Music review: Tectonics (Day One), City Halls, Glasgow
Tectonics (Day One), CityHalls, Glasgow ***
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, some might argue. Or is it the old story, perhaps, of the insurgents, once the revolution is won, becoming the new establishment? The ultimate question, though, is whether the music itself challenged, confronted or altered our thoughts in any significant way? Strangely, there were too many moments caught in a safety net of nostalgia.
Genevieve Murphy’s newly written Calm in an Agitated World, with the Dundee-born composer narrating its throwback psychedelic text in an Old Fruitmarket performance involving the wind, brass and percussion of the BBC SSO under Ilan Volkov’s direction, sought musical comfort in a pseudo-Stravinskian instrumental groove, albeit a compatible energiser to the haunting pipes of folk musician Brighde Chaimbeul, Murphy’s enigmatic intonations, and grungy electronic effects. Artful but safe. Similarly Andrew Hamilton’s C, its UK premiere closing Saturday’s main orchestral concert, took us to familiar places, a rat-tat-tat minimalist crossfire fuelled by an energy form spent years ago by the likes of Andriessen or Martland. Fun for five minutes, it went on considerably longer.
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