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GERBER
Nine Hymns on Spiritual Life. Virtual Concerto for Oboe and Digital Ensemble
Jerry Gerber (syn)
OTTAVA 22-016 (34:47)
There’s a
whole lot of God around the Hymns on Spiritual Life. Perhaps not to
everyone’s taste, but what is really miraculous is the electronic
virtuosity on display here. The sound libraries used include the East West
Choirs and the Vienna Choir, using a Cakewalk Digital Audio Workstation and VSL,
MIR and Ozone 8 signal processing. The choral sound is remarkable (as are the
pizzicato “strings” in the seventh movement, “When Death Does Come”). There are
meditations here on death, greed, desire, plus a plea for God to help the writer
through a night (real or symbolic, both work). Gerber’s harmonic and melodic
palette is most touching, because he clearly speaks from the heart. As previous
interviews have shown, this is Gerber’s preferred means of expression, in which
he can exercise preternatural control over the outcome. The chordal basis of the
final “Thank You, Spirit” is possibly the most overtly hymnic of the movements,
and in being so acts as a climactic gesture.
Out of that
comes the rather more ruminative opening of the Virtual Concerto for oboe
and digital ensemble. The oboe is digitally realized, as no player is given
here; the recording is very immediate (the strings’ chuggings in particular).
There is something to this mode of creating; certainly, when one hears jagged,
off-beat chords so together, one realizes there is a sort of beauty in that mode
of delivery. The interchange of angular fragments between solo and tutti has a
sort of extra-human charm to it, too, while the final measures have a delicious
wit about them.
The central
movement is dreamy,
it seems to sway, slowly, over which the oboe pipes a melody shot through with
heavy memories. It is the initial sounds of the finale that come as a bit of a
shock; I do not think I could put an instrument to them if required but the
music throbs with rhythmic verve. The oboe line slithers like a snake-charmer’s,
over and around this rhythmic matrix; the concerto ends with that echt-electronic
device, a fade,
Fascinating, as always, from Gerber. This is more than experimentalism; it has a real musical point and a real, musical, expressive effect on the listener.
Colin Clarke
Four
stars: Fascinating, as always, from Gerber. This is more than experimentalism;
it has a real expressive point