Derek Bailey was one of the 20th century’s great sound adventurers: a dauntless, oddball, gloriously uncompromising guitarist whose pursuit of all things new and ephemeral took improvised music to places it had never been. In the late 60s, he wrote music, too – as in, he wrote down notes on a page. Actually performing anything predetermined was never really his thing.
There was an infectious buzz in the room when Simon H Fell and Ensemble Anomaly unveiled Bailey’s setting of Samuel Beckett’s Ping late on the opening Saturday night of the Huddersfield contemporary music festival. It is a substantial Bailey premiere, 50 years after the work was (semi)scored. Frank Chamberlain intoned the text, heroically deadpan against a mercurial panoply of scraping sax, thwacking percussion and warmly roaming guitar lines. Who knows what Bailey would have made of it, but the affection and attention to detail was enormously touching.
Time was that Huddersfield would have balked at a toe-tapping beat or a straight-up major chord, but this Saturday was full of them. Conductor Garry Walker and the London Sinfonietta gave a clean and diligent account of Laurence Crane’s new Chamber Symphony No 2. Subtitled The Australian, it thrummed along for a cheery 20 minutes of hearty textures built from simple elements with a pleasing equilibrium. Periodically, the ensemble cleared to dwell on a resolute piano triad, brazenly primary coloured. The Sinfonietta opened with a graceful piece by Edmund Finnis called Seeing Is Flux, its featherlight strands deftly laced together.
Some of the day’s most arresting moments came in a recital by Richard Uttley. I was enthralled by his composure, lyricism and ability to hold a moment without forcing it. Tristan Murail’s La Mandragore was tender and soft-hewn; the Michael Cutting’s This Is Not a Faux Wood Keyboard was a surprise five-minute Fender Rhodes marvel.
• The Huddersfield contemporary music festival runs until 29 November. Box office: 01484 472900.
