I first heard So Percussion about a decade ago at Vanderbilt Recital Hall; I was a student at neighboring Belmont University, attending with a few classmates my first live contemporary music concert. I remember my amazement at at the sudden ending of Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood, as the interlocking textures disappeared into silence after a brief, reverberant lingering.
Just like that concert, So Percussion chose Reich’s stripped down, quintessentially minimal essay to open its concert at SFJazz’s Miner Auditorium on February 3rd. Soon after the performance commenced, my ears fell into the same, quasi-ecstatic mode of listening as my original exposure, reveling in the complexity that arises from such simple means. So Percussion’s programming decision was brilliant, as the Reich is the kind of self-evident piece that really needs no introduction, its structure unfolding clearly over time, while also priming the audience for what’s to come.
[Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood] is the kind of self-evident piece that really needs no introduction.The remaining two pieces on the program, though much larger in scope and instrumentation, showed various degrees of indebtedness to the Reichian model, since the featured composers (Steven Mackey and Bryce Dessner) belong to successive generations of American musicians who operate under the multifaceted umbrella of post-minimalism.
Dessner’s Music for Wood and Strings (2013) featured four custom instruments, dubbed “chordsticks,” devised by Dessner and built by fellow indie-rocker and instrument builder Aron Sanchez. Part double-guitar neck, part hammered dulcimer, the chordsticks created an ever-changing sound world as they were bowed, plucked, strummed, struck, and brushed over the course of the 40-minute composition. I particularly enjoyed how the timbre of this rustic consort ranged in quality from nearly acoustic to the illusion of electronic synthesis.
The four chordsticks are pitched in loose soprano-alto-tenor-bass arrangement, but each instrument features a different tuning configuration of the open strings; luminous diatonic harmonies arose from carefully choreographed hocketing passages.
Dessner’s compositional style unites accessibility with a sense of refinement, borrowing liberally from vernacular idioms while displaying structural clarity and an inventive use of instrumental resources. A limited array of unpitched percussions, including a bass drum and several woodblocks, provided an additional layer of timbral variety as well as the opportunity for motives to migrate between the titular strings and wood.
After a brief intermission the quartet returned for a performance of Steven Mackey’s It Is Time (2010), also commissioned by So Percussion. It, too, showed no reticence in evoking “nonclassical” textures and sonorities. Mackey, along with Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, and Larry Polansky, was a pioneer in the integration of instruments once considered hopelessly vernacular (such as the electric guitar) in formalized, composed contexts.
Regrettably, It Is Time features no guitars, but a drum kit and a set of tuned steel drums expand the more conventional percussion lineup. In addition Mackey employs decidedly unexpected devices such as a mechanical metronome, a set of kitchen timers, a Newton cradle, and a number of wind-up toys.
What ties together this oddball collection of instruments is their relationship to the tyranny of time. Each of the mechanical devices employed in the piece converts stored, potential energy into kinetic energy (and, as a by-product, sound) for a limited, sometimes ephemeral duration. The musical instruments “proper” (if it makes any sense to make such a distinction today) weaved in and out of the mechanized textures, as each of the four percussionists took the spotlight for a portion of the single-movement, 40-minute composition. Mackey has a strong sense of the theatrical: The music evoked moods ranging from playful to grim, with the musicians moving about the densely populated stage with choreographed focus and precision.
From a performance standpoint, So Percussion was simply flawless.From a performance standpoint, So Percussion was simply flawless. There were no hiccups, no hesitations, no errant moments to disturb the complex (and often fragile) sonic architectures they erected. Yet their greatest accomplishment might be the least apparent one: They are perfectly transparent performers, relinquishing histrionics, mannerisms, and flamboyancy in total service to the music. They also have a sense of humor: As the audience clamored for an encore, they appropriately returned to the stage to perform Reich’s Clapping Music.