Lucier's "Memory Space" is a text score piece and a fascinating one at that. He asks a group of musicians to go to an outdoor environment and record (not necessarily in audio form, but perhaps written or in one's memory) the sounds they encounter. Then, "at any time later" to enter a performance space and reproduce with their instruments or voices, from memory (helped by whatever aides were used), the sounds heard earlier as fully as possible.
Here, we're presented with an hour-long actualization of that score by the Dutch ensemble Maze, consisting of Anne Le Barge (flute, electronics), Dario Calderone (contrabass), Gareth Davis (bass clarinet), Reinier van Houdt (piano, electronics), Wiek Hijmans (guitar) and Yannis Kyriakides (computer, electronics). The result sounds rather like a free improvisation, and a good one, carrying that difficult to quantify distinction that it would have sounded somehow otherwise had not Lucier's constrictions been in effect. To be sure, there's nothing of slavishly imitative bird chirps, car horns or airplane engines. One could easily listen to the sounds created by the sextet and never have the remotest inkling of their sources. And yet, once you're aware of the game plan, it's difficult not to try to ascribe this bleep or grumble to some exterior world activity. This is perhaps made more conducive by Maze's introduction at several points, with the composer's acquiescence, of some of the actual recordings made in the outside environs. These work quite well, providing a brisk breeze wafting through the proceedings. The instrumental colors are a joy, whistling upper register lines weaving through the string bass and bass clarinet grumbles, plinks of guitar and piano spicing the midsections — everything simply sounds fantastic. The piece stays at a generally soft dynamic level though substantially varied within that area and the activity, while constant, never feels overactive or cloying.
A fine performance of the kind of score that can open up subtle worlds or experience; not drastically different ones but those very adjacent yet bearing their own unique and beautiful qualities.
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