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ROGER SMALLEY AT 60 Trinity
College of Music, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London SE10
9JF Prominent on the UK new music scene, and highly rated in London around the '60s & '70s, Roger Smalley (b. 1943, near Manchester) moved to Western Australia and disappeared from regular notice in UK. A brief residency at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich gives a welcome opportunity to re-appraise his music. In interview with one of the Trinity students for the New Quays series he explained that he didn't encounter so many composers with new ideas in Australia, so his own music became less adventurous, and for ten years has been 'pretty much based on Chopin, Liszt and Brahms'. 'Finding the new within the old' has been an underlying force in Roger Smalley's output since transplanting himself into Australia's cultural and spiritual landscape. He has a successful career there, but this is a perilous route to choose and Thursday's day of concerts and classes open to the public will tell whether it has proved fruitful artistically and Smalley's later music has managed 'to conjure up his love of the great classics within a radical musical perspective', as claimed. To open the New Quays session, Roger Smalley played two Chopin mazurkas before his own twelve Chopin Variations (1989) upon one of them. His association with Stockhausen was recalled by playing Piano Piece No. IX, the best known of the ground breaking series, now numbering 17. He explained how its alternation of regularity and irregularity is all derived from the Fibonacci series, 'which explains everything'. After Smalley's half-hour there was a very mixed bag of student performances, to be followed by open discussion led by Elena Riu which, after two hours music, lost some of the audience. We had not been told what was the level of experience of those performing, so individual reviews would not be appropriate. There seems to be little vetting of what the students choose to present at these educational events, to which the (modestly paying) public is invited. I understood from talking with them that the Steinway concert grand, bought for the small, resonant Peacock Room, has a stiff action and is not easy to play quietly. That may partly explain why some of the playing was unduly loud; in the case of Shchedrin's Bach-derived Polyphonic Pieces that was not indicated by the composer's instructions. Young pianists should be warned against being seduced by the adrenaline effect of 'fast and loud', even though it does produce fulsome applause! Rzewski's Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues was unready; its player would be well advised to avoid this unbiquitous warhorse and explore instead some of the easier pieces recently released on CD - the scores are available inexpensively. Some Iranian-Western Mirrors depended far too much upon contrary motion and Lisztian figurations, and long outstayed their novelty welcome. Pieces by Billy Mayerl were given too 'straight'; that pianist needs to develop more imaginative dynamics and pedalling, better voicing between the hands, and a teasing rubato to find the charm that is there to be discovered; light music is not a light task and demands searching beyond the notes if it is to please in a concert context. That it is possible to find colour in that Peacock Room Steinway, and to adjust to the venue and audience, was shown by the poise and authority brought to the last of Messiaen's Preludes, and to the leading Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe's less testing little Night Pieces, both the young women pianists bringing to bear sensitive pairs of ears (just as important as strong, nimble fingers). Monday 19 May, 6.15pm - New Quays, a harbour for
contemporary keyboard music Thursday 22 May: Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College, 1.00pm Peacock Room, 3.00pm Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College, 7.30pm Trinity College of Music Website (Old Royal Naval College, London SE10 9JF Tel 020 8305 4434 Email ekendon@tcm.ac.uk) See MusicWeb's review of Roger Smalley's Symphony and Piano Concerto on CD "You remember Roger Smalley, don't you?"
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