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Review of QNG’s CD “Fantasy ‘n’ Symmetry”in Ensemble magazine (Düsseldorf), October / November 2012
FUGUE MODELS
Changing the subject’s location and transforming it according to the rules of counterpoint, while at the same time applying “symmetry and fantasy” – that is how fugues were written in the Baroque period. Following that architectural approach to sound, the same musical motions have now been admirably adapted for four recorders by the Quartet New Generation. In Bach’s “Art of Fugue” and Handel’s “Fugues Nos. IV and VI”, the ensemble’s vibratoless, pure intonation helps the listener locate the music’s structural underpinnings. The same qualities are used to great advantage in a modern fugue, highlighting the elegiac lyricism of Shostakovich’s dark timbres in “Fugue No. 1”. Closer to our present day, closely woven threads emerge through the scintillating alternation of hoquetus echoes in M. E. Childs’ “Parterre”. A further degree of abstraction is reached when percussive playing techniques and rhythmic breathing noises cross paths with motivic fragments in W. Blecharz’s “Airlines”. Then the Quartet New Generation leads the procession “To the Promised Land” (E. Reiter), establishing a dialogue between electronic patterns and periodically emerging particles of sound. The genre of fugue reaches a final state of stasis amidst multiphonics in V. Pasovsky’s “Pessel” (Sculpture), a work dedicated to the ensemble. Thus, by presenting a series of daring arrangements alongside original works, this magnificent programme for recorder ensemble has now pushed the general historical tendency of symmetry towards fantasy into entirely innovative repertorial dimensions.
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld
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