ad tendo
Works by Biber, Hildegard, Reena Esmail et al
Simone Porter (violin)
Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0217 42:24 mins
The ten short sections of Reena Esmail’s Drishti explore open strings, harmonics, double stops and long melodic lines, often infused with portamentos: perhaps an acknowledgement of Esmail’s Indian heritage. Porter is completely secure in the technical demands of the music, and also has an unerring sense of pacing, so that nothing outstays its welcome, and the movements – sometimes tenuous, sometimes aggressive – add up to more than the sum of their parts, with the subtleties of the performance beautifully realised in the warm, detailed recording.
Salonen describes Lachen Verlernt as a chaconne, where ‘the harmony remains the same throughout the whole piece; only the surface, the top layer of the music changes.’ That harmony often nudges tonality, and is expressed through double stops, accurately and effortlessly despatched.
O Virtus Sapientiae by Hildegard von Bingen is the basis of Marckx’s Improvisation, unfolding over a drone at first, then gradually fragmenting and extending the basic melodic shape, but never losing its harmonic root. Less immediately gripping is Norman’s Sabina, which moves from a ghostly opening to a frenetic climax and back again, but lacks a strong melodic identity.
After that, going back over 300 years to the closing Passacaglia from Biber’s Mystery Sonatas comes as quite a shock, but its devotional character reflects the concept of the album, taken from Simone Weil and spoken right at the end: ‘Attention taken to its highest degree is the same thing as prayer. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’