Animal ng I n -nv ntion Sydney in late May, takes up 27 "explicit lyric. " und mal 'ria l hord).
ia l hord). Sm 'tanin was ohviously
CLASSICAL ,
ROGER COVELL
SMETANIN: Skinless Kiss of
Angels etc. Elision/Cohen, ABC
446625-2.
MICHAEL Smetanin's
Skinless Kiss of Angels, which
had its first performance in
minutes of a notable ABC disc
devoted to Smetanin's work
and recorded by Daryl Buck-
ley's excellent contemporary
ensemble, Elision, under the
direction of Denis Cohen.
Skinle.\:<; Ki<;s Q/Angel<; sets -
through whispers, speech and
singing - erotic words by
several writers within the sounds
provided by 16 instrumentalists,
several .of them doubli~g on
related mstruments~ The mstru-
f'.
mental writing is vociferous,
suggestive and forceful: animal-
istic would not be too strong a
word for it at times and one to
which the composer, with his
d~dain for t~e merely likable,
mIght not object.
The disc carries warnings of
which some people may find determined to remove the two
offensive. Because of the way instruments from their normal
many of these words are set, associations with baroque music,
however, they need careful though the result is sometimes
listening and close scrutiny of baroque in its original sense of
the printed leaflet if you are to Lsomething exaggerated to the
follow their delivery. I find the point of deformation. -.
piece remarkable for its musi- Smetanin's Bellevue II is a
cal invention, some of it paying piece of hammering patterns
honourable homage to Stra- for tenor sax trombone and
percussion, pr~mpted by Andy
vinsky's The Wedding.
l
A brillia~t, overt~e to the disc Y' arhol's picture of an incident
IS Smetanm s Spzn Zero for , Ill a famous New York asylum.
amplified harpsichord and bass Smetanin makes no attempt to
recorder, inspired by the ideas be appealing or to adopt
and playing of the Sydney conventional attitudes of sensi-
composer and recorder virtuoso, tivity. His musical personality,
Ian Shanahan. Shanahan is whether sympathetic or not, is
heard realising its dizzy whorls one of the most powerful in
and spirals in partnership with present-day Australian music.
Stephanie McCallum (harpsi- ****