The final concert in last week's Mostly Modern Festival was confined to two composers of very different styles, both Italian.
Giacinto Scelsi, who died in 1988, explored a narrow range of pitches and dynamics, seldom allowing the instruments to stray far from a shared pitch or move swiftly, and yet, as in Elegia per Ty (viola, cello) and Ko-Lho (flute, clarinet), the slowly intertwining lines grabbed the attention like a rainbow seen at night, its colours dim and different from normal. Hyxos for alto flute and percussion was a pastoral evocation with a flavour of the antique world, less characteristic of his style, but as unemphatic and meditative as the other pieces.
The addition of a voice to instruments in Manto (soprano, flute, trombone, cello) brought a little touch of the operatic, but again nothing much seemed to happen. The lack of incident was, however, more compelling than the sometimes too active, too noisy music of others.
The second composer was Luciano Berio, who wished to open up the world of music. Why should a voice be limited to operaticanas when it can shout and cough and sob and gabble as well? In her performance of Sequenza III (voice), Judith Mok did all those things with an intensity which did not detract from the occasional moments of comedy. Gesti (recor der), played by Peter Wells, attempted a similar feat with that normally refined instrument, but couldn't match Sequenza III.
Opus Number Zoo (wind quintet), in which the instrumentalists, whenever they have a rest, recite a narrative about animals, kept the audience laughing and ended with a distinct "miaou". In a totally different vein was the setting of three poems from Joyce's "Chamber Music" (soprano, harp, cello, clarinet); Berio can illustrate in sound as well as any of the old romantics.
The ensemble Vox 21, formed by Benjamin Dwyer, the director of the festival, performed with youthful verve and made all the music immediately accessible. Dwyer, best known as a guitarist and composer, gave a solo recital on Sunday afternoon and showed that modern music has room for the intimate and small scale; the six Haiku by Gilbert Biberian were brief and delicate, almost evanescent.
Even Thirteen Little Things That Touch The Heart by Paul Hayes, which made gestures towards the avant-garde, did no violence to the instrument, any more than Dwyer's Four, in which, in time-honoured fashion, he made music out of technical problems.
Violence to the instruments was common to both the sessions of free improvisation last Saturday. First was the saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, who was master of an astonishing bag of tricks with an uncanny skill in avoiding melody or structure. Single notes became hoarse bundles of overtones, reed and keys became members of a battery of percussion, the bell of the saxophone a cavern from which issued eructations, heavy breathing, the knocking sounds of waterpipes, the sudden explosion of a pistol shot. In the second session Gustafsson was joined by Barry Guy (double bass), who can be equally inventive and outrageous on his instrument.
"As the years go by we build our language", said Barry Guy; perhaps, in the future, they may reinvent melody. They are so adept at what they choose to do that one has to admire them, but their wilful refusal to do more will become a limitation if adhered to.