May 13, 2022 @ 8:00pm
Florence Kopleff Recital Hall
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Stuart Gerber, percussion, with special guest Harvey Warner, marimba
Annea LOCKWOOD: Amazonia Dreaming
Anna IGNATOWICZ-GLIŃSKA: Passacaglia
Pantera Trio (percussionists Khesner Oliveira, Victor Pons, and Noah Samuelson)
Wolfgang RHIM: Stück
Wenchi TSAI: Comme la rosée, aussi com l’eclair
Steven SNOWDEN: A Man with a Gun Lives Here
Carlos STASI: Dimensões
Karel GOEYVAERTS: Litany II
Iannis XENAKIS: Ohko
Jon Ciliberto | 18 MAY 2022
Competition in music is typically understood in terms of either commerce (who is number one on the charts) or awards (which generally follows commerce rather closely). There are, however, performance-based competitions. Beyond the ubiquitous Eurosong competition, there are many historically deep competitions for classical music performers. Arts competitions were part of the Olympic games from their modern revival until 1952. Pianist Van Cliburn, of course, shocked the world and made his mark by winning the first Tchaikovsky competition in 1958 in Moscow.
On Friday evening, Pantera Trio, an Atlanta trio purpose-built for the Luxembourg 2022 Percussion Trio Competition performed a warmup for that July 16-24th competition, working through six pieces at Georgia State University under the banner of the final concert of the season for Bent Frequency, GSU’s ensemble in residence. The evening had a “support our local group” feeling. Bent Frequency co-director Stuart Gerber suggested that donations for the Pantera Trio’s travel costs could be sent through Bent Frequency’s website (add a note via the PayPal link to direct the funds to the Pantera Trio).
The Luxembourg competition “is open to all percussion trios, without distinction of nationality, the total age of their members being limited to 93 (ninety-three) years (included) by 12 February 2022; members of the trio must not be born before 12 February 1985.” All three members of the Pantera Trio (Khesner Oliveira, Victor Pons, and Noah Samuelson) were once students of Dr. Gerber, and one (Pons) is now a professor of percussion at GSU.
Following two pieces, one performed by Gerber, the other by Gerber and special guest Harvey Warner, the remainder of the program was performed by the Pantera Trio.
Passacaglia, composed by Anna Ignatowicz-Glińska, is for vibraphone and marimba (2003). The similar but different timbres of the two instruments are skillfully interwoven, moving from a leitmotif of echo-repeated phrases through a series of thoughtful conversations, not hewing to the traditional passacaglia’s steady ostinato form, but returning to the echo-phrasing several times.
Several of the works on the program included a theatricality that is perhaps somewhat more open to compositions for percussionists than to performers on other instruments. Whether this is due to the all-inclusive nature of percussion instrumentation (if you can touch it, it is an instrument) or to the personalities of percussionist, it leads to objects flying around, with elements of chance in performance more visible than with, say, the violin.
When composers direct that marbles are bounced on a large drum, as in A Man with a Gun Lives Here by Steven Snowden, the audience knows that the composition is meant to include some uncertainty and show it. In that piece, in three sections, the three performers are arrayed around one bass drum, placed upright, each with additional instruments but with all three often playing the drum simultaneously. A single spotlight tightly focused on the group during the performance lent a Witches Sabbath look to the proceedings, each individual stirring the pot. A paper bag of mysterious import was passed from performer to performer, variously rubbing the drum or shaking it. Steel buckshot pellets were poured from it onto the drum’s surface, with a flourish of the bag shredding above. The composer indicates that the narrative depicted is of the hobo life during the Great Depression (thus, perhaps gathered around a fir in an oil drum), making “use of very limited materials,” like the buckshot, steel plates, and rubber balls.
In Stück, by Wolfgang Rhim, the three percussionists sat on the floor in a widely separated triangle, playing in primitivist fashion, grasping to the sky expressively, hurling mallets, emoting. About this piece, the composer wrote:
together in the middle of an empty
stage, like a group of animals or like
forgotten, feral explorers.
In contrast to these works, which featured the performers not only as the ones making the music but also by the composer’s design acting as dramatic personages, were a number of compositions in which the performers were asked only to play music. Comme la rosée, aussi com l’eclair, by Wenchi Tsai, gets its title from the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist text, but one need not have any sense of the meaning of that work to glean meaning — sound and sense — from the music. Delicacy is demanding, and the Trio admirably applied just the right pressure to present the music beautifully as significant, not insouciant.
Pantera Trio performing “Ohko” by Iannis Xenakis. (drawing by Jon Ciliberto)
The Greek composer Iannis Xenakis’ work for three African djembes, Ohko brought to mind the daunting life of the percussionist, asked to master myriad instruments and the often entirely unique transcription systems. Dr. Gerber noted to me that while prior to Xenakis there was likely no written form of translating the various sounds and techniques of the djembe, a long oral tradition existed.
Litany II by Karel Goeyvaerts struck me as especially demanding in terms of technique and expression combined. The work goes through a wide range of feeling, thought, and compositional styles: from phasing to minimalism to deconstruction and more. Highly narrative art times, while at others nearly mathematical and austere, the Pantera Trio showed a wise selection here and throughout its program, showcasing its ability across a wide range of percussion music. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Bent Frequency: bentfrequency.com
- Luxembourg 2022 Percussion Trio Competition: ipcl.lu/trio-2022/
Jon Ciliberto is an attorney, writes about music and the arts, makes music, draws, and strives at being a barely functional classical guitarist.
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