Series: Contemporary Series
Format: Cd

With 48 Hours the Vonnegut Collective shows a new look into and brings the experience of a rehearsal of contemporary music. They perform a new composition by Tullis Rennie, and Thomas Adès his Piano Quitent.

48 Hours is released on CD recorded and produced by Mark Knoop and mastered by Stephen Rinker, and comes in beautiful artwork by Rutger Zuydervelt basd upon the score for 48 Hours.

48 Hours

When a twenty-minute piece takes two weeks to rehearse is an audience robbed of some of the richness of their experience by not witnessing that creative journey? For 48 Hours, Vonnegut Collective worked collaboratively with composer Tullis Rennie. Together they documented the trajectory of the rehearsal process and the motivations of the performers as the group tackled their most challenging work to date – Thomas Adès’s Piano Quintet.

Recordings from rehearsals and interviews with players are woven through improvised interpretations of a new graphic score for the quintet, combined with trumpet and electronics. In 48 Hours, Rennie and the Vonnegut Collective play with perspective, observation and interpersonal experience, providing the listener with a unique insight into contemporary music making.

Reviews

Vital Weekly – Dolf Mulder

A third release in the MFR Contemporary Series of Moving Furniture. After releases by Alvin Curran and Renier van Houdt and one by Elliott Sharp, the label now presents the debut album by the Vonnegut Collective performing ’48 Hours’ by Tullis Rennie and ‘Piano Quintet’ by Thomas Adès.
The Vonnegut Collctive is a collective from Manchester, specialized in performing modern composed music, formed in 2015 by two members of the BBC Philharmonic Ensemble.

Thomas Adès is one of the most important modern composers coming from the UK. He studied piano and composition. He composed several operas, ‘Powder Face’, ‘The Tempest’ and ‘The Exterminating Angel’ that received good reviews. Like his orchestral work ‘Asyla’. He collaborated with the Dutch Concertgebouw-Orkest that performs his compositions since 1995. Now we are talking of a composition of chamber music. ‘Piano Quintet’ was written in 2001 and premiered by Arditti Quartet and Adès himself on piano. It is an intriguing work with many compelling moments.
It turns out to be in the good hands by the Vonnegut Collective as this recording makes clear. After a short frivolous opening by violin, the music soon transforms into something else. In a way, the music is accessible, built from melodic material that is rooted in the classic tradition. Nevertheless, the way Ades treats this material makes it a strange affair. It is not easy to find a grip on what is happening here. And that makes this a fascinating work. It is as if the music continuously shifts and moves, generating imaginative contrasts. It is a very dynamic and powerful work, performed with verve and intensity by the ensemble.
For sure a composition with a very own identity.

The rehearsals for the ‘Piano Quintet’ took 48 hours. The composition ’48 Hours’ by Tellis refers very specifically to these same 48 hours: “48 Hours features excerpts of phrases, sounds and conversations recorded during the rehearsal period for the Adès Piano Quintet, interwoven with improvised interpretations of a new graphic score for the quintet, combined with trumpet and electronics to create a unique sound-scape, part performance, part installation, a new and innovative piece.”
Tellis – a composer, improvising trombonist, electronic musician and field recordist – worked with Vonnegut Ensemble from the start. He is also involved in audio-visual projects, like his work with visual artist Laurie Nouchka and his participation in the Barcelona-based collective Insectotròpics.’48 Hours’ is his latest of several projects he realized with the Vonnegut Collective. He was commissioned by the ensemble to compose a work that reflects the rehearsing process, the struggle for making a composition come to life. An unusual perspective and starting point for creating new work.
Whereas ‘Piano Quintet’ is an undivided 22-minute composition, ’48 Hours’ is compiled from eight sections and composed along very different lines. Flashes of conversation by the performers pass by, which has them reflecting on the rehearsal process. We hear parts are from the original composition, other parts however differ from ‘Piano Quintet’ like the drone-like sections in ‘Harmonics III’. Several parts have a trumpet delivering improvised comments and additions. The Vonnegut Collective makes an impressive first statement especially in their performance of ‘Piano Quintet’ in an original combination with ’48 Hours’. (DM)