Chicago Sinfonietta
It sometimes seems that the big-time popular classical-music universe can support an almost unlimited number of professional piano and violin soloists. And it will harbor a somewhat smaller quantity of cellists and sopranos. But then the support dwindles rapidly. With flutes it’s pretty much Jean-Pierre Rampal or James Galway, and with other instruments, such as the clarinet or harp, there’s usually room for only one. For instance, it seems that the only recorder player with enough clout to make widely available recordings is Michala Petri.
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Has the moment arrived for a new novelty act, the steelpan? The steelpan (which the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians defines as a “tuned idiophone usually made from an oil drum”) might seem an even less likely solo instrument in a symphonic setting than a cupboard full of goblets with water in them. Steelpans, developed in the West Indies about 60 years ago, are made by cutting oil drums down to size, then banging on their tops so that they curve in, pounding in the various note locations, tempering the steel, and fine-tuning; it must be one of the only instruments extant whose tone adjustments are made with a ball-peen hammer. Most steelpans have a range of no more than two octaves, and the higher the note is, the harder it is to sound: pitch is determined by the size of a spot on the instrument’s surface, and the spots for the high notes are apt to be very small and not very resounding.
The first movement is as lyrical as its title might indicate–it’s pleasant and eminently enjoyable. But in the second movement things really perk up and get interesting. The instrument played by Teague has a bright, appealing sound that cuts through all the instrumental competition onstage. The music is appropriately calypso- and jazz-flavored, but Bach manages to let any number of other influences and traditions peek in. The most enjoyable (and funniest)–punctuated by the delighted laughter of a small child in the auditorium–was an echo section for steelpan and flexatone, a percussion instrument that sounds like a musical saw that went to finishing school, with a distinctive twang and a surprising amount of tonal flexibility; it was part of an impressively enhanced percussion section.
The last few years have seen a movement in contemporary music back toward tonality. Curiously, much of this music is coming from the former captive nations of the Soviet bloc, and it celebrates distinctly un-Soviet values, looking more to the West than to the erstwhile oppressor nation to the east.
One can usually tell when a chorus has been working together for a while; the singers stagger their breaths in long phrases without consciously thinking about it. The 24 Estonians fall into this category–their blend was flawless. Their sound was otherworldly, with a purity and clarity of tone not often heard, and they held the pitch well in their many a cappella selections; the three black-toned basses were particularly effective. That they’ve been singing this particular music together for years was evident from the comfortable way they inhabited it, seemingly without any diminution of interest in it. When performing the same pieces over and over it’s easy to forget the excitement and interest one had when they were first encountered, but the Estonians have somehow kept their work on this music evergreen. It would be useful to know how they do it.
