ZINC & COPPER:
Eelena KAKAGLIOU, French Horn
Hilary JEFFERY, Trombone
Robin HAYWARD, Tuba

Kasper T. TOEPLITZ, Live electronics

Vital weekly :
There is a lot of studying here, music, scores and video. The latter is only for the first release. Zinc & Copper is a trio of wind instruments; Elena Kakaliagou on French horn, Hilary Jeffrey on trombone and Robin Hayward on tuba. Toeplitz is the composer of the piece and plays live electronics. On his website, you can find the score for this piece (fifteen pages) and on YouTube (use the title of the work), a different recording from the premiere of the music in Berlin. It was interesting to view the score while playing the CD and seeing the concert clip. I am sure my review would have been much different had I only heard the CD. Even with the knowledge of wind instruments being part of this, I would have to remark something about the noise element of the music. At times it is piercingly loud; in fact, a lot of times. We no longer recognise any of the instruments, even when, according to the score, I perhaps should hear them. When the noise is trimmed/cut/removed, we hear these instruments playing their long-sustaining sounds. In all its loudness and quietness, this is some intense music. From barely audible breathing to filtered white noise, the music seems to be moving from -40db to 0db, but with a lot of distortion. I recognised it from the CD only when I saw the music being performed. Here we have a more extensive section of wind instruments against a wall of distortion. On the CD, this is not always evidently clear. A very heavy work of modern composition and of a force that I seldom hear in this particular musical area. I wonder what real noise heads would make of this, and, of course, those who go to recitals of modern music. For both, it must be a strange affair.