{"id":2190,"date":"2024-08-22T22:25:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T05:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2024-09-04T17:31:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T00:31:39","slug":"cd-review-poise-by-francois-houle-clarinet-benoit-delbecq-piano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/?p=2190","title":{"rendered":"CD Review : Poise by Fran\u00e7ois Houle, clarinet and Beno\u00eet Delbecq, prepared pianoforte"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Afterday Audio<\/a>  <\/span>AA2016<\/p>\n

\u00a9Laurence Svirchev<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>Poise<\/em><\/strong> is Fran\u00e7ois Houle & Beno\u00eet Delbecq\u2019s fourth album as a duo, their first being Nancali (1997). From day-one to the present they are mutual mid-readers, recording and sharing stages in multiple ensemble settings over the course of twenty-seven or so years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mien of the title-word Poise<\/em> is a complicated affair conjuring a state of balance, composure, stability, assuredness. As a verb, poise functions as a prelude, like \u201cKasparov was poised to make his final move to resolve the tension and checkmate.\u201d But the gamesmanship of a chessboard, a competition of moves and countermoves, is certainly not the correct analogy for this music.<\/p>\n

With Houle and Delbecq, there is no checkmate other than fluid synchronicity between two pluperfect musicians. The compositions originate from their real-time proton entanglement, as colorful and variegated as images of other galaxies from the James Webb telescope. While the last composition of the CD, \u201cA Bed of Leaves,\u201d has the feel of a through-composed piece with interspersed improvisations, take note: A listener\u2019s perception of this or any other composition does not match what actually happened between the two musicians in the Paris\u00a0Bureau de Son recording studio.<\/p>\n

The opening composition \u201cThe Tree Line\u201d is a projection into serenity, clarinet mainly in the chalumeau range (lowest register), piano also in the deep end. It exists in a peacefulness, a summer\u2019s day with a gentle breeze, a contemplation upon tranquility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tree Line\u201d then floats, not skates, into the ethereal \u201cMissing Blueline.\u201d The long-tone eerie clarinet sounds are summonings. The prepared piano projects a sound akin to the drone of the Indian shruti. As it progresses into the unknown, the music is simultaneously relaxing and filled with tension courtesy of asynchronous percussion.<\/p>\n

Delbecq explains, \u201cIt’s a classic preparation of mine, the resonance controlled by combining use of the middle pedal of the piano and a dampened wooden stick.\u201d The result is a sound not unlike the African lokole, a hardwood log cored and split open and hollowed to produce low tones when played with batons. This kind of unnaturally-natural rhythm sound is found throughout the CD, Delbecq having long been a practitioner of African rhythms, and turning the pianoforte into a new natural instrument.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There is no obvious melodic statement, nor are there defensive, neutral, or offensive zones defined by the blueline on hockey ice (Houle is an ice-hockey fan). Instead the is open-sky, an unpredictability, an unearthly nebulous viscous glow to get lost in. Especially when the music aligns as laminar at the deeper frequencies of both instruments.<\/p>\n

Like all music, Poise<\/em> is an admixture of complex acoustic vibrations, the ebb and flow of fluids of different viscosity resulting in laminar and turbulent flow. What reaches the ear canal enters the brain, then provokes personalized emotional and blood flow responses. Perhaps it is no accident that the measurement unit of viscosity is \u00a0“Poise,” named after the French physician and physiologist Louis Marie Poiseuille (1799-1869), who investigated the characteristics of arterial blood flow.<\/p>\n

Poise<\/em> has a power that provokes introspection, temporal displacement. Images of the physical world appear out of the uncertainty, and even references to literature appear as spontaneously as the spontaneity of the music. Consider the high-tension viscosities in \u201cA Bed of Leaves\u201d. Taken at a sustained lentissimo<\/em>, the composition immediately suggests an unbearable mental exhaustion, of disconsolation, of muscle and sinew torqued to their limits. Houle seems to be playing two clarinets simultaneously, not unusual for him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There are subtle surprises contained in this vigorous slow-motion which concentrates listening power to pick up minute sounds. Such as Delbecq glancingly strumming the strings in the cavity of the pianoforte. Or the times when time itself seems to reverse as Houle presses and raises the bell of a horn in succession against his calf to create a curious wah-wah effect. A Delbecq-driven short crescendo near the end almost suggests some alleviation of despair. But it is not to be, for as the song fades away as perhaps a hero collapses into a bed of leaves.<\/p>\n

But who sleeps in a bed of leaves? This intriguing title for intriguing music provoked an internet search. The one and only link was to a 1994 poem in the New Yorker magazine, \u201cA Bed of Leaves\u201d by the Irish poet Michael Longley. This modern poet frequently uses the Greek classical literature to examine contemporary society. In Longley\u2019s poem, a ship-wrecked and exhausted Odysseus swims to safety and tries to land on the mythical island of Phaeacia. In Book Five of the Odyssey, translated by TE Lawrence (of Arabia), Odysseus\u2019 hands are ripped open by rocky shores and he is swept back into \u2018the wine-dark sea\u2019. This Hero never gives up and swims on, sights a river cove where he can the turbulent seas and drowning. He finds a single root of two olive bushes, and:
Beneath them did Odysseus creep, and set to scraping together with his own hands a broad bed for himself: for in-side there had drifted such pile of dry leaves as would have covered two or three men well enough for a winter-time\u2026.When bold Odysseus saw the leaves he rejoiced and laid himself down in the midst of them and fell to pouring the litter by handfuls over his body, til he was covered\u2026.. Just so did Odysseus lie while Athene shed down sleep upon his eyes to shroud the dear eyelids and sooner deliver him from the pains of his weakness.<\/em><\/p>\n

To be clear, neither Houle nor Delbecq were aware of the Longley poem or the story in Homer\u2019s epic. Yet that poem and the epic tale align beautifully with the music. Twenty years apart and two thousand eight hundreds years apart. An ancient act of a blind man\u2019s story-telling encoded into the genetics and bloodstream of his artistic descendents over the course of centuries? A lost fore-told prophesy re-surfacing? A serendipitous occurrence?<\/p>\n

Coda: Poise<\/strong><\/em> is duo-poise, a two-to-tango dance of music-love, a concert of stellar spontaneous solidarity. This music is for the ages.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Author’s Note<\/strong>: The thrust of this essay was conceived while listening to Poise<\/em> and looking out the window of an aircraft at cruising altitude over the ever-varying terrain of northern Canada. On the \u00a0approach to Vancouver the craft passed over the ancient trade route traveled by First Nations between Lillooet Lake and the Fraser River. Center photo in Tundra Lake there dwells in perpetuity a lonely but malevolent female spirit. She is perhaps these mountains equivalent of the immortal Calypso who detained Odysseus. She asked me to join her in the depths of that cold lake but I declined such a frigid invitation. At the right lies pale green Stein Lake leading to the river valley leading to the Fraser River that contains the powerful Asking Rock.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

Afterday Audio  AA2016<\/p>\n

\u00a9Laurence Svirchev<\/p>\n

Poise is Fran\u00e7ois Houle & Beno\u00eet Delbecq\u2019s fourth album as a duo, their first being Nancali (1997). From day-one to the present they are mutual mid-readers, recording and sharing stages in multiple ensemble settings over the course of twenty-seven or so years.<\/p>\n

The mien of . . . → Read More: CD Review : Poise by Fran\u00e7ois Houle, clarinet and Beno\u00eet Delbecq, prepared pianoforte<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","odd"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/misterioso.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}