Globokar Chamber Works

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Vinko Globokar

Label: Schwann

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 65

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 310632

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Discours III Vinko Globokar, Composer
Heinz Holliger, Oboe
Vinko Globokar, Composer
Toucher Vinko Globokar, Composer
Jean-Pierre Drouet, Percussion
Vinko Globokar, Composer
Discours VI Vinko Globokar, Composer
Domus
Vinko Globokar, Composer
Voix instrumentalisée Vinko Globokar, Composer
Michael Riessler, Bass clarinet
Vinko Globokar, Composer
Accord Vinko Globokar, Composer
Daniele Sabatini, Percussion
Maria Siracusa, Flute
Michele Chiapperino, Cello
Mila Vilotijevic, Soprano
Stefano Viola, Trombone
Valeria Lambiase, Electric organ
Vinko Globokar, Composer
These five works of Vinko Globokar's range in date from 1966 (Accord) to 1983 (Discours VI), and all exploit the co-existence of music and text. Not the musical setting of texts: for Globokar, melodrama is the modern thing, and the record left me with the rueful conclusion that Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire has a lot to answer for.
The three solo pieces have their moments, especially Discours III, in which Heinz Holliger, with a little help from the technicians, creates a frantically active tapestry from multi-tracked oboe sounds and scraps of a Baudelaire text. Toucher is more sober, with a relatively narrow range of percussive taps and thwacks, and the speaking voice (some Brecht in French) never progressing to shrieks or howls. Voix instrumentalisee is the most extreme, since the bass clarinet (without mouthpiece) does not so much plumb the depths as suggest ever deeper plumbing.
Accord evokes the distant time when composers could create a sense of living dangerously by writing gurgles and groans for Cathy Berberian. But the instrumental writing in Accord has moments of strong characterization, and the vocalist, Mila Vilotijevic, is as mesmerizing as the great Berberian herself. Discours VI has none of these virtues, being scrappy in musical content and cliche-ridden in its vocal effects: also, at 22 minutes it is at least three times too long.
The recordings are well-engineered, the performances never less than spirited, but it is ironic to say the least that the two most substantial texts, Brecht and Sanguineti, are not provided, forcing the listener to concentrate primarily on the relatively thin musical invention.'

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