Impressive and mysterious record from English composer James M. Creed. His Six Studies (SE 013) was was released on the Sawyer Editions label (based in Texas) and arrived sent by the musician himself – we’ve never heard his work before.
At first gazoon we noticed three of the six pieces are explicitly patterned after the world of Camille Saint-Saens, that notable French Romantic, and we wondered for a second whether Creed was trying to do for this composer what Cage did for Satie with his Vexations. A little later and I’m not so sure. For one thing, there’s the introductory paragraph of prose by Creed in which he does everything possible to deflect our attention and makes rather surprising allusions to his working method – we may need to revisit this enigmatic statement later. There’s about two main works on offer by dint of duration – the 17:10 mins of ‘Piano and Accompaniment’ which showcases the piano playing of Clare Spollen along with a small chamber group of three violins, plus Creed on the organ. Beautiful music. If this does indeed represent a deconstruction of Saint-Saens, or a more nuanced recasting of the Romantic style into a suitably 21st-century austere minimalism, then it’s been a great success. Our spruce minimalist overlords of modern music have often tended to refuse pleasing chords, harmony and melody (perhaps because they belong in the dustbin of the past, by their lights); Creed embraces them, yet ‘P&A’ doesn’t sound remotely over-sentimental, saccharine, or false. He’s aware of this – let me crib the notes – “there’s an unintended…sentimentality to them, inevitable, I suppose, if working with diatonic clusters”.
What I’m digging on today’s spin is the plain-spoken manner of the musicians, setting it down without editorialising, yet still the music evokes warmth…same spirit continues into ‘Reed Organ Study 1’, which is a continuation of some sort of the above work, as if each composition inspires the next as surely as a Monet haystack painting…reed organ played by Fernando Yada Rodrigues in manner that takes on Terry Riley and Charlemagne Palestine (both of whom have sat at the organ for 18 days) yet shows it’s still possible to create expressive minimalism without bombast or ego in the execution of it. The other very long piece is ‘Piano Study 7’ which is annotated by Creed as “the logical extension” of two previous studies (not here), and it’s placed right at the end of the album most fittingly as it has a palpable air of finality. No Saint-Saens encoded in this one, that’s for sure; the fragile and pleasing chord arrangements have given way to dark and troubling combinations of black and white keys…played on piano by composer with a grim deliberation as if he was sorting out the myriad souls of the resurrected on Judgement Day. Might be time to crib another look at the notes; odd passage about how the music here isn’t really “compositions”, and instead more like “demonstrations of what instruments are busy doing while we might be busy thinking about other things”. This utterance is followed by light ruminations on the role of the performer, about timbre, and “studies of particular fingers at a particular piano”, all of which is food for thought…other musicians have (sometimes) spoken of how a musical instrument can have a life of its own and behave in an unexpected fashion, although as far as I know James M. Creed is going out on a limb to try and make a real virtue out of it, and incorporate it in his works.
I’m beginning to put together a picture of an artiste who might be exploring some of the less conventional pathways offered by modern music, one which depends to some extent on close collaborators, and a knowledge of how he believes acoustic instruments will behave, and yet none of this is imposed on the listener like some heavy work of process art – no extended technique, no duration for its own sake, no weird timbres that insist upon themselves…without rushing to joyous conclusion, Creed might be a breath of fresh air in the context of modern composition. Also here is the very odd ‘One Guitar’ – 12:44 mins of tones that just somehow float in the air – an electric amplified guitar? It’s as though he worked out a way to play the instrument without even using his fingers, which kind of fits his modus operandi, where the subtext is “I wasn’t even there at the time” when asked to take ownership of these works. And I just noticed the six geometric drawings on the insert, which might be smaller schematic versions of graphic scores – or not. Very happy to receive this item and look forward to more from Creed. From 11th January 2023.