HECTOR PARRA: Hypermusic Prologue – Charlotte Ellett, soprano/ James Bobby, baritone/ Ensemble Intercontemporain/ Clement Power, cond.– Kairos

by | Aug 27, 2010 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

HECTOR PARRA: Hypermusic Prologue – Charlotte Ellett, soprano/ James Bobby, baritone/ Ensemble Intercontemporain/ Clement Power, cond.– Kairos CD 0013042KAI – (Distr. by Allegro), 63:32 ***:


Hector Parra describes his “Hypermusic Prologue” as a “projective opera in seven planes”. That description immediately hints at a piece that will be very unusual, a bit fascinating, – perhaps very complex – and also perhaps, hard to understand on first hearing. I find that all of these initial speculations I had held true.

Parra uses, as his source material, the writings and theories of physicist-author, Lisa Randall. Dr. Randall is a professor of theoretical physics with a specialty in particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University and, apparently, an expert on such matters. Similarly to Carl Sagan (in intent, at least), Professor Randall’s book Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions seeks to make the heady topics of the origins and directions of the universe accessible to the lay reader, and in fact was included in the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2005. The booklet notes for “Hypermusic Prologue” – which are very attractive, inclusive and well done – explain that composer Parra was, himself, fascinated by these topics and approached Randall on the concept of writing a libretto based somewhat on her life and philosophy for this opera; and so it became.

Hector Parra, from Barcelona, is himself a true champion of the avant-garde approach to music, painting and literature. The opera itself revolves somewhat casually on a scientist (the Randall figure) and her dedication to her research juxtaposed against her researcher colleague and love interest and their struggles for mutual intellectual gravitas and their loss of personal time against the time required for the larger purpose. However, these very human themes serve as what seems just a setting for some of the most complex writing and dramatic flow in recent music drama. Parra, well versed in the physics of sound as it can be used to compose, has created a very dense, hard to get through score utilizing electronics to alter voices, to meld his ensemble sound and to create an almost other-worldly theatre experience as if inside the mind and ethos of science. In researching Parra, I find that his other scores, such as his “L’Aube assaillie”, for cello & electronics, also exemplify this approach. The booklet and notes also contain photos from the 2009 IRCAM production, at the Pompidou Centre, as well as snippets from the score. Both extremely complex as well as visually stimulating, this is also a piece that probably must be seen, not just heard, to even begin to appreciate fully.

The difficulties of the missing visuals notwithstanding, the performances in this recording are clearly superb. Singers Ellett and Bobby are called upon to do the most difficult and abstract vocal gymnastics using speech-song with and without electronic alteration and – judging from the score samples – glide in and out of both rigidly defined and completely undefined rhythmic and metric contexts. The always reliable Ensemble intercontemporain does not disappoint playing such a difficult to interpret score. This piece does make one want to learn more about Parra but, for me, want to go read some of Lisa Randall’s work and try to get into the theories and philosophies that inspired Parra.

This music must be approached with an open mind, listened to at least a couple of times with no distractions – this is not “background music”. It is worth the intellectual calisthenics but I still think it helps if you are already a scientist – preferably a particle physicist!

— Daniel Coombs

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