#simon fell

For an overview of IST’s history and importance to the overlapping scenes the trio represents, there is Michael Rosenstein’s superb article on Confront’s site:

Rosenstein’s expert ability to encapsulate historical and musical developments is as comprehensive as his descriptions are rich. Given such context, it seems prudent only to examine moments in time, and through them to come to terms with the varying approaches, densities and totalities achieved by this unique string trio that embodied “chamber music” in its most inclusive guise. It is true, as Rosenstein observes, that the pivotal first performance involved much of the back and forth associated with what might be called Euro-Free improvisation of the atomistic variety. Just as important, however, are the sonic highways and byways, the trails blazed and pastoral paths trod by these intrepid explorers. One of the most fascinating and exciting elements is the way timbre impacts the rest of what we stodgily call musical parameters. In the first of the two miniatures from that formative 1996 concert, rhythm, timbre and pitch transcend their respective narrative boundaries. Like the characters in Joyce’s Nighttown episode from Ulysses, there is a blending of structure, form and purpose that enters the realms of magic, even of phantasmagoria. Melody is inextricably linked with the rhythmic sounds of the three string instruments, but, as with the Diamond Sutra, even to speak of melody, harmony and rhythm is both true and false, tearing away at the illusions on which those binaries are constructed. Be all that as it may, nearly two and a half minutes into the same piece, there is a lengthening of sounds, a decrease in density and an increase in relative space. There’s even some exquisite executed vibrato from Wastell, a harkening back to traditions this trio usually discards. As Wastell and Fell doff their hats toward the vocabulary of the “jazz” solo, Davies joins in, bending piquant pitches in the upper register as what I have no recourse but to call the tempo picks up again. In this way, in the space of a few brief minutes, the group presents its own history in astonishing distillation, dissolving boundaries in favor of new ones soon to be subjected to a similar fate.

At another extreme resides an extension of those flowing seed-moments of near-stasis in the trio’s powerful 1998 rendering of Intensitat, one of Stockhausen’s late 1960s text pieces. Obviously, via the rigors of recording, rehearsal and performance over the intervening two years, interaction is at an even higher level. It can happen in a moment, that communication that fosters elevation, and it’s palpable, as it is in this concert of compositions. Listen at 1:23 of the Stockhausen as Wastell microtonally alters his pitch, a shade separating tyranny from freedom. Similarly, at 2:46, Davies simply cuts off the ratcheting rhythms that had been bolstering the interaction, leaving a glorious bed of sustain and overtone in shifting dynamic planes. Here again and at other strategic points, vibrato is used but to an entirely different end. Is the trio employing it as a rhythmic device? Is Fell responsible for the emergent microtones at 2:22, whose gradual tempo increase eventually births the layering mini-cascades of vibrations in fluctuation we myopically call vibrato? The gorgeous miniature is rife with internal rhythms, imbuing the entire frequency spectrum with warmth, luminosity and, above all, a raw power, a vision of arising and somehow fastidious unity very rare in any chamber music. It is one of the most extraordinary occurrences in a set full of them, showing a group in the flux of development portended by that first concert and realized over the succeeding years. Yet, nothing anticipates, or can follow, the vast architectural drones, the huge swells as primal as ocean waves and as crystalline as spring water. The group’s atoms are elongated, saturated with the energy and life-blood only a shared performance experience affords. Again, pitch is only a consequence stemming from the timbres in vibration and mutation filling and elasticizing each moment. The applause is well deserved.

Rereading the above affirms that it cannot constitute anything close to a comprehensive review. For one thing, so many of this compendium’s wonderful performances are simply neglected. There is the occasion, the only one, of Simon Fell and violinist Phil Durrant performing together in a small group, caught in the Red Rose in February 1998. That beloved venue had a wonderful acoustic, especially evident on the two IST pieces opening the fourth disc. The initially sparse concluding track offers a precis of just how well the improvisers’ aesthetics meshed, matched only by John Butcher’s contributions to another Red Rose performance several months earlier. How one trills multiphonics in microtone I’ll never know, yet another nod to timbral intrigue, but you can hear Butcher doing just that as the combined portion of the concert begins, the trio supporting and leading in turn.  

Ultimately, when confronting music plumbing such sonic depths, nothing can replace first-hand observation. How, after all, does one review the musical equivalent of a thunderstorm, a birth, something as nebulous and inconclusive as a conclusion, especially when the language to discuss it has yet to be invented? It is the substance of those unfolding events as much as their attendant statistics that generate the power and lead toward reflection, and this box rewards that sort of listening. More than that, it pays tribute to a time of exploration, of interactive moments caught in the simple but precious and fleeting acts of presaging others, however distant, and to the environments bearing witness as sound travels between mind, heart and body. Beyond even these relationships, the set honors Fell. Only weeks before his death, a 25th anniversary IST concert was being planned. The box is dedicated to Fell, and his mentorship helped Wastell and Davies to enter the musical scene the trio would go a long way toward defining. The music here somewhat mitigates the harsh reality that they will not perform again, as do the accompanying booklet’s reminiscences, from those involved in the music and from those observing. Insightful, touching and sometimes humorous, they mirror the music’s multifaceted approach in a way many such endeavors fail to do. With mixed emotions channeled through a quiet but definite comprehension of the extraordinary nature of what transpired and is documented, the various accounts celebrate the music and the musicians responsible for it. No more can be asked than that we do the same.