Farpoint Recordings, 2024
Ian Wilson, Gareth Davis, Dario Calderone
CD
While its history goes back to Greek mythology, the story of Orpheus holds a very special place in opera. It's not just that it was the subject of one of the very first operas ever created, Monteverdi's L’Orfeo in 1607 is predated only by the now lost Dafne by Jacobo Peri in 1597 and Peri's own version of the story in the earliest known opera Euridice in 1600. It's Monteverdi's work however that remains a cornerstone for what we know as opera today and it is still frequently performed. It's significant that Gluck's version Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) or Orphée et Eurydice (1774) is also one of the most important reform works that redefined and refined opera, but the subject remains popular with artists (notably Cocteau) and contemporary composers, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus (1986) being a landmark work in its own right.
Part of the appeal of the work for composers is undoubtedly the nature of Orpheus as a musician and how the myth can be seen as the ultimate expression of artistic creation. Orpheus ventures deep into the underworld armed only with his lyre, confident that his music has the power to protect him from the horrors of the Underworld, charming gods and monsters. It may even be capable of extending and surpassing the capacity of human expression to the extent that it can find a way to overcome death. It's a deeply inspirational story that has indeed inspired artists to strive to the limit of what they can achieve.
The challenges are immense and formidable then for any composer who sets themselves up to compose music that expresses such aspirations. For Gluck his musical expression of the myth could be seen as about reestablishing some kind of order, for Birtwistle it's grappling with the intangible mysteries of time, memory and myth (among many other ideas), but what is important, perhaps evidently, is the power of music to express the deepest and most noble of human sentiments. As far as Ian Wilson's revisiting of the myth for our times in Orpheus Down (2021), one must wonder how much of a role the impact of the COVID pandemic played consciously or unconsciously in confronting the reality of omnipresent death with the need to strive for immortality through music. There is some measure of folly in such an endeavour, but the artist has to be prepared to take those risks, remain defiant and free of doubt about overcoming the many obstacles put in their way. One element that is common in the musical expression of all those works, which is I suppose common in any form of musical expression whether it's opera drama or otherwise, is the capacity it opens up for musical storytelling, mood and individual expression.
We get that not only in Ian Wilson’s composition, but also in how the performance of that work employs just two instruments to express everything that needs to be expressed in Orpheus’s journey through the darkest of experiences. What is most notable here is not the absence of singing - you don't necessarily need words or pictures to tell a story - but the choice of musical voices used and how they express the very same experience endured by Orpheus; dark percussive and earthy double bass, the airy deep bass clarinet. Gluck might have tried to reform and reset how opera might more effectively work its unique magic, but he inevitably had to make concessions to expectations of the times. Wilson has no such restrictions imposed other than self limitations to be as direct and expressive as possible with the right choice of elements and minimum of means.
Paradoxically, Wilson's lack of voice and reduced instrumentation in Orpheus Down gives Orpheus an even greater voice. You could see the musical melodic quality of the bass clarinet as his voice (what wind instrument could be as lyrical for the voice of Orpheus?) and the double bass his dramatic progress, or see the blending of both as a representation of the struggle to reconcile the Apollonian and the Dionysian sides of human nature. The way the instruments are used come to embody this dualistic struggle to overcome the limitations of earthly existence with the imperfection and chaos of death and aspire to surpass the capacity of man to assert order and meaning, striving to achieve immortality in a greater spiritual realm through his art, his music, his creativity. Without words, Wilson's music gives Orpheus a greater physical presence, as well as evoking the higher experience he undergoes.
In the opening Mourning Song however we witness Orpheus initially unable to give voice to his loss. Dario Calderone’s double bass is restricted to the extended techniques of tapping and the rubbing of strings, like the body broken down by grief, rain falling around him. The bass clarinet of Gareth Davis is like a sobbing, the voice slowly trying to give expression to that physical experience and, just as importantly, strive to find a way to overcome it. Evidently the route Orpheus takes is not the common one, and in the subsequent track The Crossing we hear the creak of Charon’s oar, the ferryman even humming a melody as he goes about his eternal task. It's a lovely touch, quite unexpected and haunting.
The journey started, the progression and development of the work continues with Orpheus beginning his Descent down into Hades and across the subsequent parts. It tracks that uncommon but entirely human reaction to overcome the trials and the torment of the experience of loss and bereavement and emerge greater from it. Sentinels then is potentially a literal encounter with many headed Cerberus or a battle with his own fears, Orpheus emerging triumphant in a short melody of optimism that he may be able to succeed in his endeavour, but it's only a brief respite until he comes up to the audibly formidable entrance to Hades in At The Gates. The spirits he encounters there not unexpectedly means that Passing Ghosts is simultaneously an airy song of shifting sounds and sudden shocks.
There's consequently a lot of darkness of this journey through Hades in Orpheus Down and not a great deal of light, but there is something resolute nonetheless in the protagonist's firmness of purpose, anchored by the double bass introduction to Entreaty and the lyrical enchantment of the lines of Davis’s beautiful bass clarinet. The ambition however becomes increasingly strained as Orpheus brings Eurydice upwards in Towards the Light. The Losing Again while traumatic however does not feel as hopeless as it might, rather a sense of resignation to the inevitability of the enterprise's failure. It is not however without recompense of sort for the ambition in seeking to break the bonds of physical human limitations. Although Wilson’s musical evocation of the myth retains the original outcome of Orpheus paying the ultimate price for his transgression of the laws of nature and the gods, To Sing Forever does not provide the false happy ending demanded by the conventions of 18th century opera of Gluck’s time, but rather, as in Stefano Landi's La Morte d'Orfeo (1619), the bard is torn to pieces by the Maenads. Ending on an unresolved note, the head of Orpheus however continues to sing to us down through the ages, an inspiration to Ian Wilson and no doubt others in the future.
Produced by Ian Wilson, recorded by Gareth Davis and engineered and mastered by Lazar Arsović, the sound recording on this Farpoint CD and the High Resolution download of Orpheus Down is astonishingly good. The bass clarinet and thrumming double bass resonate deeply with detail and clarity. There is no obvious applied reverb or use of natural spacial ambience of the recording studio, no sense of silence being used to playing a role, the music of just two instruments creating it own fullness of presence.
External links: Orpheus Down
