Sara Glojnarić (b. 1991)
Pure Bliss
Sugarcoating #4 for orchestra (2022)
Latitudes #2 for drumset and tape (2021)
Artefacts #2, for soprano, drumset and tape (2019)
Pure Bliss, for ensemble (2022)
Artefacts, for six vocal soloists, tape and video (2018)
Latitudes, for prepared piano and video (2020)
Sugarcoating, for Ensemble (2017)
rec. 2019-23
Kairos 0022031KAI [69]

Yet more evidence that the form folk of my generation once referred to as ‘pop’ music (and what many among my late parents’ generation described as “that racket”) is seeping into the work of contemporary ‘classical’ composers is conspicuously evident in the oeuvre of the young Croatian Sara Glojnarić. For the source material of all the works on this new Kairos portrait disc she habitually draws on features of its history and practice. In his booklet note Julian Kämper refers to a website called The Nostalgia Machine. One simply selects a year (preferably from one’s childhood), press the ‘Hit Me!’ button and a randomised playlist of major and minor hits from the time appears in less than a second. (It seems very Americo-centric for the years I sampled alas; there’s little sign of the English provincial pre-punk bubblegum that informed my childhood, alas). Glojnaric is keenly interested in the powerful potential of the sounds, gestures, intros, outros, riffs and drum-patterns that embed themselves in our unconscious during our youth to vitalise her own music. Whilst for some of us this kind of concept might sound great on paper, the fact that we are all born at different points renders certain pop gestures more or less relevant dependent on our age – as Glojnarić is three decades younger than myself our reference points actually coincide pretty infrequently.

Some of these pieces work much better on CD than others; there are crucial roles for video and one’s actual live experience in several items – the absence of such crucial stimuli raises questions about their suitability for a sound only medium. This in turn raises questions about the interface between the concept and the sound, between good ‘art’ and good ‘music’. There is a parallel in the art of humour – there are jokes which are ‘clever’ and jokes which are ‘funny’; I can admire the former but they don’t make me laugh, which is surely the point of a joke.

Readers will already have looked at the titles Glojnarić applies to her creations and have noticed the oddly named ‘genres’ she has invented. There is an important visual/theatrical element to the pair of Latitudes pieces to which listeners to the CD alone will be excluded. In the unnumbered prototype, the prepared piano part (energetically rendered by Magdalena Cerezo Falces) is hyper-virtuosic in its design. The performer’s preparation really matters in order that she can ‘peak’ at performance time. For the listener this translates as repeated loops of rapid descending scales. Unspecified symbolic consequences lie in wait for inaccuracy of execution. The pianism here is purely percussive – the electronic interpolaions which frequently interject are presumably a function of the accompanying video element which is unexplained. Latitudes sounds impossible to bring off – Nancarrovian in fact. The sibling piece Latitudes #2 for drumset and tape sounds viscerally exciting and similarly exhausting for the percussionist Leonie Klein to execute. One becomes aware of the sounds of tincans and sticks at its outset, noises which herald a sequence of little rhythmic motifs which seem to be prised from dance tracks of Latin/Hispanic origin. These are pitted against bigger-boned rock or heavy metal type drum patterns. The collisions which duly ensue incorporate something of a danceable groove. Latitudes #2 proves to be a powerful, disorienting workout for untuned percussion. It concludes on a note of strange static interference. The sheer physicality involved in the performance of both pieces apparently owes much to Sara Glojnarić’s parallel existence as an accomplished triathlete.

According to the booklet note, the visual elements a Glojnarić’s Artefacts pieces are even more critical, inevitably so given that much of our consumption of pop material is inextricably linked to what we can see, be it in the video promo or the live performance posturing of vocalists or drummers. In Artefacts #2, for soprano, drumset and tape the role of the singer (contemporary specialist Sarah Maria Sun) is to recreate the vernacular ‘whooping’ of certain pop vocalists, a device which is abstracted and redistributed, whilst percussionist Dirk Rothburst seems to be doing something similar, redeploying isolated fragments of communal familiarity (classic eighties and nineties drum intros) into strange new contexts alongside the vocal. It might be an invigorating experiment, enlivened as it is by tape contributions of excised guitar chords, notes, synth riffs and beats from the lingua franca of rock but I’m not sure I’ll be repeating the CD experience too often. The vocal is loud and I found it a bit irritating, an adjective I would also apply to its predecessor, Artefacts, for six voices, tape and video. The singers are tasked with selecting old hits which have personal significance for them. Fragments from these are abstracted, looped, processed. The video element incorporates the gestures of the original performers. Audience reaction forms part of the piece. Belinda Carlisle’s ubiquitous hit Heaven is a Place on Earth belts out – apparently Glojnarić herself replaces the American chanteuse in the video at the conclusion of the work, but the significance of all of this seems quite lost to those of us who weren’t there and are striving to make sense of the CD recording.

The remaining trio of pieces make far more sense in this medium. The two Sugarcoating pieces involve purely instrumental forces. Sugarcoating #4 requires a big orchestra. It’s percussive, jagged and brassy, with immersive strings and woodwinds swirling around clicking drumsticks, pseudo-menacing Psycho strings and intermittently a gentle two chord vibraphone progression. It all adds up to an exciting collage of familiar orchestral gestures which somehow shed their cliches in such odd juxtapositions. It’s more confrontational than its title suggests and Marin Alsop marshals a focused reading from the ORF orchestra. The original Sugarcoating piece requires a smaller ensemble but offers a darker, sharper experience altogether. The abrupt repetitions, beats and collisions of its sibling are certainly present albeit in a much harsher sonic environment. Pairs of clarinets poke through the textures like Kurt Weill gatecrashing a Throbbing Gristle gig. The piano part with its rapid chordal repetitions and a prominent woodblock suggest a flock of Oiseaux Exotiques circumnavigating a free-jazz festival. These components hang together surprisingly well but as a listening experience it proves tough going.

In my view the highlight of this Glojnarić monograph is the title track Pure Bliss, scored for what sounds like a large ensemble. This is a pulsing, psychedelic loop of hazy instrumental electronica which pops about and crackles along. Ethereal and pleasant, its strange, unplaceable chords and vocalisations are amplified and sustained to create an agreeable, dreamy soundtrack. It’s actually pretty difficult to work out exactly what the players of Klangforum Wien are actually doing as the sound seems so synthetic. By 2:30 the ear may begin to detect wind and brass activity which intensifies and becomes central to the grain of the work. Mellow, unconscious pulsings cease abruptly and cede to whirring, ringing electronica, peculiar repetitive beats and odd motifs.. Like some subcoscious, blurred music from the distant past – if we do see our lives flashing by before we conk out – is this the type of thig we hear? I could imagine a lot worse! The Ligetian textures and huge ensemble chords which underpin Pure Bliss become more hallucinatory when blended with vocal samples which expand and seem to yield to distant radio sound before rematerializing. Pure Bliss is one of the weirdest pieces you’re ever likely to encounter. I should also warn that one critic’s pure bliss is often another’s cataclysmic nightmare.

In summary, Sara Glojnarić proves to be both sassy and funny and judging by her website she doesn’t take herself or her music too seriously. If this provocative Kairos portrait is typical, her output seems to epitomise music as something to be experienced live in the moment rather than as product to be immortalised on compact disc. It’s work which is as likely to be enjoyed as it is to provide a source of irritation. Arguably though, it’s also music as momentary gesture rather than frozen representation designed for repetition, contemplation, awed respect and worship. The absence of the essential video element in some of these pieces is bound to make one ask– is a CD recording appropriate at all? In any case Glojnaric’s is a fascinating, infuriating, impenetrable and ultimately unclassifiable art. I think we’re only getting half of the story.

Richard Hanlon

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Recording Details
1. sugarcoating #4
ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien/ Marin Alsop,
rec Nov 2022, Großer Saal, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna
2. Latitudes #2
Leonie Klein (percussion)
rec May 2021, Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
3. Artefacts #2
Sarah Maria Sun (soprano), Dirk Rothbrust (percussion)
rec February 2023, Rudolf Steiner Schule, Witten, Germany
4. Pure Bliss
Klangforum Wien
rec November 2022, Mozart-Saal, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna
5. Artefacts
Neue Vocalsolisten
rec January 2019, Radialsystem V, Berlin
6. Latitudes
Magdalena Cerezo Falces (piano)
rec November 2020, Theaterhaus Stuttgart, Germany
7. Sugarcoating
ensemble mosaic
rec October 2021, Remise Bludenz, Bludenz, Austria