This writer has been somewhat conversant with the sounds of Nikolaus Gerszewski for 15 years or so, and was blessed to hear the material included on this CD back in early 2021. From that very moment he was persuaded by its remarkable qualities: not exactly circumscribable by conventional logic, they are uniquely discernible via the information-transmitting, vibrational phenomena that may be exploited by coherent human beings for their evolution's sake.
It is refreshing, then, to acknowledge ezz-thetics by Hat Hut's wish to introduce to a wider audience the potential of this composer, detached from aesthetic blandishments and committed to a brutally honest yet enlightening sonic questioning, assimilable in spirit to certain pages of Phill Niblock's. It is no coincidence that the latter is one of Gerszewski's declared inspirations; not so much with regard to the sonorities conveyed by the scores, as to his skill in depicting, by very few means, a powerful immensity tending toward infinity. The same we envision when listening to Glenn Branca, or Gloria Coates.
Giusto Chamber Orchestra, regular associates of Gerszewski, constitute the medium to accomplish the ultimate goal: obtaining the resonant embodiment of what was in the creator's mind at the primary concept level, expressed in a direct and, as far as my senses are concerned, rather visceral manner. Founded in 2004 by concertmaster Erika Litván, Giusto began as a string orchestra, subsequently evolving into an ensemble of varying size and instrumental range, whose players differ in age and experience. They recorded the music, which the composer himself calls "exhausting to play," after mere days of rehearsal. Quite an admirable feat.
The program includes two pieces of 24+ minutes — "Inert Mass" and "Lining" — as well as the conclusive "Solid Rock", lasting a third of the previous ones. In each of them, the strings act in accordance with relatively minimal instructions, complying with Gerszewski's purposes from the first to the last second. In harmonic/contrapuntal terms, the obedience to a natural cyclicity of acoustic occurrences establishes profound stratifications and complex interpenetrations. In "Inert Mass", arguably the most striking illustration of Gerszewski's research to date, these connections are amplified on an emotional scale by the alteration of pitch, timbre, dynamics and tempo. Stunning slow-oscillation effects are generated in a type of unintentional cosmic glissando informed by a mesmerizing persistence, an awesome wholeness in incessant pulsation.
Unless, as Andy Hamilton speculates in the liner notes, some unfortunate recipient regards this music as sheer noise, one can witness the relationships between part movement, tones, and different intensities of stroke through all that is comprehended in 3 Works For Strings. We don't need to elaborate further, for these efforts — both creative and executive — facilitate a thorough understanding of the inherent processes that should enable distinct temperaments to interact effectively. A notion that, looking at today's world, is only hypothetically relevant to humanity. Evidently the gods, perpetually fantasized about as universal drivers by the masses, were less focused than this mortal composer, who is aware of the criteria that must be met for art to be considered as such.
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