Gruber's Concertos

Extract

The concerto evidently appeals to HK Gruber, as symphonies do not. He has so far written four works that are unambiguously in this form: ‘…aus schatten duft gewebt…’, a concerto for violin and orchestra of 1977–8; the concerto for percussion and orchestra Rough Music (Rauhetöne) of 1982–3; Nebelsteinmusik, for solo violin and string orchestra, of 1988; and the Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra of 1989. Ambiguous examples of the form are his early Concerto for Orchestra (1960–64) – concertos for orchestra are by definition ambiguous – and Frankenstein!!, his ‘pan–demonium’ (rather than ‘concerto’) for baritone chansonnier and orchestra (on children's rhymes by H.C. Artmann), finalized in 1977. Then there are four works which remain in manuscript (withdrawn from circulation): Concerto No. l for flute, vibraphone, xylophone and percussion (1961); Concerto No. 2 for tenor saxophone, double bass and percussion (1961); ‘furbass’ for double bass and orchestra; and an unsatisfactory forerunner of the violin concerto, Arien (1974–5). The symphony he has not touched; and one is tempted to see in this reliance on solo/ensemble confrontation an attempt to hold together the self–splintered, all too globally diversified language of the late 20th century by an eloquent soloist's sheer persuasiveness, by musical force, so to speak, the soloist being dramatized as a kind of Atlas. In the same way Gruber's recourse to popular songs and idioms of ‘light music’ in these works can seem like a desperate attempt to find a tonal prop and sanction for a language so pervasively threatened by tone–deafness and gobbledygook.