This is an album of contemporary accordion music from Colombia, written either for accordion solo or for the instrument plus recorded sound. Eva Zöllner, who first visited the country in 2015, presents six composers who are little known to a European audience and with whom she has worked closely. They could not wish for a better champion.
The six pieces have some common sources of inspiration. In her informative booklet note, Zöllner points out that Colombia is the second most biodiverse country in the world, and the natural world (and contemporary threats to nature) is a central focus of many of the pieces on this recording. The troubled recent political history of the country is another recurring preoccupation.
The album title ‘voces, señales’ translates as ‘voices, signs’, and the pieces in their different ways relate to the contemporary Colombian context. Musically speaking, Zöllner writes that ‘Vallenato, a popular folk music genre featuring rhythmically concise and virtuoso accordion solos, can be heard over loudspeakers on almost every street corner’;Footnote 1 the accordion is therefore familiar to Colombian listeners in popular contexts. While some of the six composers draw on these popular roots, their musical language is without exception experimental and predominantly dissonant. The characteristic playing techniques of the accordion, in the hands of an expert player, seem to have inspired the composers: its infinitely subtle dynamic variation and ability to sustain sounds over long durations appear in all six of the pieces.
Ana María Romano G.'s posdomingo 02.10.2016, for accordion and fixed media electronics, features rustling natural sound interrupted by calls and shudders. Zöllner captures the sustained breath-like quality of the accordion, and in places she somehow appears to bend the pitch. About halfway through, it is surprising to hear urban noises, voices and dogs, which sound threatening in context, though soon the soundtrack reverts to nature sounds. The title references ‘the day after the narrow failure of the referendum on the peace agreement with FARC, the guerrilla movement’, which affected the composer, who composed the piece in response.
Carolina Noguera Palau's short Canto del ave negra (Song of the black bird), for solo accordion, is inspired by a popular song about a caged bird that has lost its freedom. Only towards the end do melodic fragments haltingly emerge from the rumbling depths. The composer refers to the accordion as ‘a tremendously powerful machine’, and in her piece it has the depth and power of a pipe organ. Edgy, bass-dominated sonorities are grippy, almost tactile: we are a long way from birdsong in this haunting piece.
Carlos Andrés Rico's ten-minute-long Nacido en el Valle, el Río y la Montaña (Born in the Valley, the River and the Mountain), for accordion and tape, is directly inspired by the popular genre Vallenato. It starts with a lively melody, which soon dissipates into the sound of rushing water, and the piece continues to juxtapose popular-flavoured tunes with recorded sound, often with natural origins. The piece is fragmentary in character with sudden changes of mood, and overall it sounds like it would work better in conjunction with moving images that would make sense of its abrupt shifts in character.
Whether or not the accordion is coupled with electronics, its sonority in the hands of Eva Zöllner has features in common with typical electronic sonorities. This is particularly apparent in Daniel Leguizamón's signo a cambio (sign in return), a 14-minute-long piece inspired by two important historical Colombian figures, the painter Manuel Hernández and poet León de Greiff. This piece is almost entirely in the low register of the instrument, and although it is for accordion solo, the otherworldly rumbling and shuddering give the impression that the instrument has an unsuspected extra dimension. The ability of Zöllner to finely mould the accordion's sonority, stretching a sound way beyond the capacity of the human breath and shaping its dynamics with infinite care, is showcased in this piece. A spoken voice unexpectedly interrupts the flow after about ten minutes, adding an extra layer of mystery to this enigmatic work.
Natalia Valencia Zuluaga's Brother, for accordion solo, is named for the composer's brother and for a tree that appears in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. It starts with disarmingly simple, open intervals which are gradually undermined by friction-creating dissonance; melodic fragments emerge and come together in counterpoint. She initially focuses on the accordion's ability to colour a single sound with different tone colours, and in the middle of the piece, chunky chords with shuddering rhythms form a strong contrast with the preceding melody-driven material. We hear the sound of the accordion's bellows alone, like human breath, before the final section builds up to a wall of sound that dissipates all too quickly.
Jorge Gregorio García Moncada's Un amor, puro e incondicional (A love, pure and unconditional), for accordion and fixed media electronics, is a piece with both political and personal roots by a composer who is deeply concerned with the role memory plays in music and in life. Its inspiration draws on feelings about the 1948 assassination of the politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, which ‘plunged Colombia into decades of violence’, and also on the composer's memories of his mother playing the accordion. The recorded part, which includes fragments of text, has a subtle but insistent rhythm, giving a sense of unresolved urgency against a sustained accordion part. Zöllner's control of the ever-shifting dynamics contributes a great deal to the success of this piece.
While some works include spoken word, no texts or translations are provided; it would have been helpful for the booklet notes to clarify the meaning. Overall, this recording is a voyage of discovery. We are a long way from clichés of popular music, and despite some of the programme note descriptions, there is little of the popular side of the accordion in this collection. The album is not only a showcase for Zöllner's considerable musicality but also for the lively contemporary Colombian musical scene.
