Monochromatic Analysis (Afterlife) – Tyshawn Sorey’s meditations reveal their secrets slowly | Classical music

MOnochromatic Light (Afterlife) Pulitzer-winning author and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey they need patience. Titled “Meditations on Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel”, the work uses a similar composition – orchestra, keyboards, viola, choir, solo voices – and a similar dialogue between music and voice. Feldman’s 1971 tribute to the US artist. But where Feldman’s voiceover takes half an hour, Monochromatic Light runs 80 minutes and reveals in its final bars the second most important piece of African American spirituality Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.

That kind of success can’t come from a tight crowd in a hot church during a week of scorching heat. There was a moment between its opening, the faint hum of tubular bells and its closing monologue of a bass-baritone soloist (combining syllable by syllable for over 50 minutes) when I struggled to make use of the musical structure, as the pinpricks of the slow instruments began to sound faintly. Other points provided immediate gratification: the opening riff on the bass drum and timpani using sticks with candyfloss heads; the shimmering shimmer of bowed marimbas over a strange, quiet octave mill sound from the choir; Wild bass-baritone melismas leap around the voice.

During most of the European spectacle at St Giles’ Cripplegate, Sorey remained unmoved on the pitch. He raised his hands to lead the chorus, his movements bending freely as if BBC Singers he produced the purest wordless record – the purest combination of them – that could possibly be produced. The bright light gave rise to a powerful singing, which at times was quite impressive. bass-baritone Davóne Tinesand Ruth GibsonIt’s a similar influence in playing the viola – the full tone of some strokes, the harshness of others and the rhythmic melodies that he called without a bow at all. Placed on either side of the venue, George Barton (percussion) and Siwan Rhys (piano and celesta) GBSR Duo they were incessantly communicating, tireless in their silent exploration of music that seemed to honor his own secrets.