Barricades

 

A nice-looking record arrived the other day. [The original article is dated April 2021.]
2020 release, well-known songs, keyboardists, relatively unknown performers, something fresh, I hope. Out of the cellophane, I smell and touch it. Quality, attention is visible. Thick pages in the booklet, pictures with a special atmosphere. Two guys, max 30, standing nicely in the stubble field. And sitting at the base of a big tree.

 

Then I listen in. At least, that's how it started. Then it didn't even come out of the player that day. 

What is it like? It touches me in the very first second. Some kind of radiance, some inner peace, a calm conveyance of perfection.

 

The presentation style is very unique; something that comes from the distinctness of inner approach, which sets it apart from other otherwise excellent recordings.  

After long thinking, and long deliberate non-thinking, I came to the conclusion that this distinctness, on this album, might now be a kind of age-related characteristic.

Because the idea that older age means more mature thinking, especially in performing arts, is undeniable. However, if we recall Simone Beauvoir's thoughts from 'The Coming of Age,' (Le Vieillesse) we might get a more nuanced picture. That aging, explicitly named, rather signifies decline, not just physically, but primarily in a metaphysical sense: sinking into routine; becoming formulaic, involuntarily fitting into molds, the inability to detach from an established personality and one's own style. In other words, all the incoming, colorful, and infinitely varied kaleidoscope sparks that come from the external world are filtered through our own familiar, endlessly well-known grinder.

It goes like this, continuously, there is no mercy, no leniency.

Here, when we look at the pictures and the video, youth almost hits us, that fleeting vapor, which is the total opposite of the above.

Because everything is still possible. This record is just a temporary opinion. A stance that they do not yet have to stick to.  

They don't have to.  

There is no cage.  

They are not yet ingrained in it.  

Next year, if perhaps a Bach record comes out, or Stockhausen arrangements, or if they stay permanently in the jazz world, there will be absolutely no problem.  

And this is freedom itself. And this is what fascinates me.

It is unknown what the future will bring, what their future will bring. Maybe they will be like Savall, whom I love very much, I filled half of my blog with his albums, but who in the spring performed at a 30th anniversary 'Tous les Matins du Monde' concert, which was praised to the skies, like wow, what a big deal that he is still going, and that he is almost 80, and in general, - in my opinion it was catastrophic, a sad gathering of old men who tried to bring back something from the sparks of 30 years ago, otherwise hopelessly and unsuccessfully…

But now, I watch these two young guys and let myself get carried away by their music. Because it is at least as much their music as it is that of the Sun King, or Couperin, or Forqueray, who, the latter, had an extremely fiery nature, and once, he even talked back to the king, and only his influential friends saved him from execution.

Whoever has this restless nature in their music, and yes, this does not evoke the soothing-touch play mode here either; but where it is also felt that there is a 'big heart', or something like that...

And I read the booklet. Which is also a completely different approach. Because it doesn’t start with when the French Baroque was, or who Marin Marais was, or bla… bla…, because again, they are the new generation, they know that in the pockets, not even in the pockets, right in the hand is the smartphone and Wikipedia, and biographical data can be retrieved in seconds. The dryness and multifaceted uselessness of which often forces it not to be read.

No.  

Suddenly they talk about how repetitions should be avoided in novels and films, are downright superfluous, but in music, this rondo form, it is specifically for repeating. Often. Very often. Irrationally infinitely.

 

And the new repetition, the new version, always slightly affects the previous one, the past, which we tend to believe is closed and unchangeable.

And I listen to the music, and all evening I think about this single sentence.

 

And that musical expression, now, is their instrument itself. The way things are. And with the flow of repetition they convince us, rather than with words. The filibusters of beauty and pleasure. And that new ideas constantly push their predecessors, thus preserving the necessary uncertainty of the whole structure. And music is what allowed them to become what they are. And at the same time, it encourages them to keep asking questions.

That they have just outgrown the pimply adolescence at thirty, and yet are still able to write such things?

Of course, the answer could be that Rondeau was a student of Blandine Verlet, while Dunford's masters were Hopkinson Smith and Rolf Lislevand, yes, this explains a lot, but as for what they did with the anchor points of Early Music and my personal taste, how should I put it,… what did they do with them, did they pass them by?, surpass them?, no, here our [Hungarian] language struggles a bit, because time, the era, moved on meanwhile, so the comparison is never really correct, so that such a litter has emerged from the great predecessors is more than delightful. Because the 'consumption' of Early Music in Europe has passed its peak, but its quality, it seems, not yet.

And this is what really matters.

The music?  

This is the Barricades, the title, Les Baricades Mystérieuses, from 1717, from Couperin's collected keyboard edition. It is a well-known piece, not without reason. And also unknown, because we get stuck already at the title. What kind of gate, what kind of barricade could have been here?

A host of theorists tried to decipher it for long decades, so far unsuccessfully. That many suspect a pedagogical purpose in it, that it involves 'practices for the elegant construction of sound and momentum,' is possible. The uniqueness of the structure and rhythm is also undeniable, that 'the four parts constantly create changing melody and harmony variations, interacting and overlapping with different rhythmic patterns. The effect is enticing. Shimmering, kaleidoscopic, and possessing such a sonic appearance that it foreshadowed the images of fractal mathematics centuries before they existed.' – the Guardian critic circled around this oddity in 2010.

The musical extravagance of the Sun King's court, the almost incomprehensible 'leaps,' can always be felt, no matter which composer we look at on the album. It is no coincidence that the instrumental pieces of de Visee, Marais, D'Anglebert, Couperin, and Forqueray are brought together on a string, with excerpts from stage masterpieces by Lambert, Charpentier, and Rameau.
The artwork is of high quality, the YouTube videos are good, but even just listening, something infinitely delicate comes through. The caressing of the keys, here, unlike on the piano, does not result in the usual quietness of the piano, but in a sound of equal volume, yet with such an incredible abundance of overtones that it is very rarely heard.

At some beginnings, after the first chord, that slight pause is as if it recommends the upcoming ones to our special attention, or as if it shows, look, what a beautiful instrument sound this is.  

The combined use of the lute and the harpsichord is also unusual and courageous. How beautiful our language is, isn't it? Because they are simultaneous, concurrent, yes, but they form an 'ensemble,' [Hungarian language uses the same word for 'simultaneous' and 'ensemble'] an ensemble where the very strange thing is that the totality of the two is much more than the sum of the two. The secret difference that is formed, which goes beyond all usual mathematical approaches, indeed, denies them, gives the essence, the essence of the relationship. The secret relation, the relational surplus, the unspoken intention, which pushes the world forward.

How did Saint-Exupery say it? That from the pile of boards and nails and sails and tar and rigging and clumsy craftsmen, suddenly, a beautiful sailing ship is built, proudly cutting through the foam of the seas.
For behind it is Thought.

The sound quality is dazzling. Why? I turn the booklet, I don't really understand, because Erato is an average good label, but it doesn't particularly pay attention to the expectations of a niche audiophile audience. Nowadays, it is mainly not a consideration that the disc ends up in a $10k SACD player, in an era where cloud-based compressed file playbacks are killers of quality. Then, among the names, I see Hugues Deschaux, yes, he is the sound engineer, and of course, then I understand that I am hearing the touch of the (ex) Alpha sound engineer genius on this album; who stubbornly maintains the towering standard even today, who regards recording as an artistic activity, and who knows that there will be those who pay special attention to this, who will hear it as well.

 

 

Then Barricades kept asking to go back into the CD player many times. I listen. A strange feeling surrounds me. That deep within, in the middle, or on the edge of the almost-infinite, scattered, and disorderly event-tumults of the Matrix—no matter where—there are certain nodes where everything comes together, where the peak of creative intentions and desires to make things more beautiful forms points whose existence actually holds the Spheres together, materializing like individual crystals, occasionally appearing in our visible world as well.

Yes, here it is, I am holding it in my hand.

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Thank you for the images.
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