MUSIC REVIEW : Finding New Dimensions at LACMA Fest

Nary a romantic gesture--strictly speaking--or a tonal passage was in the house in Tuesday’s second installment of the three-night International New Music Festival at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Swedish guitarist Magnus Andersson and bassist Stefan Scodanibbio chose to perform works that steadfastly explored new instrumental dimensions. The results were, by and large, exhilarating.

Both musicians were returning to the Bing Theater stage from duties the previous night, and both had already shown a penchant for stretching the parameters of their respective instruments. That approach was even more central to their double-play recital.

Andersson chose works that were guitaristic in the sense of taking a close, re-examining look at the instrument’s physical components and sound-producing possibilities, rather than leaning on stubborn and/or venerable romantic cliches.

So, French composer Tristan Murail’s “Tellur” reshuffles and dissects flamenco practices, and, in Swedish composer Mikael Edlund’s lovely “Sma Fotter,” poignancy meets abstraction. Elliott Carter’s “Changes” dovetails from fragile, atonal fragments to a darkly serene finale.

Ironically short, pungent, and prickly, Klaus Hubler’s “Reisswerck” required maximum hands-on activity from Andersson, who navigated its ghostly tapping and hand-crossing intensity with deftness.

Closing the guitarist’s program was the L.A. premiere of the fiendishly and deceptively simple, but ingeniously guitar-specific, “Passing Away,” by Slovenian composer Uros Rojko. Andersson slowly worked his way up two lower strings, exacting the hidden harmonics, then, deadpan, continued meting out rhythm on various parts of the guitar body, finally detuning the strings until they flapped in the breeze, comically, dadaistically.

Scodanibbio eased into his half of the program with spacious grace, courtesy of John Cage’s “Freeman Etudes 1-2-3,” transcribed from the violin original by the bassist. A scent of chance--a pleasant one--was in the air.

Mexican composer Julo Estrada’s “Yuunohui ‘nahui” was a thick, primal stew of microtonal smears and a post-tonal brutality. In contrast, delicate virtuosic quiltwork was required for British composer Brian Ferneyhough’s “Trittico per G.S.,” in which the bassist created a vivid collage of small discrete parts.

By evening’s end, a too-small audience was left refreshed, and ear-opened.