Jean-Luc Hervé — Germination

Here’s another CD of intriguing classical pieces from Kairos, with three works from Jean-Luc Hervé. The in depth booklet tells us that Hervé was influenced here by the designs of Japanese gardens, and Déserts by Varèse, a piece that combined an orchestra with tape; in that light, electronics perform a large role here, with all the pieces on display utilising electronics or electronic sounds in some form.

Germination (2013) for 12 musicians and electronics is just over twenty minutes in duration, and was composed for a specific space. Hervé’s work was designed with two halves: the first to be played by musicians alongside electronics and speakers in a basement room, whilst the second would be purely electroacoustic, relayed through speakers in the city square above, with the transition involving the audience being led up a staircase lined with speakers. Of course, we miss out on all of this, but the music remains engaging. Germination begins with short stabs, with bows roughly dragged across strings - it grabs your attention from the very off; these blocks of sounds that suddenly puncture the silence start to unravel, dragging smaller sounds with them - it’s effective and compelling. As the piece develops it enters a long passage of of quiet sparseness, with instruments rising up to then falter, accompanied by slight drones that slowly shift in pitch; this suddenly coalesces into an ascending solid riff, with percussive accents and colours - indeed, percussion is used judiciously throughout Germination. As the end of the piece nears, the electroacoustic elements become more defined and prominent, with some well-crafted sounds that follow neatly what has come before.

Topos (2022), the second piece here, is scored for 8 musicians and electronics; it has four sections: Objets animés, Les êtres du rêve, Analogies, and Nature, all around the six-minute mark. The piece deploys a ‘fearful acousmatic device’ which as far as I can understand is a device that plays sounds through speakers, but reacts to external noise by quietening, mimicking the effects of intrusion by humans into natural soundscapes. Objets animés begins with breathy brass sounds, with animalistic vocalisations, before building into sometimes piercing sections of sound; Les êtres du rêve is more of a drone-y affair, with long lines over echoing percussion, this again has several sonorous moments before dying down to reveal the sounds of the fearful acoustic device. The opening section of Analogies is quite pointillistic, with lots of little sounds weaving together; at points there’s a sense of pattern or fusion, but more often it’s disparate parts moving in the same direction, but not together. The final section, Nature, starts tentatively, with instruments rising cautiously, before being interrupted by a more crashing  section; as the piece progresses these two sections merge and combine, until the piece ends with a slight electronic whine.

Au dehors (2008), for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, is around eleven minutes in duration, and begins with, to my ears, a passage where a pulse struggles to impose itself, battered by strings and wind; this all leads into an entrancing mid-section where the quartet meet around several motifs, some descending, some disjointed, a very effective passage that brings Bernard Herrmann to mind for some reason. After this, the work lurches as it drags and pummels the rhythmic aspects of those motifs, before lowering in intensity and ending with piano notes which slowly bend upwards in pitch, achieved somehow by MP3 players and mini-speakers held by the performers.

This is another solid release from Kairos, which will tick lots of boxes for those into modern classical. Whilst the first two works were composed as installations, they still work as recorded pieces, and the electronic aspects of all three works are intelligent, often blending in subtly with the acoustic parts. I could deploy the ‘ultimately it’s not my cup of tea’ get-out clause, but all the pieces have very enjoyable passages, though it was perhaps only Germination that engaged me fully from beginning to end.