmic element. To make a parallel with cooking: there must be a mixture of different tastes or sensations in a meal to obtain a great experience. I listened to precedent CDs of this group. They are really great when mixing other ingredients, like voice or other instruments; it is fundamentally riskier to have “electronic” sound sources only.
That said, the effort of Schultz and Burland was a successful one using the means they had available. ■
Giorgio Koukl is a Czech-born pianist/harpsichordist and composer who resides in Lugano, Switzerland. Among his many recordings are the complete solo piano works and complete piano concertos of Bohuslav Martinů on the Naxos label. He has also recorded the piano music of Tansman, Lutosławski, Kapralova, and A. Tcherepnin, amongst others, for the Grand Piano label. Koukl has most recently completed recording the solo piano music of Hungarian composer Tibor Harsányi.
(photo: Chiara Solari)
RECENT POSTS
.png){kind=logo}