I’ve left what is perhaps the most telling example of the Dragon Legacy’s ability to present and make sense of the music until last. Whilst I find the music of John Cage fascinating and in places challenging, I’ve always struggled to understand or relate to his pieces for ‘prepared piano’. Giving them one more go, I bought Bertrand Chamayou’s Cage2 (Warner/Erato 5021732253521) an album of pieces for said ‘prepared piano’. This isn’t just Cage doing deconstructed music: he’s deconstructing the instrument itself. It’s music that can sound clashing, disjointed and splintered – and in my experience generally does. Yet the Peaks hold the pieces together, the human agency in the playing, binding and driving the unpredictable response of the instrument into recognisable and provocative/emotive patterns. The presence of the piano is big and stable, reproduced with a physical volume and authority that demands attention and respect. The speakers and the system driving them are simply left behind, rendered visually and musically irrelevant by the box of musical tricks that’s just stepped, living, breathing and attention seeking, right into the room. This isn’t just making sense of the music, it’s lifting it entirely clear of its means of reproduction. Definitely the ‘What’, the ‘Where’ and a very healthy dose of the ‘Why’! But it also illustrates the fundamental and essentially musical quality that underpins the Peak’s performance.
Making music that makes sense…
We often read about speakers or systems that allow you to see or reach into the performance. The Stenheim U2 is just such a speaker. The Dragon Legacy comes at things from the other end of the telescope and in a more organic fashion. It’s as if it builds from the inside out. Hence the substance and almost physical presence it generates. Whether it’s the power and impact of Neil Young’s guitar on Sleeps With Angels or the way that the thunderstorm in Beethoven’s Sixth (The Böhm/WPO Original Source pressing) explodes into the room, there’s no missing the physicality and concentrated energy the Peaks bring to recorded music. But best of all, is the subtlety they bring too. Playing the Villa-Lobos Bachianus Brasileiras No.2 (Capolongo and the Orchestra De Paris, EMI ASD 2994) the shape and order, weight, power and building momentum with which the speakers invest ‘The Little Train Of The Caipira’ before it settles into its steady rhythm, the ebullient cacophony of sounds and percussion, brass and bells that are somehow hitched to the spine of the music, the coaches of the train, that accompany its progress, manage to make perfect sense. It’s a riot of noise and energy, purpose and movement – as evocative as it is entertaining. Yet contrast that with the more orderly and organised performance by Bakharev and The National Orchestra of the U.S.S.R. (Melodia/Le Chant Du Monde LDX 78 644) and there’s no doubting which performance captures the mood of the music better – despite the massive dynamic and rhythmic challenges presented by the recording, and so impressively mastered by the speakers.
