A good example of late-century avant-guardism
Mark Swinton | 02/14/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Barry Guy is surely one of the most sensational musicians of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As a composer, he works in tandem with his skills as a double-bass player to create a music that is richly inventive but daring to the point of pushing the musical envelope - at times, it becomes less like music and more of an elemental sonic utterance.His music is of a highly improvisational character: it comes as no surprise that he has played with leading jazz ensembles, although it is worth noting that he has also recorded Purcell with early music groups! This eclectic musical mind is teamed up on this recording with Maya Homburger, a baroque violinist with a similar penchant for taking the instrument and music written for it in daring and bold new directions. The programme on the disc takes as a starting point the extraordinary sonatas of Heinrich Biber (a contemporary of Bach and Vivaldi), pairing the finest of these - number 15, "Annunciation" - with Barry Guy's "Breathing Earth" (itself based on Biber's sonata) and "Ceremony," an engrossing, beautiful and virtuosic work commissioned by Homburger for herself on violin with multi-tracked violin material.At times, as mentioned, Barry Guy makes some powerful sounds with his bass: having seen him live, I can tell you that some of the more ear-splitting ones are achieved using more than just bowed and plucked sounds (one of his improvisations involved inserting a screwdriver between the strings of the bass and striking the handle so that it beat hard against the body of the instrument!) and this is not for the faint-hearted, even amongst fans of avant-guarde music. Indeed, this disc is only really worth purchasing if you are seriously interested in avant-guarde music: fans of Cage, Feldman, Wolff, Ferneyhough or Boulez will probably enjoy this disc the most. I would say, in concluding, that it is one of the finest examples of avant-guardism around, and in any case it is a showcase for the profoundly unique musical talent of Barry Guy."
Exploring Expressive Possibilities
Karl W. Nehring | Ostrander, OH USA | 07/25/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"One of the great joys of music is its endless possibility to surprise. For example, here is a CD that contains music like nothing you may have heard before. Maya Homburger plays the baroque violin, Barry Guy plays the double-bass, and together they make sounds both archaic and futuristic. Ceremony starts with a brief selection by Biber (b. 1644), then moves on to compositions by Barry Guy, who was born in 1947. Whether playing solo or weaving their sounds together, these two players seem in tune both with each other and with the expressive possibilities inherent in their instruments and in these compositions. This is music that really draws the listener in, and the clean recording quality allows for maximal listener involvement."
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1