MILOSLAV KABELAC / MAURICE OHANA
8 Inventions, op. 45 / 4 Choreographic Etudes
(Limelight) Used LP $10.00
The Percussions of Strasbourg formed in the early 1960s and devoted themselves to hitting stuff. Kabelec's Inventions was written for the sextet, a fairly rigorous composition that's all over the place with dynamics, rhythm, bells, Asian percussion, and mood being paramount. Performing Ohana's Etudes reworked for six percussionists and choreography (it was originally written for four), they achieve in the words of the composer "liberation from the diatonic framework, which is unsuitable for expressing contemporary sensibility." At various points, the group explores density, trance states in which one attains paroxysms of expression, distortion and splitting of harmonic sounds.