WIRE

1+1=1 equals music lasting 70 minutes for two bass clarinettists designed by Pierluigi Billone as afull evening’s performance. The title is a quotation from an Andrey Tarkovsky film that, the linear notes say, “points to the special relation between the two instruments”. The duo of Petra Stump and Heinz-Peter Linshalm play the work, written in 2006, with such insightful feel for idiom that it sounds like they’ve been on it’s case for years. Billone requires a spectrum of sound from non-pitched rustling to ornate pseudo-harmonies produced through overblowing. Near the conclusion these harmonies spiral round each other like an echoing cathedral, and Billone knows how to pace his material over the long duration to retain an atmosphere of suspenseful ritual throughhout. A formidable achievement.