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Odd numbers
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A piano and cello pairing is no big news in classical music. A cello and a turntable, on the other hand, might seem like a daring or dubious doubling up. For Montreal’s Matt Haimovitz, a McGill music prof and a cellist renowned as much for rogue notions of classical music’s cultural parameters as for his superior playing, however, one match-up’s no weirder than the other. Tonight, Haimovitz joins pianist Geoffrey Burleson and turntablist DJ Olive for what’s not quite a neatly split two-part recital, to be recorded for broadcast on CBC Radio. “We’ll be improvising in various ways between the fixed pieces,” says Haimovitz, “so there will be moments when all three of us play together. But the idea, really, is to juxtapose these two duo formations with the cello at the centre. “It’s funny, I wrote my thesis on Beethoven’s last sonata for cello and piano at Harvard, and I’ve spent most of my life playing this music, but I’m not a big fan of that combination. The repertoire is there, it exists, but it’s a very challenging combo. People just accept this relationship—how can I show how strange it really is? Okay, I’ll bring in the DJ, and show that it’s actually just as normal or unusual for me to play with a DJ as with a piano.” Haimovitz highlights the distinction between his instrument and Burleson’s. “The cello is happiest among its family, the string quartet—the fiddle, viola and bass. The piano has a different timbre, different possibilities and range. The fixed tuning is something we don’t have to deal with. We can play expressively, if we want to bend a note, slide between notes, vibrate—there are all these things we can do and a piano can’t, and vice versa. “It’s sort of like taking two people who don’t belong together, who you wouldn’t expect to get along, put them together in a room and suddenly, you realize they’ve had a very happy marriage.” That would explain the choice of The Odd Couple as the title of the new CD from Haimovitz and Burleson, a title that’s not reflective of their personal interactions. “We actually have a lot more in common than our instruments,” Haimovitz says. “He’s played a lot with singers, so he’s used to listening carefully in that way, being a real chamber music partner. I could say the same of DJ Olive, actually, that he plays his turntables like a chamber musician.” DJ Olive and Haimovitz have already worked together, notably on the release VinylCello (available on… you guessed it, vinyl), which featured a Tod Machover composition for cello and DJ. That work will be played tonight, as will the world premiere of “Bookburners,” a work by local composer Nicole Lizée. “She’s done a lot to bring the turntable world together with acoustic music,” says Haimovitz of Lizée, a finalist for the 2007 Jules Léger Prize. The pieces take into consideration that DJ Olive’s approach, though he’s a rigorous performer with a remarkable skill in matching pitch, remains entirely unorthodox by classical standards. “He is at heart completely an improviser,” Haimovitz says admiringly. “He doesn’t read music. He has to contribute in the moment. He’s someone who literally cannot repeat the same thing twice. It goes against every fibre in his body.” AT POLLACK HALL (555 SHERBROOKE |
