On our blog, our contemporary composers present their favorite work from our catalogs. This time: Rolf Hind writes about Masse, Macht und Individuum by Vinko Globokar. 

"I heard this piece in Vienna about fifteen years ago, and have been living in hope since that someone might present it in Britain. At the time I was overwhelmed by the force of personality in this coruscating circus of a piece, a piece that at twenty minutes leaves you so breathlessly tantalised. But I suppose the forces themselves are an obstacle. Let’s hope that for Globokar’s 80th in 2014 someone will see fit… Not music of Austerity perhaps, but for these austere times, with its narrative of struggle between one and many, small and large, strong and weak.

Ranged in four corners, the four soloists, maximally differentiated and characterised: accordion, proletarian instrument of revolutionary song, sometimes crazy with anger or joy; double-bass, sawing and intense, struggling for beauty; electric guitar, another voice of the people, leading the song; and finally, the percussion soloist, at times surprisingly delicate and vulnerable with its array of tiny subtle sounds from toys and water.

All four strive to make their presence felt in music that ranges from wild drama, to crazy absurdity, to physical comedy. And heard against two orchestras: one on stage, the second – smaller - standing in ominous single file in the centre of the hall. When the piece erupts, two thirds of the way through, the sounds of their marching (they stand in a tray of sand!) fills the air, grotesque and menacing…

Menacing too, the presence of two conductors, two field marshals one of whom (Vinko) starts the piece barking instructions in a parody of the conductor role. Further adding to the sense of a piece that takes apart the mechanics of orchestra, soloist, conductor and reconfigures them as nightmare. And at the same time, as the title suggests, shows us the nightmare of society and the roles played by the masses, the lonely individual, and the powerful. The whole ferment of revolution is here, in an immersive, violent, surround-sound antidote to Les Misérables. I hope I’ll see it again."  

- Rolf Hind

Vinko Globokar: Masse, Macht und Individuum (1995)
pour 4 instruments solistes et 2 orchestres
4 / 4 / 4 / 4 — 5 / 3 / 4 / 1 — 6 perc. - org.élec. - hpe — cordes

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