Concert Review: Israel Contemporary Players

Mishkenot Sha'ananim premiered Sydney-born Israeli John Bostock's "Music for Eight Instruments" (2006) last month, conducted by Christian Eggen.

By URY EPPSTEIN
Israel Contemporary Players A Premiere and 20th Century Music Mishkenot Sha'ananim March 19 Mishkenot Sha'ananim premiered Sydney-born Israeli John Bostock's "Music for Eight Instruments" (2006) last month, conducted by Christian Eggen. The work's main attraction was its diverse tone colors - utilizing four different wind instruments with a vibraphone and three string instruments, bowed as well as plucked. This is an effective recipe to capture the listener's attention. The earliest piece was Webern's Quartet op. 22 (1930) for violin, clarinet, saxophone and piano (Nitai Tsori, Desmond Beasley, Gan Lev, Eitan Globerson). It was also the most modern-sounding and unconventional. The uncompromising conciseness with which seemingly unconnected tones were passed from one instrument to the next created a novel kind of audio-pointilism. The players, each one a soloist in his own right, displayed mutual attentiveness. Louis Andriessen's "Hout" ("Wood," 1991) for saxophone, marimba, electric guitar and piano (Lev, Laszlo Hodaczek, Yaron Deutsch, Globerson) released forceful energies. There was something hypnotic about this music's cumulative effect. In Jonathan Harvey's "Wheel of Emptiness" for 16 players (1997) one felt exposed to a whirlwind of multitudinous tone colors.