Search - Henry Brant :: Meteor Farm

Possibly the most genuine, outlandish, imaginative and arous

Discophage | France | 05/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Now be prepared: as always with Henry Brant, you are in for something very special, and pretty wild.



When he was invited in 1979 by Neely Bruce, composer and professor of composition at Wesleyan University, to compose "a major work for chorus and orchestra", Brant inquired about the resources of the University and its music department. And when he heard what was there, he decided to use them all. And there seems to be a huge amount of music resources at Wesleyan, not just from the Western tradition: add to the Symphony Orchestra, large Jazz Band, Percussion Ensembles, soprano Soloists and Choirs, a Gamelan ensemble, a trio of South Indian music, a West african singing and drumming ensemble.



"The composer endeavored in his work to make a musical environment in which the various cultures represented maintain their respective integrities" writes Neely Bruce.



So it starts with South Indian music, continues with wild Big-Band Jazz of unleashed energy, then what I believe are Indonesian Gamelans with hauntingly beautiful vocal melismata sung by; I think, two soprano soloists, and maybe inspired by some folk tradition from anywhere in the world, or just out of Brant's imagination. Then you get something like a "gothic" movement sounding like a mixture of Orff and Weill with wild shouts from the chorus and gossamer chime-work, later interrupted by the wild Jazz again. Then brass-dominated contemporary music with crystalline percussion which I would have guessed were West african, if the movement hadn't been immediately followed by the unleashed energy and savage beat of the, this time unmistakably, West African drumming ensemble, abetted by shrieking whistles and wild brass riffs. Then massive percussions (metal-dominated) and piano, with again eerie shouts from sopranos in the distance. And it goes on like that in the course of seventeen movements of various lengths, from 1:22 to 13:20 (the finale). The work was first perfomed at Wesleyan University on March 6, 1982 and that's the recording we get (good sound). Whish I'd been there.



Why "Meteor Farm"? Brant writes: "The meteors are chips from great galactic ice blocks of ideas. They come hurtling down from the nebulae where they're grown, and on earth they strike human brains and impel processes to action, providing plenty of material for four spearated choirs, each polyphonically sounding off in a different diretion, each announcing itself raucously in its onw dialect and accent, abetted everywhere by multiple, sequestered brass and percussion groups in frictional collisions, both polyrhythmic and polyharmonic". To which Neely Bruce adds, speaking further of the multiplity of music traditions convened: "Any synthesis beyond pure juxtaposition remains the task of the audience".



But why "Meteor FARM"? "They have to grow somewhere", answers the composer.



This must be the most genuine, outlandish, imaginative and arousing "World music" ever written.

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