Uudised

Ivan Fowler. "Riho Esko Maimets wins the highSCORE Prize 2011". – www.highscorenewmusic.com, 18.07.2011

Riho Esko Maimets has been awarded the 2011 highSCORE prize in recognition of "his mature and individual style, in spite of his relative youth. He presented scores of enchanting beauty and unique emotional and communicative impact at the highSCORE Festival 2011".

Maimets can boast an unusual international education. Born in Toronto, Canada, of Estonian origins, he had the opportunity to begin his studies in composition at Earl Haig Secondary School, Toronto, and then further them at the Estonian Academy of Music at Tallinn, Estonia. His music has been performed in Italy, Canada, Estonia, Finland and Latvia. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in composition at the University of Toronto with Christos Hatzis.

At the highSCORE Festival, 8-16 July, 2011, Pavia, he presented Sanctus for string quartet; My Beloved for French Horn and Piano; and Aftermath for solo guitar.

Aftermath (composed June 2010) is exactly the sort of music guitarists so often yearn for, with its careful, almost loving attention to the natural characteristics of the instrument. It makes extensive use of the array of open strings and their harmonic series as both the source of the pitch material and as the color palette with which he creates his harmonic textures. In fact, in the entire composition, there are only four tones (three of which are F sharp in different octaves) that do not appear at the pitch of an open string or at the pitch of a natural harmonic on an open string. The elementary choice of the steady, repeated note frees the music from rhythmic speculation, enhancing the listener's appreciation of the almost 'spectral' treatment of pitch material.

My Beloved (composed May 2011) is a gloriously meditative piece, which further develops the possibilities inherent in the quasi-spectral technique previously investigated in Aftermath. Here, the sostenuto pedal of the piano retains a 'C minor 7th' stack of thirds in the bass register while the natural harmonics of this stack are explored with flowing, simple rhythmic values, enunciating the resonance of the freely vibrating lower strings. In a second section the horn enters with a simple modal melody, which bi-tonally explores the harmonic sequence now set up by the open fifths in the left hand of the piano. Again, rhythm remains an almost static feature of Maimets' music, allowing the ear to concentrate on the harmonic and textural beauty, particularly when the piano right hand delicately dips into ever greater chromatics in the tensest part of the music, the second section, though even here the chromatic tones are not out of kilter with the spectral unfolding of the harmonic series implied by the original sostenuto chord. The bringing of the piano and the horn into harmonic and 'spectral' equilibrium is almost theatrically staged in the subsequent section, when the horn points its bell into the open piano and the horn player, keying a D, 'hisses' into the instrument, while the original sostenuto chord is recreated on the piano. In this section, the raw, essential overtones of piano and horn intermix in a long moment of release, as the piano meditatively plays an 'E flat major' broken chord in the uppermost register over the 'c minor' sostenuto pedal chord.

Sanctus (composed November 2010 to May 2011), as the title suggests, can best be described as a modern plainsong for string quartet. Again, the spectral exploration of the harmonic series of the bass notes is present, but with far richer melodic and contrapuntal flights than present in the previously described pieces, as befits writing for the string quartet. Sanctus is carefully divided into four sections. The first four explore the elements of the opening, chant-like Aeolian melody in ways that are ever more richly embroidered, both harmonically, rhythmically and melodically, until the last segment regains the simplicity and austerity of the opening, without ever falling into the trap of simply echoing prior material.

This author feels that all three pieces are rewarding for the listener and for the musicians who play them, though surely the string quartet sanctus provides the most musically complete experience for all involved. Indeed, this is the piece in which Riho Esko Maimets experiments most freely and inventively from the rhythmic point of view, without sacrificing moments of the serenely meditative atmosphere he so successfully creates in the other two pieces.

We hope our readers will further explore Riho Esko Maimets' work on his website:
http://www.rihomaimets.com

By Ivan Fowler

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