The descriptive copy on the site of Reimann’s publisher, Schott, says that Reimann writes ” . . . music with an almost physical directness, which is at all times aware of its existence on the borderline to being struck dumb.” In a 1997 interview with Bruce Duffie (bruceduffie.com, a plenteous resource for knowledgeable interviews with composers and performers of every variety), he speaks of reaching those audience members who are “sympathetic,” but notes that there are also those who are ” . . . not sympathetic, but understand the music.” He goes on to say that he tries to ” . . . get [listeners] to the point where they can find themselves . . . things then come out in these people.” From these statements I take it that Reimann hopes his music will have visceral impact, and that it aspires to transform its receptors. By “sympathetic,” I assume he refers to a receptivity to his musical language, and above all to its harmonic element, which I’d call “free atonal.” It has sufficient individuality, at least in this opera, to intermittently escape the aura of quaintness that has gathered around this basic modernist lingo. My personal definition of “dated” is “Evocative of a time I don’t care to return to,” and by that standard the vast body of atonal (or, to use Schoenberg’s more invitational word, “pantonal”) writing is for me more dated than that of Handel or Haydn, Verdi or Wagner. And as accommodated as one may have become to atonal expression, so as to receive it with equanimity if not sympathy, there remains the ordeal factor to consider. As with any ordeal, one must decide whether  there’s enough of value in it to warrant submission to it. Certainly none of us who are concerned with the fate of our artform can afford to dismiss serious artistic enterprise on the grounds of mere personal discomfort.

In the booklet accompanying the Oehms recording, there is an essay by Sebastian Hanusa on Reimann’s techniques for L’Invisible. And since that’s all there is by way of information on the work (nothing, for instance, on Maeterlinck, Symbolism, mysticism, or the plays themselves; nothing of cultural context), this musical analysis is where our attention is evidently meant to be drawn. Its title and subheads will convey its leanings: “Death Chord and Vocal Polyphony;” “Complementary Instrumentation;” “Clusters and Vocal Lines;” “Unconsciously Remembered;” and “Sound Compression and Fading Away.” This is a good essay of its sort; I found my listening helpfully guided by it—guided, that is, to goings-on in the orchestra, as to e.g.,  ” . . . a purely static sound, as fields that build up and disintegrate; as blocks that are given rhythm through a variety of techniques or set in motion by changing the style of play.” Despite the promise of the “vocal” references, there is nothing about the setting of the text for the central instrument of any operatic score, the singing voice. Perhaps I can help with that.

Reimann’s The Intruder opens with thwacking or clacking sounds, as of knocking, possibly, or of someone being beaten (I believe it’s the 5th Servant, Elektra: “Sie schlagen mich“). This goes on for a while, before the entrance of abraded strings, like fingernails on asbestos, and of the voices. The setting of the text is filled with the breaking-up of words into hesitant-sounding syllables, often culminating in little melismatic movements on the final syllable, as if dribbling on pointlessly after saying whatever there was to be said. As with much modernist writing, the intervallic distribution often seems arbitrary, detaching the inflections from any sense of “good line readings.” At times (and this is true throughout L’Invisible), the line assumes a floridity that could almost be characterized as Brittenesque, but it’s short-breathed and altered by its harmonic surroundings. This is especially the case for the soprano writing, where the leaps into the upper range would obscure the meaning of any reading, good or bad. This isn’t always true, but it is so enough of the time that we become aware that the text setting does not belong to any of the “normal” operatic schools, but is being treated as an element in an overall structure that aims at dramatic effect in a more abstract, purely musical way. Within this design, the characters fight to express themselves against what we are meant to take as inner obstacles, but which are also the traps set for the voice by a structure with its own not always helpful rules. One either accepts this or not. On my two hearings so far, I have found it irritating in the short run, but not without cumulative force at crucial dramatic points. At the end, the baby’s screams are conveyed by piercing strings.