Michael Hersch: Carrion-Miles to Purgatory

The music of Michael Hersch is direct, powerful, and expressive: it makes the pulsing nerve of the human condition audible, laying bare some of the most intense and powerful human emotions. Hersch's new album, Carrion-Miles to Pugatory, released May 31st on New Focus Recordings, documents three works—each composed for two musicians—that address what frequent collaborator Patricia Kopatchinskaja calls "this dark side, this shadow and blood." Indeed, for this album, Kopatchinskaja commissioned a new work by Hersch, "...das Rückgrat berstend," which takes its title from the poetry of Christopher Middleton, translated at the violinist's request into German. Throughout the piece, Kopatchinskaja speaks selected fragments from Middleton's poetry in a fervent, carefully-notated declamation, without excessive dramatization. This spoken, scored text, echoing and simultaneously transcending techniques such as Sprechstimme, accompanies highly charged gestural writing in high and low strings—violin and cello—that mirror, ilustrate, react to, and metabolize the poetry in music. While Middleton's poetry has long played a role in Hersch's poetic compositional imagination, appearing frequently in the written matter of his sketches and scores, das Rückgrat berstend—"the spine exploding"—is a powerful sonic expression of Hersch's voice.

Carrion-Miles to Purgatory takes its name from an excerpt from the American poet Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle, his second book of poetry, published in 1947. Hersch's work, for violin and cello, meditates on themes of loss, death, and tragedy in thirteen short movements that resemble "thirteen fragments of a single shattered geode," as David Plylar writes in the album's liner notes. Here, Carrion-Miles to Purgarory is exctingly performed by violinist Miranda Cuckson and cellist Jay Campbell. Each movement develops its own musical logic in the dimensions of pacing, harmony, gesture, and rhythmic complexity; the movements form a gestalt of emotion, each reflecting and refracting the same ineffable subject.

Also included on this album is a rare performance by Hersch himself, alongside violinist Miranda Cuckson, recorded during a live performance at National Sawdust in 2018. "Music for Violin and Piano" incorporates nearly thirty short movements from five of Hersch's works, along with new material composed for the concert, influenced by the poetry of Christopher Middleton, Phillip Schultz, Primo Levi, and Chesław Miłosz. The resulting performance is eleven kaleidoscopic minutes of exactingly-notated music, pushing Cuckson and the composer himself to technical extremes, seamlessly creating a new narrative that is driving, engaging, and always intense.

-Ted Gordon, 5.27.19, PSNY

On this collection of three duos, Hersch is as unafraid as ever to look in the face of darkness. The first piece, ...das Rückgrat berstend, has violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and cellist Jay Campbell emerge from silence, intertwined like a vine on a leafless branch. Then Kopatchinskaja intones a text by Christopher Middleton, translated into German, and a sense of ceremony takes over. The blandly titled Music for Violin and Piano is an excerpt from an evening length medley of earlier works played at National Sawdust by violinist Miranda Cuckson with Hersch himself on piano. The section we get here is a highly dynamic, seamless piece that works entirely well on its own. Cuckson and Campbell join forces for the title work, an alternately anguished and solemn 13 movements based on poems from Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle. It's not until the last, and longest, movement, that we feel some compassion start to creep in. Hersch is not an easy listen, but I am always fulfilled - and even cleansed - by time spent in his sound-world.

-Jeremy Shatan, 1.11.20, AnEarful

Of the future we of course cannot know but with the vibrant presence of present-day Modernist Michael Hersch there seems bound to be a continuingly advanced presence to come. His latest album Carrion-Miles to Purgatory (New Focus Recordings 229) reminds us how his dedicated energies do not flag.

It is a gathering of some three chamber works-- ...das Rückgrat berstend with Patricia Kopatchinakaja on violin/voice and Jay Campbell on cello, Music for Violin and Piano with Miranda Cuckson on violin and Michael Hersch himself on piano, and the 15 movements of the title work Carrion-Miles to Purgatory with Cuckson and Campbell.

This is in Michael Hersch's wheelhouse--Expressionist, beyond tonal, post-Serialist, ever inventive and flowing with poignancy.

So ...das Rückgrat berstend was commissioned by Kopatchinakaja, who wanted something she could simultaneously sing-recite and play on violin. Hersch chose the poetry of Christopher Middleton (1926-2015), a favorite of the composers and previously quoted reference in earlier scores without setting text to music. The words were translated from English to German at Kopatchinskaja's request and the vocal part has detailed directions for manner of performance in the score (e.g., a gritty whisper etc.).

From there we move to Music for Violin and Piano, another shorter piece clocking in like the above at about 11 minutes. It is an excerpt from the live recording of the music the two made in concert in later 2018. It marks a new phase in Cuckson's collaboration with the composer, where there is interactive performances. Before that Cuckson has played Hersch's compositions in important instances, e.g. his Violin Concerto, solo works and other things from 2007 to today. The concert in whole consisted of a selection from Hersch's numerous short works under the rubric "Music for Violin and Piano," plus some solo violin music etc.

The fifty minute Carrion-Miles to Purgatory brings the program to its primary focus. The violin-cello duo is of course a somewhat exotic one as far as instrumentation in the repertoire goes. And too Hersch goes about the music in ways that set him apart further. The 15 movements each have loose parallels in poetic texts by Robert Lowell, namely from his Lord Weary's Castle. Here music is not meant as a direct articulation of the poetry meanings, but instead a sort of subliminal reaction to them. The poems kept the composer "company" as he wrote the music, which in the end is a reaction to the loss of a close friend.

I do not have words to put in place of the experience of this music. It is rather ineffable, emotive, and very in line with how Hersch's music has been unfolding. I recommend to you this music as an example of Modernity today. A very rewarding program.

-Grego Applegate Edwards, 7.16.19, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

New Focus Recordings releases a CD with three duos by the American composer Michael Hersch, works whose intensity and expressive contrasts are inevitably gripping.

‘….das Rückgrat berstend’ is a work for voice and instrumental music. The text was written by Christopher Middleton and translated into German at the request of Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The violinist speaks the text herself, in strong declamation, which stands out from the commenting strings – violin and cello.

Hersch on the piano and Miranda Cuckson on the violin play Music for Violin and Piano, a conglomerate of five works by Hersch with expressive and technically highly demanding passages. Here, too, it is the sheer intensity that captivates the listener.

Carrion-Miles to Purgatory takes its name from the cycle Lord Weary’s Castle by the American poet Robert Lowell, his second volume of poetry published in 1947. Hersch’s work for violin and cello has thirteen short movements and tells of loss, death and tragedy. The violinist Miranda Cuckson and the cellist Jay Campbell play the gestural and rhythmically complex work in a very inspired way.

-Norbert Tischer, 6.18.19, Pizzicato

Hersch's music occupies itself with aspects of the darkest side of human experience, and Carrion-Miles to Purgatory (as you might surmise from the title) is no exception. A fifty minute duo in thirteen movements, it is based on fragments of the poetry of Robert Lowell (1917-77), the New England modern poet who, like Eliot and Pound, forged a new way of using language to express the previously inexpressible. In Lowell's case, this was decay, literal in death, moral, and that of institutions - social and religious - that had failed their purpose; the ambiguity of God and the unbearable burden of history and heritage. All of this seen through the prism of his own fractured mental state; manic-depressive, he was hospitalized repeatedly throughout his adult life. The imagery of his writing is, to say the least, bleak, disturbing, visceral and sometimes violent - just like Hersch's music, for which it is thus a natural fit. Each section of the work is prefaced by some lines from Lowell's early collection "Lord Weary's Castle" (the title, pithily encapsulating decay, Catholic guilt and hopelessness, is one of them). The music does not illustrate the specific texts so much as react to them, creating a minutely textured and detailed landscape of desolation and introspective despair. The pieces traverse a wide expressive and technical territory, from whispering chords to oases of fragile, spectral beauty, to clustered screams from the abyss. The work is meticulously structured and minutely annotated; the fluidity of memory and perception are treated in other of Hersch's pieces, and here the fifth movement contains premonitions of later ones, which are then eerily familiar when they occur in context.

-Records International, 7.1.19

Concita este disco un enorme atractivo ya, aunque solo fuera por el apartado puramente interpretativo, toda vez que se reúnen en él dos violinistas imprescindibles y comprometidas con la música de su tiempo (Kopatchinskaja y Cuckson). La primera, dedicataria del Concierto para violín de Michael Hersch (Washington, 1971), resuelve ...das Rückgrat berstend, un dúo de violín/voz y violonchelo que tiende a lo meditativo y que exuda ese tono de trascendencia tan afín al compositor norteamericano. Con la poesía de Middleton, aquí dicha en alemán, la violinista descifra la página atendiendo tanto a lo instrumental como a las alambicadas modulaciones de la voz a la que obliga la partitura. Podría caerse en la tentación de asimilar a Hersch con su compatriota Elliott Carter; ambos comparten una estética severa y en la que parece que la vanguardia no ha hecho excesiva mella. Pero el acerado modernismo del primero se vuelve más abigarrado y expresionista en la pluma de Hersch, prueba de ello es la Music for violin and piano, la obra menos interesante del disco. El registro vuelve a levantar el vuelo en el dúo para violín y violonchelo Carrion-Miles to Purgatory. Cada uno de sus quince movimientos viene precedido por un texto poético de Robert Lowell que se nos ofrece en el libreto pero que los músicos solo han de leer para ellos mismos. Miranda Cuckson y Jay Campbell reaccionan de forma muy sutil a los poemas, musitando casi unas miniaturas que parecen ir buscando la disolución en el último y más extenso movimiento. Sin llegar a la altura del imponente, oscurísimo cuarteto Images from a closed ward, obra de Hersch también grabada en New Focus, Carrion-Miles navega en el mismo sentido, generando una paleta tímbrica muy sombría en la que se generan con voz queda múltiples conflictos que quedan irresueltos.

© 2019 Scherzo

A Characteristically Haunting, Dynamic New Album of Michael Hersch Works

Composer and pianist Michael Hersch was scheduled to play a marathon weekend at the Irondale Center in Greenpoint back in April. Hersch, who is best known for his compositions, is also a ferociously intense musician and rarely performs, so the series of shows promised to be one of the concert highlights of the year.

The lockdown killed that.

Fortunately, Hersch already had the material recorded. One of the albums featuring works on the bill is his recent release Carrion-Miles to Purgatory, streaming at Bandcamp.

The first work is titled …das Ruckgrat berstand (German for “bent back” ), a setting of Christopher Middleton poems translated into German and performed by Patricia Kopatchinskaja on violin and vocals alongside Jay Campbell on cello. Sometimes horizontal and ambient, other times disquietingly stark, it contrasts long, airy, doppler-like phrases and acidic close harmonies punctuated by Hersch’s signature short, sharp, sometimes shrieking accents.

Music for Violin and Piano is a pastiche of excerpts from earlier Hersch works, culled from a 2018 concert at National Sawdust – only the second time violinist Miranda Cuckson and Hersch had performed together. He’s a whirlwind on the keys, his sudden, leaping, clustering phrases sometimes evoking Frederic Rzewski, but with a lot more space between phrases (a signature Hersch trope). The otherworldly, eerie minimalism of Messiaen and the dark, persistent restlessness of Ran Blake are other points of comparison. Cuckson’s jagged leads and wary sustain provide an anchor, such that there is in this relentlessly uneasy partita.

The album’s title suite comprises fifteen pieces for violin and cello, inspired by texts by Robert Lowell – madness, torment and death are recurrent themes in Hersch’s work. Austere clouds of harmony slowly shift through the sonic picture. Minute timbral changes alternate between airiness and grit, often drifting into richly unsettled microtonal territory. Sudden swells and fades give way to keening, oscillating harmonics, occasional Bartokian irony or muted gloom. The finale is a drifting, Shostakovian elegy. It’s music to get completely lost in, yet Hersch always finds a way to jar the themes out of any kind of resolution.

This doesn’t have the sheer horror of Kopatchinskaja and International Contemporary Ensemble’s performance of Hersch’s End Stages, but it’s still plenty riveting. Of all the composers working in new music today, Hersch is as individualistic as anyone and may well be the very best.

— delarue, 7.16.2020

Michael Hersch remains one of the most powerful voices of our time. This disc, named after the final track, Carrion-Miles to Purgatory, is the latest in a line of discs reviewed for Fanfare that have consistently impressed: The piano piece The Vanishing Pavilions (Fanfare 32:3) was the first; the uncompromising choice of subject of life in an asylum was the subject of Images from a closed ward (38:1); two discs turned up for 42:2, one all-Hersch (cortex and ankle and Black Untitled) and a breath upwards coupled with Babbitt’s Philomel on the other.

Taking poetry by Christopher Middleton, a poet whom Hersch has quoted in scores but not actually set in music before, … Das Rückgrat berstend (The Backbone Bursting) is scored for violin and cello. Luxury casting is present here with the ever-stimulating Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The text moves from agitation through violence towards oblivion. It was at Kopatchinskaja’s request that Middleton’s text was translated into German—appropriately, as Middleton was himself a translator of German poetry. The poetry is recited by Kopatchinskaja herself in this fabulous performance. Hersch’s writing is typically stark, requiring a stack of effects to reveal the raw aspect of string performance. Hersch’s imagination knows no bounds, but the piece appears as thoroughly consistent. The performance is astonishing. One major aspect is the accuracy of tuning between Kopatchinskaja and the excellent Jay Campbell. The two instruments move mainly in parallel, often working in cluster, and one really can hear what difference fine attention to tuning makes. Dynamics, too, are beautifully honored, not least when they hover on the verge of audibility and the utmost control is warranted.

It’s great to have the composer himself on piano for Music for Violin and Piano. The title seems to be a deliberate statement that this is abstract music, far way from a program, poetic or otherwise; in effect, Music for Violin and Piano is a distillation of core Hersch. It is Webernian in gesture, while concurrently implying that we are eavesdropping on some greater continuum. The power here seems also to be when the music is at its quietest: It is as if one can feel latent explosions which may or may not come. Miranda Cuckson is a fine violinist (as violist, she contributed to the Hersch/Babbitt disc mentioned above) and there is no doubting the rapport between the performers. It’s a fabulous piece.

Returning to the violin and cello format, Carrion-Miles to Purgatory, commissioned by the Library of Congress, is by far the longest work on the disc (the first two are just over 11 minutes; this is over 49). There are 13 movements, and each of those is paired with a text fragment from Robert Lowell’s Pullizer-winning collection of poems Lord Weary’s Castle. In his booklet notes, David Pylar uses a remarkable phrase that sums up perfectly the methodology here: The movements represent, he says, “13 fragments of a single shattered geode.” Whether it be in the implied processional of the third movement or the resignation of the eighth, the explorations of the ninth or the emotionally shattered stasis of the fifth, Hersch’s voice is consistently compelling. The sheer demands on the players in terms of stamina of concentration are enormous, not to mention the sheer physical control required. That this performance indeed succeeds in taking the listener into an “other” space is a testament to its success.

Michael Hersch’s music continues to impress like that of few other contemporary composers. The recording is impeccable, as are production values of all aspects of this release. Hersch’s music demands much of the listener; but it gives back even more in return.

— Colin Clarke, 11.15.2020