Chamber Works Shadow of the Hawk (for "Cello and Piano)/Kembang Suling (for Flute and Marimba)/ Sepuluh Jari (Piano solo)/From Forgotten Forests (Harp solo)/ Cadenza (for Piano, Flute, Percussion, Violin, Clarinet and 'Cello) Various artists
TRUST MMT 2020
(recorded August/December 1997)
Orchestral Works From the Depths Sound the Great Sea
Gongs/Waipoua/Le Temps est a la Pluie/ Tabuh Pacific/Queen of Demons New
Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Kenneth Young
TRUST MMT 2021
(recorded August 1997)
reviewed 12/98
Gareth Farr is a name on everybody's lips in and around the present New Zealand music scene, thanks in part to recent performances of his works by groups such as the NZSO, the NZ Chamber Orchestra, the NZ String Quartet, and the Auckland Philharmonia. One of these works for orchestra, "From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs", was commissioned by the NZSO for performance in 1997 as part of the orchestra's 50th Anniversary celebrations. Two recordings given entirely to his music followed from Trust Records shortly afterwards, one of which contained the "Great Sea Gongs" Anniversary piece.
In a recent interview published in "Music New Zealand", Gareth Farr describes himself as "a publicity whore", as somebody who revels in audience response to whatever he might be doing, be it composing or performing. In the latter role he's as likely to be in drag as he is a percussionist - his female impersonator appearances as "Lilith" in all kinds of settings, from Trentham Race Day fashion shows to NZSO rehearsals, have created mini-sensations.
Now, with recordings it's possible to set aside some of the more immediate, high-impact aspects of live performance and hear the music repeatedly in different contexts. Of the two discs Trust has recorded, one is of chamber music for various solo instruments and combinations (Trust MMT 2020), while the other (Trust MMT 2021) is of orchestral works with the NZSO (augmented by extra percussionists,gamelan groups and the like).
Farr's music has come in for a bit of stick, with some critics complaining that his output is too populist and prolific, lacking in gravitas and risking tediousness as a result. Farr has said that although he might in time become unhappy with aspects of a work he's written (he cites the second half of the "Great Sea Gongs" work) he doesn't go in for much revising and polishing, but prefers to spend his time and energy on a new work. So, how does Farr's music stand up to repeated hearings?
I found myself returning to the chamber music disc (MMT2020) with ever-increasing pleasure. The music's accessible without ever sounding facile, and the performances are superb, with one reservation which I'll return to. Each piece seems entirely sure of it's purpose (one of Farr's American mentors, Samuel Adler, is quoted in the "Music New Zealand" interview as encouraging the composer to "love each note", the focus of these pieces strongly and surely bearing out that philosophy). The first piece, "Shadow of the Hawk" explores excitingly both the dynamic and sustained sonorities of 'cello and piano, while the second piece, "Kembang Suling", is an Asia-inspired series of adventures for flute and marimba, the final movement being a game of chase between the two instruments.
Farr has lots of fun with "Sepuluh Jari", a kind of "Bach goes to Bali" piece, brilliantly played by Michael Houstoun, while harpist Carolyn Mills creates a memorable stillness in a Takemitsu-like work "From Forgotten Forests". Finally, "Cadenza" bursts into the listening-space in the most exhilarating way imaginable. Those people who've been to concerts given by the Wellington-based percussion ensemble "Strike" will be able to appreciate the choreographic process of making sounds here that are as likely to declare war on each other as act in any sort of accord. The first couple of minutes of Track 10 I thought a shade laboured, the pianist in particular seeming to lose some momentum waiting for his fellows to reach the bar-lines instead of keeping the skin of the seven-beat rhythm taut and forward-moving. But the piece's conclusion received a suitably "clockwork gone compulsively mad"climax which inched me to the edge of my seat once more. I found the CD booklet's numberings and timings for the piece's individual sections inaccurate, causing momentary confusion which got thrown into the melting-pot of mayhem along with everything else!
As for the orchestral disc ( MMT 2021), I liked the shorter pieces best. Both "Waipoua", a beautiful forest evocation, and "Le Temps est a la Pluie" (a lament for Pacific victims of French Nuclear Testing) quickly establish atmosphere by direct and simple means, but with no lack of subtlety. Not so with the two longer pieces, where I couldn't help occasionally feeling that Farr's inspiration had submerged itself in a kind of percussion orgy . Part of the problem with the "Great Sea Gongs" piece here is the recording venue - Symphony House simply doesn't allow enough air around the instruments for the music to expand at the climaxes, admirably balanced and clear-textured though the sound is,. And as much as I thought the drumming was thrilling, I wanted less of a feeling of "more of the same" as I listened to the first part right through. I wish Farr had telescoped the two parts together, cut some of the drumming, and moved things along more surely. In the second part I liked the section from 7'00"onwards, a kind of thredony for strings which leads into some impressively stern monolithic upheavals from the brasses, accompanied by woodwind flourishes - the most assured and convincing section of the whole piece, for me, despite the debt to Shostakovich!
I thought "Tabuh Pacific" similarly flawed, an arresting beginning with eerie string glissandi and contrasting gamelan sound creating expectations that were largely unrealised. Having introduced the gamelan orchestra, Farr doesn't go much beyond demonstrating how the potentially mesmeric can become tedious, long stretches of gamelan in the same tempo giving an "automatic pilot" impression. But as for the disc's final work, "Queen of Demons", I was hugely entertained, not worrying in the slightest about the derivative nature of much of the music - it seemed as if Suk (Asrael Symphony), Vaughan Williams (Job) and Shostakovich (Eighth Symphony) weren't very far distant. Nothing outstays its welcome, and the piece's ending reintroduces the composer's "Pacific drumming" mode in an entirely characteristic way. Trust's booklet for the orchestral disc has, I hope, been updated since the original appeared - the NZSO's conductor Kenneth Young isn't mentioned at all, and the notes inside have "Waipoua" and "Le Temps est a la Pluie" in the wrong order, which may confuse the uninitiated. Those who want a souvenir of the Anniversary concert at which the "Great Sea Gongs" piece was premiered will enjoy MMT 2021 immensely. But for those wanting to get a broader idea of what Gareth Farr is about as a composer, I would recommend MMT 2020, the disc containing the chamber music, with pieces beautifully crafted and excitingly performed.