Category: Listen

First thought: Why setup four computer-controlled pianos? One pianist is perfectly capable of conveying the gist behind Prelude, the first track off composer Gordon Green’s CD/audio DVD release Serpentine Sky. But hell, if you were privy to a crowded room of computer-controlled pianos, or in this case just one top of the line Disklavier, here multitracked, why not go nuts? Besides, Green doesn’t seem interested in “the gist” anyway, he’s after specific textures—things that we’d find eerie if a live pianist were at the ivory helm. In the tradition of Nancarrow, impossible riffs fly by at lightening speed, executed with perfect accuracy. Add Green’s spatial treatments of up to six pianos and the results are dizzying. Green’s puréed Patriotic Collage, for example, is like Ives under the influence.

—RN

Andrew Violette, piano

If you’re as insane a completist as I am, when Innova issued Andrew Violette’s nearly three-hour Piano Sonata No. 7—which fills three CDs alongside his almost miniature by comparison (15 minutes) Piano Sonata No. 1—you might have found yourself wondering what happened to sonatas 2 through 6? Well, the answer can be found on this equally hefty three-CD set which collects all of them. Sonatas Nos. 3 and 5, which are both over an hour each, take up two of the three discs, while the remaining disc collects 2, 4 and 6. Where to begin? A snippet of any of these behemoths barely lets you appreciate this music’s sprawl between over the top romanticism, thorny modernism, and minimalism via maximalism, but a passage alternating pounding clusters, eerie silences, and an almost late Liszt melodic flourish near the end of the 20-minute long seventh movement of Piano Sonata No. 4 from 1982 might give you some idea of what you’re in for. I know I’m in for multiple doses of the whole seven-hour extravaganza, now that it’s all available!

—FJO

Using Larry Polansky’s theoretical description as a blueprint for their own creations, this 2-CD set amasses nearly two hours worth of “DIY Canons” by 14 composers. Realizing that kitty cats are woefully underutilized in contemporary music, Kyoko Kobayashi’s Cat Canon juxtaposes those familiar purrs, hisses, meows, and sneezes into a giant poetic hairball. Sure, everything starts all cutesy, but once the pitch shifting creeps in, pretty kitty turns into a snarling beast. Hey, you managed to put together that Ikea bookcase, so why not to make your own DIY Canon? The recipe is available at Polansky’s website.

—RN

As might be inferred, Three Stories, the disc’s engaging closing track, has a story of its own. The overarching concept of the album is rooted in the four years tenor sax/clarinetist/composer Matt Renzi was out and about (Italy-Kyoto-New York-India), experiencing the world and its diverse musical offerings. For this 13-minute finale, Renzi takes a scrap of tune overhead on a walk through Kyoto, picks up another from a similar excursion through New York’s Lower East Side, and then opens it up to let the trio (David Ambrosio on bass and Russell Meissner of drums) get their groove on in a free improv section before swinging back around to the original tune.

—MS

Benjamin Verdery, guitar

I’ve been a Verdery fan ever since I heard him turn three songs by Prince into contemporary classical solo guitar compositions. While I find most crossover projects horribly misguided and rarely meriting a second listen, I always heard a kindred spirit between early ’80s minimalism and the contemporaneous song “Purple Rain” and Verdery managed to bring it out without cheapening either one in the process. There’s nothing so aesthetically shocking on his new collection of solo guitar originals, although it’s really exciting to hear him explore alternate tunings which make his guitar sound like a wide variety of plucked lutes spanning from Western Africa to East Asia. On “Greed,” Verdery simultaneously conjures up the Japanese biwa and the Berber guimbry without imitating either which is no mean feat.

—FJO

What happens when a German-born harmonica virtuoso records a Brazilian jazz album? Find the answer along with more than a couple of Choros on Hendrik Meurkens’s Amazon River. Bouncy little numbers like “The Peach” are contagious. Be careful. Simple head nodding or toe tapping may suddenly erupt into a full-blown conga line. Perfect for the composer who hasn’t danced in a long, long time.

—RN

Considering Rivera’s childhood on the move—he did time in D.C., Virginia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Miami—I’m not sure if he ever had the opportunity to study vocal techniques high up in the Himalayas. Truly, though, Rivera’s work falls somewhere right in between Meredith Monk and David Hykes. The Tibetan influence is ever-present in this piece, incorporating as it does some philosophical Buddhist underpinnings and the “Five Sacred Syllables” of chanting monks, but also plenty of odd vocalizations, complex rhythms, overtone singing, and other innovative bits of extended vocal technique. Performed here by the Grammy-lauded Chanticleer, you might be hard pressed to distinguish them from a group of saffron robe clad monks.

—MS

Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon; Bob Carr, bass clarinet; Kim Richmond, clarinet; Dean Taba, acoustic bass; William Roper, tuba; Kris Tiner, trumpet; Brad Dutz, marimba & xylophone; Ellen Burr, flute and piccolo; Chris Wabich, steel drum

In the cracked titles department, Brad Dutz (publisher name: leakyspleen music) can duke it out with the best of ’em. “Rotten fruit…infested with insects,” “Look at the pretty weeds, they’re dead,” and “Leaf blowers are stinky…and loud” are just a few of the delights awaiting listeners who acquire Nine Gardeners Named Ned, which is a particularly non-confrontational title by comparison. It’s also one that is somewhat cryptic given that there are a dozen musicians involved herein, including Brad’s clarinet playing nine-year-old son who also designed the cover. Turns out the gardeners are the tracks themselves. There’s lots of comprovisational fun in the glorious tradition of Charles Mingus and Frank Zappa throughout the disc, but IMHO they saved the best for last with the action packed, though less memorably titled, “Plant the bulbs…frequently”

—FJO

Relatively speaking, Spring of Chosroes is one of Feldman’s more poetic titles, and the music itself, a sprawling enigmatic vista of tightly controlled material, is certainly worthy of its evocative namesake. It’s really nice to hear this tender rendition so warmly recorded with every nuance intact. Remember that recording by Paul Zukofsky with sound so thin it was as if it were coming out of a piece of string tied to a tin can? No disrespect to Zukofsky (to whom Feldman dedicated the piece), but I like my Feldman served nice and warm.

—RN

Despite Byron Au Yong’s suggestion to ban the piano on NewMusicBox, this year has been one of the most remarkable for recordings of great new piano music—most recently the second volume of Andrew Violette’s gargantuan piano sonatas, Julius Eastman’s towering sonic landscapes for four pianos, Alvin Curran’s style-defying Inner Cities. And now A Sleeper’s Notebook, a disc-long composition by composer/pianist Eleanor Sandresky! To say that this music dreamy is perhaps too easy, but the word so accurately conveys what I feel when I hear this music, which from movement to movement conveys various aspects of a sleep cycle in music that ranging from Feldman-esque subtlety to minimalist rapture. The penultimate movement, “REM 2,” conveys rapid eye movement during sleep through a gradually expanding series of hypnotic ostinatos. I can’t wait to attempt to listen to this music at home in the middle of the night or the early morning in a semi-conscious not-quite-awake state.