Michael Gordon: Field of Vision. The University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, Ian Antonio and Doug Perkins, co-directors. Cantaloupe CA21217. Total time 1 hour 55 minutes
DIGITAL REVIEW — The journey began with bright-orange ear plugs.
Without explanation, they were handed out for Michael Gordon’s Field of Vision at the MASS MoCA courtyard during the 2022 Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend in North Adams, Mass. And they were necessary. The 36-strong University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble was fanned out, moving from one nest of instruments to another, with the sound focus by the walls of this 1860 factory complex turned modern-art mecca. An hour later, when the sweeping piece was finished, the excitement was too high to accommodate analysis.
One buddy claimed the piece was the loudest sound he’d ever heard outside of an airport. (Clearly, he’s never been in the Philadelphia subway.) Was the piece in six sections? Eight sections? Answer: Four. Could or would such a piece ever be recorded?
Now it has. Ear plugs aren’t needed or recommended. It’s definitely one of the albums of the year. To some extent, the piece still defies analysis: Some of the instruments were specially constructed and tuned — the promotion material calls them “objects of ambiguous origin” — so that even score reading might not clarify what sound is being made by whom. For other reasons, I hesitate to declare any new piece as a masterwork if only because one never knows if something even better is ahead for a composer in the prime of life. But Gordon is due to write a cumulative work: Commissioned by the Caramoor Festival, Field of Vision is his 14th percussion-centric work and is among his longest and richest.
Consciously or not, the hour-long, four-part piece is roughly patterned after Brahms/Bruckner symphonies, with a pleasing symphonic depth of sound afforded by 36 players. The unconventional ensemble, however, makes the piece hard to place in non-festival circumstances. And even then: When the Brooklyn-based Long Play Festival hosted a performance in Fort Greene Park, the sound lacked focus outside of the MASS MoCA courtyard. This Cantaloupe-label recording, I’m relieved to say, was made at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, thoughtfully capturing spatial elements that are elusive in any live-performance plus attending to the finer qualities of the sound.
In the opening moments, Gordon’s counterpart to a slow first-movement introduction to a classical/romantic symphony is created from gong-like instruments played with soft mallets. The result is sheets of sound. That sets the tone for an overall piece that strives for continuity of thought — not the easiest achievement in an ensemble of instruments whose fundamental nature is that of a quick decay time. Thereafter, the textures consist of two to four layers of horizontally moving sound in varied combinations giving each “part” (I’m tempted to call them movements) its own tint.
Some of the sounds evolve into an entrancing shimmer. One dominant gesture in Part One is a sound resembling bells, not from a church but more like a volunteer fire department. More decorative rattle instruments come into play. A formidable boom that feels unstoppably industrial — sort of a bridge pylon in sound — advances and recedes. Multiple wood blocks are played with a velocity that gives the sound continuous motion. The second movement, to my ears, is Gordon’s counterpart to a rhythmically emphatic Brucknerian scherzo. Part Three is a counterpart to an adagio movement with lighter sounds and textures. Rattle instruments are friendly, possibly charming.
Part Four has so many different elements that I was reminded of the final movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1. Overtones seem to drift with gradual rising and falling plus rhythmic morphing as well — amid some of the piece’s most homogenous textures. When another layer is added to this already full sound — a steel drum, for example — the effect is all the more arresting.
Again, momentum builds with a force that’s perhaps only possible with an ensemble of this size, though the control of the sound is such that the movement winds down with well-calculated inevitability to the single sheet of sound that began Part One.
Would Brahms approve? In theory, yes. It’s said that he judged new works by laying his arm in the middle of the score and judging how well the bass and treble lines interacted and informed each other. Gordon gets an A on that front and an A-plus for his clarity of thought.
PS: The Katie Merz album art — abstract with elements of Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock — is a big plus. Bonus cuts reprising parts of Field of Vision are not.
