Creo, Bass Clarinet and Henri Bok

      To recapture the experience of Creo's music program presented at Chandler Hall on April 26, 2004, I put on a CD of solo bass clarinet pieces played by Henri Bok, Creo's guest artist from Rotterdam, Netherlands. The CD, titled Wicked, is a pleasant and sometimes jolly listen of fifteen pieces by ten contemporary Dutch composers. The last five pieces are by Henri Bok (b.1950), including the title track.

      This program of Dutch music was one of unprecedented scope for Old Dominion University's modern music group led by the laudable Dr. Andrey Kasparov, who explained to the audience that Dutch music has had as great an influence on contemporary music in the second half of the twentieth century as German music had on the first half. Two pieces by Theo Loevendie (b.1930), who is well-known in Europe as a jazz clarinetist, were played in the first half of the concert. He wrote his first concert piece at age 40. The opening piece Kazan Trilogy (1999) for percussion duo was played by Kevin Kelleher and David Walker. The first movement "Kama" had a spare quality which failed to engage my full concentration. The second movement was not performed. "Volga", the third movement, had many colors using diverse percussion instruments and with a continuing line that was unsettling. To get the overall shape of the piece I would need to hear the center movement as well to see how the three movements fit together.

      Ending the first part of the program was Dance by Loevendie, played by Natasha Kuznetsova on violin with the ringing effect created by open strings used by fiddle players in America and Black Sea countries. There were passages that recalled country fiddling that morphed into modern sounds as if the tones were a little sour, somber sections with sad, sweeter notes, a double bowed section, screams from the violin and a fast, furious ending as if the country fiddler has gone completely berserk. Ms. Kuznetsova communicated well this complicated, innovative piece. Her entry from the back of the hall, playing as she walked down the aisle to the stage added to the drama.

      The bass clarinet is over six-feet long but is curved so it extends to about knee level. The sound is deeper than a regular clarinet, resonant, warm and rich, sometimes breathy, sometimes even shrill. One usually sees Norfolk's world-renowned clarinetist Gerald Errante on the stage playing the clarinet, but that came later in the evening. For this first half of the program he was in the audience as a listener and so I invited him to share with us his enthusiasm for what he heard.

      "In devoting his life to specializing in new music for the bass clarinet, Henri Bok has carved out an unusual niche in the music world. Early on, Bok discovered that there was a very thin solo repertory for his instrument, so he went about creating his own and in the process has done the music world a great service. In 1989 he published a book titled New Techniques for Bass Clarinet. This groundbreaking work catalogued and explained a wide variety of extended techniques including playing more than one note at once (multiphonics), use of microtones, extended register, harmonics, various methods of articulation, and timbre changes."

      The book's publication has stimulated composers to write new pieces to explore these methods of expression. Gerry Errante continues, "For the publication of the book, Joep Straesser (b.1934) composed a work employing many of the techniques described therein. The result is much more than a collection of gimmicks; it is a virtuoso tour de force of extended techniques and a totally engaging, moving piece of music. The title of the work, Plain Language, describes the basic musical material - a rapid short motive based on the interval of a second, and an octave leap. Written in five sections, the two motives gradually intertwine and interact. In the process, many of the extended techniques including some lovely, delicate double stops are employed. Bok's performance was masterful and it is clear that he 'owns' this work."

      The fourth piece on the program was a composition for bass clarinet and piano, Mirabelle, by Burkhardt Söll. Bok was joined by Andrey Kasparov at the piano. "Composed in 2003 for a recording project that Bok initiated, this work is quite lyrical in nature [with a jazzy flavor]. The piece takes its title from a fruit grown in the Alsace region of France that is in season for only one month a year. Couched in a traditional ABA form, the middle section of the work is a luscious long-lined melody that contrasts with the fragmented outer sections. Söll makes use of the extreme registers of this bass instrument, and Bok negotiated these demands with great confidence. The masterful performance made it appear that the paring of Kasparov and Bok had been of many years rather than just several days. As an audience member it is wonderful to relax in the confidence that the music will unfold exactly as it should."

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