MUSIC REVIEWS : ‘El Cimarron’ a Compelling History Lesson

Based on the biography of Esteban Montejo, a runaway Cuban slave, Hans Werner Henze’s compelling “El Cimarron” was finished in 1979 and had its Los Angeles premiere in 1982 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

It returned for a Monday Evening Concert this week, and its inventive musical language and narrative powers seem to have only increased in the intervening dozen years.

One question: Where does it fit in the lexicon of existing musical forms? It is described as “a recital for four musicians”--they being baritone Milton Williams, guitarist David Tanenbaum, flutist Jane Lenoir and percussionist Daniel Kennedy on this occasion.

This “recital” behaves much more like a type of musical theater, made more powerful because of its stripped-down presentation and avoidance of theatricality. Henze’s opus of musical storytelling amounts to a rich, moving portrait of a hard life lived under persistent oppression and faith.

The assured, resonant Williams gave heft and flesh to his title role, broken up into 15 sections that detail the path of el cimmaron’s (the runaway slave) life. The saga takes us from capture in Africa, to toil in the sugar cane, to escape and life in the woods, to fighting in a revolution that fails to liberate the black Cuban population, and to a final sigh of resignation.

The prolific, eclectic German composer’s challenge was to keep the resources of the four musicians in constant motion, without losing aim or unity. To this end, Henze deploys improvisational moments and extended techniques--Tanenbaum, for instance, sometimes struck his guitar or bowed its strings--the players also ran around the stage, adding to the welter of percussion sounds. Henze also shifts the musical approach from atonal contemporary writing to hints of folk-like, indigenous Cuban material.

Within the entirety, there are intriguing pieces that linger in memory. An eerie, vaporous rumble accompanies “The Forest.” “The Evil Victory”--about life after the revolution and shattered idealism--goes from delirious patchwork of Ivesian song fragments to a sad, hope-depleted solo voice. “Friendliness,” a lament, is backed by the sharp, cerebral guitar writing Henze specializes in.

Most of all, “El Cimarron” is one of those rare contemporary works that addresses a specific historical subject and gives it the weight of a metaphor suitable for our life and times.