0 Page 8-The Michigan Daily- Tuesday, April 16, 1991 Ensemble revives old music Records by Liz Patton A ntiphonal, motet, melismatic, madrigal, continuo: these words de- scribe some of the qualities you'll hear at the Early Music Ensemble concert. If it sounds confusing, don't worry. Part of the appeal for those who like "early music" is the arcane terminology.' "Earlier than what?" you may be wondering. The music at this concert will be mainly from the Renaissance and Baroque periods (roughly 16th to 17th cen- tury), a time when there was no such thing as early music: if it was per- formed last season, it was old hat. By contrast, many musicians and scholars today are interested in mu- sic that is centuries old. In the chamber music section of the Early Music Ensemble, Beth Gilford poses her students an inter- esting challenge: they must play from the original notation. Though older scores aren't entirely unlike what we see today, they aren't easy todecipher. Playing from the origi- nal notation is "very rewarding," sa.ys Gilford. "It's a special accom- plishment. The students come away with a first-hand experience of the music." The practice holds an additional practical benefit: having learned to read the old notation, the students don't have to wait for someone to come along and transcribe manuscripts into modern form. Instrumental pieces for tonight's concert include a Bach trio sonata for two flutes, Hotteterre's Suite for Flute and Harpsichord, and a selection of other Renaissance pieces for recorder and sackbut. The majority of the program will be performed by the choir, di- rected by Ed Parmentier. One of singer Brad Lehman's favorite pieces is the Schutz motet, a choral work that holds a conversation between two groups of voices. "Singing the words (from Psalm 31), there's al- ways something that hits home. Like 'trust.' It's a very personal emotion," he says. The whole idea behind combining words with music is to increase the emotional impact, and the "sensuous" harmony and other musical devices toward that end are very powerful. Monteverdi's madrigal "Zefiro Torna" is a case in point. Here, explains Lehman, the Petrarch's poetry speaks radiantly of happiness in springtime, but grinds suddenly to a halt. With a. wrenching change to a new meter and key, the song begins lamenting the misery of unrequited love. (Love was just as popular a theme in music then as it is now.) At times the force of the music can overpower the words. The Bach motet, for example, is more virtu- osic. "It makes it a little harder to concentrate on the words," admits Lehman. An "athletic" fugue in the bass part demands intense concen- tration. Another challenging piece on the program is a sample of much older music known as Gregorian chant, which dates from medieval times. William Orbit Strange Cargo 2 No Speak/I.R.S. The difference between William Orbit's self-titled debut and its fol- low-up, 1988's Strange Cargo, was pretty indicative of the new possi- bilities that pop instrumentalists were beginning to enjoy at the time: the Miami Vice theme and Harold Faltermayer's "Axel F" had be- come hits, and house music was ris- ing. Working in the pop-song for- erated: given free rein on Strange Cargo, Orbit produced an impres- sive, state-of-the-art showcase for his multi-instrumental talents - which ranged from gorgeous fla- menco-guitar excursions to eerie techno-ambient mood-pieces and even the odd funk-metal workout. Three years later, with weird themes like Enigma's Gregorian "Sadeness" scoring top five hit sta- tus, Orbit ought to be finding his style even more in the swing of things. But Strange Cargo 2, oddly, displays little evidence of progress: it's more listlessly incidental and less catchy-sounding than its prede- cessor, and Orbit's ominous com- puter treatments now sound merely outdated. Perhaps its just that the songs seem like soundtracks in search of a movie; perhaps the newer studio stuff has stolen his fire - but Orbit's newest Cargo carries little weight. , - Michael Paul Fischer Michael Manring Drastic Measures Windham Hill Michael Manring is undoubtedly the king of the hill- although you could probably count them all on one hand - among New Age bass players. Perhaps best known for his occa- sional support on records by acous- tic guitar innovator Michael Hedges, Manring offers similarly dexterous solo turns on his third solo album. "Wide Asleep" is a chiming, nimble wash of harmonics. And by employing multiple finger- ings at high speed on Chick Corea' "500 Miles High," this budding virtuoso achieves an improbably layered effect. But the Drastic Measures taken by Manring's technique are hardly apparent in his sound - a jazz. refugee in sheep's clothing, Manring is likely to be appreciated only by those with an ear for the odd radical diatonic tuning. In contrast to his solid and flexible playing as part- of Manring is likely to be; appreciated only by those with an ear for the odd radical dia- tonic tuning the fiddle-fusion quintet Montreux, Manring's efforts on Dras ti Measures' ensemble pieces arg largely esoteric; only the buoyan| "Deja Voodoo" amounts to moro than benign wallpaper jazz. And when he applies typically wimpy New Age woodwinds to an instru- mental arrangement of the Police's "Spirits in the Material World"-2 bopping the vocal part on his bass H Manring' Measures sound more like beautiful-muzak radio than any-@ thing else. -Michael Paul Fischer THE EARLY MUSIC ENSEMBLE will perform in Blanche Anderson Moore Hall in the School of Music tonight at 8:00 p.m. Admission is free. "" a tg I 1't 1* gt t g __ WITH 4pri 16th i~~ke. sre 611 Church 996-2747 SOVIETS Continued from page 5 We digress again and talk about avant-garde film, film festivals and the Ann Arbor Fest in particular (which they liked, but which they felt had "too many documen- taries.") MK: Igor, when I spoke to you a couple of days ago, you said that this wasn't the first time that you were touring the U.S. with these films. When were you here before? IA: Well,there was this tour of 12 US cities organized by the Arts Company, out of Cambridge (Massachusetts), which was funded by the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation. It was a program of Soviet underground film. Orbit mat on 1987's Orbit, the London- based soundtrack composer and I.R.S. Records in-house producer had been -stifled by overly-mannered new-wave female vocals - and the result was mediocre synth pop. But when I.R.S. boss Miles Copeland started his instrumental- only No-Speak label, Orbit was lib- MK: Do Soviet underground filmmakers often tour the West? IA: Well, this is the second time in America, but we travel to the other Western countries more often. This is, of course, all since nineteen- eighty-nine. There was no foreign travel for us before then, but now it's happening all the time. PP: We'd really like to go to places like Africa and Asia to see what's happening in film there. Our own situation and our country's sit- uation is very much like the Third World, and I, for one, can't wait to see what kind of parallel cinema has developed there. MK: Back to my first question: why film, Igor? IA: I'm actually a physicist by education. After finishing college, I worked as an engineer for two years. (I wanted to express myself and so) I tried various things: I wrote, I painted, but after I tried film, I liked it the most of any of them... PP: Igor's brother, Gleb, is also an artist and a writer... MK: So, like you've said, it sounds like you see yourselves as modern artists rather than strug- gling filmmakers, right? PP: Right. IA: Yeah, for now. We'll have to see how things turn out. MK: Would you prefer if some- day the government recognized your work and you became "official" artists? IA: Well, there's no imperative need for that. All of our projects are fairly inexpensive and we can al- ways find the funding without the government's help. MK: There are hordes leaving the, USSR these days, including mahy artists. Do you have any plans to leave? IA: I have no such plans right now. PP: Me neither. r IA: It's a pretty good time for4u! right now, at least with respect-t& working. Living is definitely harder, but at least we can work comfor " ably there. PP: There are elements of what could be a brand new culture forme ing there and it would really be a shame to abandon them. The traps pings of the old cultural heritage are still there, but it's been almost completely dismantled, so we car move freely between it and the new; culture. There are really big things happening there, and we just dontr want to miss them. Note: The interview was con- ducted in Russian and I take all re- sponsibility for any mistranslations ANN A__ORjA2 u K 5THAVE ATLIBERTY 7619700 es & WSTUDENT WITH I.0.3.50 mmmw www "THE NASTY GIRL" PG-13 "THE FIELD" PG-13 -_.' . x e e PRESENT THIS COUPON WITH PURCHASED TICKET THRU 430/91 THE TOXICITY OF ENVIRONMENTALISM "A" 14* * '2 Dr. A lecture by George Reisman 0. 0 0 Professor of Economics, Pepperdine University v "The philosophical corruption that the acceptance of the environmental movement represents constitutes the genuine crisis of our time."