Instruments as bodily growths: Arditti and Eliot Fisk at the Wigmore
Luciano Berio's Sequenza XI for solo guitar, Hugues Dufourt's Le Supplice de Marsyas d'après Titien, Younghi Pagh-Paan's Horizont auf hoher See and Hilda Paredes's Son dementes cuerdas
Arditti Quartet and Eliot Fisk
Wigmore Hall
Stalls D15, £5 under-35s ticket
14 June 2017
Wigmore page
In Le Supplice de Marsyas d'après Titien Dufourt exploits the particular gifts of both the Arditti and the Wigmore (i.e. how they're both amazing) and as you would expect the results are pretty thrilling. In the long first movement I was enchanted by the whispered harmonics the Arditti brought forth, sometimes coalescing as choruses but each part existing as an independent ghostly chime. The rest of the piece is equally captivating though to my mind verging on the silly – the ending in particular, where the violins retch together carefully in time. But whether I'm right or wrong about the silliness, the Dufourt is utterly entertaining and well worth further listening.
The Dufourt came after Berio's guitar Sequenza, which I confess, so shoot me, was as unknown to me as the UK premieres that made up the rest of the programme – as indeed was the great guitarist Eliot Fisk. I am ashamed. It will be no surprise to Fisk fans that his performance of the Berio was astonishing, he hunched over his protuberance-like guitar, tickling and cajoling it as a strange animal to yield sounds from the playful to the indignant. It made me realize that the glorious solo guitar section in The Exterminating Angel was maybe not quite as original as I thought it was.
The second half of the concert charmed me less, with both pieces feeling in way or another a bit unnecessary. I enjoyed how in Pagh-Paan's piece the various swooping moans crystallized into a beautiful, simple melody before dissolving again, but I'm not I needed so much moaning swooping before and after. Paredes's piece provided much opportunity for virtuoso display to both Fisk and the Arditti, but as Richard coolly summarized, it seemed to be a piece about the relationship between a guitar and a string quartet, and once it found that they didn't go together, there wasn't much it could do about it. Still, any opportunity to hear these excellent musicians perform is not to be sniffed at.
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