Category: Listen

Twilight

Patrick Mason, baritone; Joanne Polk, piano

The pianist Joanne Polk has probably done more than anybody to revive interest in the music of American romantic Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944). In addition to three Arabesque CDs devoted to her complete solo piano music, Polk has also collaborated with the Lark Quartet and the English Chamber Orchestra in recordings of Beach’s chamber music and piano concerto. Two of the melodies in that piano concerto were based on songs Beach composed in the late-19th century to texts by her then recent husband, Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, who ironically curtailed her career as a concert pianist but allowed her to continue on with composing. These ravishing, almost Brahms lieder-ish songs—included on this new disc of Beach songs featuring Polk accompanying baritone Patrick Mason—are settings of philosophical musings rather than romantic verse. Perhaps yet another cryptic message from the young Amy who married the 25-year-elder Beach at the age of 18. The first of these songs, “Twilight,” also seems an unusual title for a song composed by a 20 year old, but its musical pleasures transcend speculative psychology or biography.

—FJO

Strata

American Brass Quintet

Because of his own formidable abilities as a brass player, David Sampson’s two earlier brass quintets are among some of the most idiomatic and satisfying works of the genre. But his third, Strata, composed in 1999, takes the idiom to a new level. The dirge-like middle movement is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard scored for brass quintet and the finale, which combines regal sounding flourishes with jazz figurations, is well crafted and exciting. However, it’s the opening of the first movement, which Sampson in his program note reveals is indebted to the music of La Monte Young, that totally blew my mind. Single pitches waft in and out in an almost timeless-sounding sprawl of unfolding harmonies which at times also evoke Ingram Marshall and Alvin Lucier, and prove in yet another way how orchestral this particular chamber ensemble can be.

—FJO

Deep Time

Awhile back, when Fritz Hauser, David Gamper, and Pauline Oliveros got together to perform during the release party for this very disc at the Issue Project Room, I remember my focus drifting away from the performers to the shadows dancing on the wall just stage left. It’s amazing that listening to this CD right now conjures the same mental image: the dark outlines of leaves and tree branches gently moving in the wind. I don’t know exactly what Hauser’s composition Deep Time is all about, but isn’t it a little creepy that the CD cover, which I’ve never seen before, depicts a dark, shadowy forest. Cue Twilight Zone theme music…

—RN

Synchronisms No. 9

Curtis Macomber, violin + electronic sounds

In the 1960s, a time when electronic music seemed the only possible future for many composers, Mario Davidovsky was at the forefront of the revolution with his series of Synchronisms for live instruments in combination with pre-recorded electronic sounds created at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Listened to now, nearly two generations later, their weird mix of cerebral angular atonal instrumental music with sci-fi oddness almost feels like listening to a soundtrack of a forgotten time that never quite happened. By the late 70s, Davidovsky himself gave up electronic music and became an outspoken critic of the inhumanity of the machine. Yet, in the late 1980s, he returned using the next generation’s digital technologies to create virtual sonic landscapes of tremendous emotional power. For listeners familiar with his still seminal early Synchronisms (two of the best of which are also featured on this disc in case you’re not), a first encounter with Synchronisms No. 9 from 1988, his first return to the medium, can be somewhat disconcerting. In the intervening years while exploring ways to achieve the impact of his electronic music through solely acoustical means, Davidovsky stumbled on a way to create a work with the emotional resonance of acoustic music which incorporates electronics.

—FJO

Set One

LA-based Hans Fjellestad latest release, Kobe Live House, documents a live solo set recorded a couple years back at Big Apple in Kobe, Japan. Like yoga breathing exercises, the music manages liftoff, albeit gradually, with gurgling low frequency sweeps which eventually give way to processed Electroclash beats suppressed to the point where they’re never allowed to emerge. Instead a maelstrom of Space Invaders and Missile Command signal some gated prepared piano riffs. The interesting thing about Fjellestad playing tour guide here is that he shows us pure acoustic canyons next to techno-capped mountain ranges, then his landscape’s ecosystem seems to take over. This isn’t your typical old school Japanese laptop noise fest, or, if it is, Yanni hijacked it.

—RN

Interior Design for solo violin

If you’ve ever been in the stress-inducing position of redecorating a house, don’t start to sweat—Steve Mackey has already looked at all the paint chips and carpet samples and made the hard choices for you. Your job as the listener is simply to sit back and enjoy the textures and colors as they appear. Though I doubt seriously that even if I spent the rest of my life in a practice room I would ever be able to approach Curtis Macomber’s technical virtuosity, his precise reading of Interior Design is so clear it resonates in my own hands as if they are coursing over the instrument. Mackey points out in the liner notes that Macomber has likely played more of his works than any other single performer, and it shows: he owns this work for solo violin from start to finish.

—MS

Drewslate

Some folks panic when a band member can’t make a rehearsal or a recording session, but not John Hollenbeck’s eternally industrious Claudia Quintet: they just turn it into music. But, wait a minute, Drew Gress’s bass is all over “Drewslate,” an ensemble piece that opens with a telephone message explaining why he can’t get there. Maybe this is yet another example of the wonders of overdubbing, but he sounds so integral to what this particular group groove is about. Or maybe it’s about forgoing rational explanation and just enjoying the music: also a worthwhile activity in this case!

—FJO

Notturno

Confession: I kinda have a thing for Donald Martino. May sound weird, but it all started a long time ago when I heard some of his solo piano music—really amazing stuff. Anyway, fast-forward a couple of decades, wade through the heaping pile of awards and accolades, but in the end it still seems that Martino’s music isn’t really performed too often outside of Boston. When’s the last time you listened to a composition by Donald Martino? Had this CD not crossed my path I would not have been able to accurately answer. Despite whatever trends that transpired since the creation of Notturno over 30 years ago, it’s impossible to deny that the piece totally rocks. There’s something in here for everyone: intensity, romanticism, sharp contrasts, swirling timbres, retro-style extended techniques (i.e. key clicks, banging on the piano casing, etc.), and above all else, drama. Definitely not for metathesiophobics, or folks who insist upon eating off divided plates.

—RN

Summer Sonnet

How many times do you think Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee…” sonnet has been set to music? At least three times on this disc of choral songs alone, but perhaps never as memorably, I would argue, as Kevin Olson has done here. Olson’s version was composed in response to Chicago a cappella‘s 2002 call for scores for a planned all-Shakespeare concert. A lot of twists have been put on the great Bard’s courtly language, but this bossa-nova setting is hilariously fantastic, played out with all the necessary backing-band finesse while leaving plenty of room for the bold tenor soloist to woo his fair maid. When you think about it, so much ardor is well suited to a Latin beat. Wonder what took so long?

—MS

25×8

How’s this for a new approach to mathematical music? Take a CD containing 25 tracks consisting of loops of single tones sampled from a group of instruments, make 8 copies of said CD, assemble 8 CD players and play the discs on random shuffle simultaneously. If you’re troubled by the arithmetic, stop here. If not, read on… Each of the single tones reside within 6 notes of a diatonic scale (7 possible tones) and the bass tones are produced by pitch shifting the flute samples down several octaves (which is done by powers of 2, alas).

Other tracks sustain and repeat subsets from 12-tone rows, gradually introducing the entire aggregate in a shimmering ostinato that recalls Steve Reich’s pulsating canti in a way that would make James Tenney proud. Now, you can not know any of this and still enjoy the music (the secret recipe is revealed on Kornicki’s website but the CD booklet remains silent), or you can love the music and want to know more. I loved the music and read the web site and now want to know even more.

—FJO