Joseph Franklin: The Horror of the Avant-Garde(s)

Australian composer and bassist Joseph Franklin’s The Horror of the Avant-Garde(s) is an expansive 38 minute concerto for piano, percussion, and 13 player ensemble that marries several modes of improvisation and notational convention in a landmark work featuring many of Australia’s most prominent new music specialists. In its sold out premiere run of performances in Melbourne in 2023, the performance included a children’s choir, Butoh performance, visual art, experimental writing, and culinary “horrors.” While not part of the audio recording experience, the panoply of disciplines involved in the premiere speaks to Franklin’s ambitious vision. Franklin and his collaborators wisely captured this recording immediately after the premiere, bottling its creative energy while it was fresh.

Piano soloist Marc Hannaford, percussion soloist Satoshi Takeishi, and Franklin himself are all deeply versed improvisers. The integration of improvisation into a modernist compositional vocabulary is carefully handled and seamless, clearly designed by an artist who understands the potential points of intersection between them as well as the ways in which they complement each other. Franklin’s approach extends upon concepts developed in the AACM as well as Gunther Schuller’s Third Stream works in its exploration of porous boundaries between improvised and through composed materials and the role of collective improvisation in large scale works. Horror does not present itself as a traditional heroic double concerto, though the solo parts are very clearly brought to the fore. Instead the piece unfolds like a story with main characters, frequent prominent personalities that are leading the journey. Add to that elements of microtonality, prepared instruments and extended techniques, and the scope of the work takes shape; it is anything but a collection of “horrors,” but instead a wealth of riches.

After two forceful ensemble punctuations to open Movement 1, “elasticity,” an extended introduction accumulates structural anticipation with sustained, closely spaced harmonic voicings, unsettling overpressure timbres in the strings, and a mysterious, poignant solo in the English horn. We hear the central motive of the movement, an insistent long-short-long ostinato that migrates between instruments while Hannaford reveals his quirky microtonal, prepared timbral vocabulary with nimble figurations on the piano. Franklin excavates diverse characters by moving the ostinato figure to different sections while highlighting others in phrase bursts. The string section careens forward and separates itself from the pack with an extended, swirling passage that begins in unison and gradually divides as it ascends and becomes more fraught and disjunct. What follows is a percolating dialogue between Takeishi’s drums and Franklin’s bass, a spontaneous improvisation that is woven into the structure of the movement so naturally as to feel inevitable; as inevitable indeed as Hannaford’s entrance at 9:17 to expand the section to a trio. The ostinato’s return ushers back in the full ensemble for a dynamic, orchestral passage with responsive dialogue with piano. The movement’s driving energy gradually diffuses as it heads towards it close, echoing the haunting harmonies of its introduction.

The beginning of Movement II, “the stickiness of time,” elides with Hannaford’s searching improvisation that began at the end of “elasticity,” a reflective moment of thoughtful repose after the vigor of the first track. A fleet four note figure reminiscent of a bird call starts in the flutes and steadily spreads to other sections, becoming a new motive around which Franklin facilitates intricate, embellished material. The gong-like preparations in Hannaford’s piano lead the way in a series of accumulating verticalities before Franklin leads a bass, trombone, and clarinet trio. Col legno articulations in the strings imitate a ticking clock, while Hannaford’s tolling arpeggios are answered by sardonic figures in the muted brass. As in the opening movement, Franklin alternates between sections of rhythmic and ensemble regularity and freedom to create and diffuse tension — both can and do serve in either function at different points in the piece. For instance, we hear a liberated improvisation between piano and violin whose spell is broken by a steady march-like pattern in the bass and pitched percussion that provides a foundation for the subsequent collective improvisation. Just as the texture is settling however, we hear a tutti outburst that coalesces into a crescendo into the dramatic opening fanfare of Movement III, “figures of refined excess."

After the initial gesture, “figures of refined excess” initially rotates around a central sustained pitch, as other instruments grind against nearby intervals, producing visceral beatings. The texture intensifies with ornamental and timbral variation before breaking into a ritualistic groove anchored by a four note motive in the winds and brass over a steady, accented percussion figure. This section provides the pad for further piano improvisation before the ensemble focuses briefly on a central high pitch and gives way to an extended percussion improvisation. Hannaford joins the percussionists a few minutes in, as the trio plays furtive, disjointed figures. Later, Franklin and Takeishi drive the ensemble forward with a fast straight swing accompaniment, as the treble instruments take flight with energetic figures. The core trio plays a final group improvisation that registers as a kind of cathartic cadenza, coming where it does near the end of the overall structure, before the full ensemble closes the piece with two final punctuations. “figures of refined excess” is a boisterous movement with many twists and turns, a fitting culmination of Franklin’s balancing act incorporating improvisation and spontaneous composition into a large scale form.

– Dan Lippel

Recorded at Prudence Myer Studio, Ian Potter Southbank Centre, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, August 18, 2023

World Premiere Performance at Chapter House, Narrm/Melbourne, August 17, 2023

Artistic Director: Tina Stefanou
Recording and mixing: Alistair McLean
Mastering: Magnus Lindberg
Score Reader: Tom Stewart-Toner

Original design: Design Rows
Layout: Simon J. Karis
Photography: Sarah Walker