Difficult ‘Mantra’ Rewards Audience in the End

In the post-minimalist age, we tend to incorrectly think of the meditative strain in new music as a domain lorded over by minimalist thinking. But other possibilities, more radical conceptions of meditative music, have also been presented by 20th century icons, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s bracing work “Mantra,” the centerpiece of a Southwest Chamber Music concert Saturday night at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.

The concert, the fourth of seven programs in the “Music From a Radical Past” series, also included selections from Messiaen’s piano work “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus,” performed sensitively by Susan Svrcek, and two short ragas in the North Indian classical tradition, featuring sitarist Paul Z. Livingstone and tabla player Sandip Burman. What might have seemed an odd, eclectic grouping ultimately carved out its own logic.

In “Mantra” (1970), two pianists--here, the fine, probing Svrcek and Gayle Blankenburg--navigate a thick, nearly 75-minute score, which ebbs and flows in intensity and tonality. Their work was processed through a sound-altering computer program, controlled by Kolbeinn Einarsson, sitting cross-legged on an ornate Indian rug in front of them.

The processing colors the pianism with effects suggesting ring modulation and filter sweeps, so the pure physicality of the pianos is corralled into an electro-acoustic accord. But it’s not about icy, intellectual scheming. Vis-a-vis the concert’s program, the work’s diverse, shifting timbres recalled the sitar’s sound palette--or the overtone properties of gamelan instruments--while the musical material bows directly toward Messiaen, Stockhausen’s teacher.

“Mantra,” unlike the soothing evocation of the title, is a difficult piece, for players and listeners, but rewarding in the end, especially heard in the heightened context of a good live performance. Call it muscular modernist trance music.

The program will be repeated Tuesday night at Zipper Concert Hall, Colburn School of Performing Arts.