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Margaret Leng Tan

Sorceress of the New Piano/The Maverick Piano

A DVD by Evans Chan

Mode

The two films collected on this Mode DVD explore the multifaceted career and fascinating life story of new music pianist Margaret Leng Tan. Sorceress of the New Piano is a biography, while The Maverick Piano presents Tan performing some of her signature repertoire by composers John Cage, Erik Satie, Toby Twining, and Ge Gan-ru. Mode tends to favor this double-barreled type of presentation, and for good reason; hearing the works discussed in a bio subsequently performed in their entirety is far more satisfying than having to settle for sound bites.

Tan is best known for her work in two distinct areas: prepared piano and toy piano. Both are given ample coverage here. Tan expounds about the “Three C’s” of contemporary piano music: Cowell, Cage, and Crumb; she demonstrates their hallmark techniques and eloquently discusses the aesthetics of each. Ample footage is featured of her rehearsing and conversing with both Cage and Crumb, who are clearly delighted by her dedication and formidable performances. The pianist was particularly close with Cage, who encouraged Tan in her quest to transform herself into someone with unique talents to offer to new music.

Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano (1948) inspired Tan to champion the diminutive instrument, expanding its repertoire with commissions and transcriptions. She suggests that the toy piano has far more capacity than the novelty instrument or “gimmick” status to which it has previously been relegated. That said, Tan is not above using the toy piano as an agent provocateur, as one can see in her performance of Raphael Mostel’s “Star-Spangled Etude #3.” Dressed in a foam “Statue of Liberty” headdress, Tan brings a pistol, whistle, and siren onstage, using Mostel’s simple piece incorporating patriotic tunes to craft a performance artwork about post-millennial militarism.    

The DVD includes interesting biographical information, detailing Tan’s long struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The pianist acknowledges that the perfectionist mindset which has made her such a compelling performer and new music advocate are byproducts of this challenging illness. Another intriguing aspect of Tan’s life is her work with animals; she took a hiatus from performing early in her career to prepare helper dogs for the hearing impaired. Sorceress/Maverick is a compelling document; like Tan, it seems capable of winning over even the most conservative listeners to the wonders of the avant-garde.

Orion String Quartet

Leon Kirchner: Complete String Quartets

Albany Records (www.albanyrecords.com)

One of the amazing aspects of our time, with increasing lifespans and concomitant productivity by seniors, is the tremendous vitality of many “elder statesman” composers. At age 88, Leon Kirchner is certainly a member of this elite group. His First and Second String Quartets are wonderfully wrought works, steeped in the composer’s training with Schoenberg and abiding love for the other members of the Second Viennese School. But what makes this complete quartets recording so extraordinary is the time lag between the third and fourth quartets: forty-one years!

The Third Quartet is one of my favorite pieces for strings and electronic tape, a work which allows the tape to embody both string-like aspects and contrasting timbres, giving the result an orchestral aspect. Kirchner deals with triadic materials, albeit in a resolutely post-tonal fashion, in the Fourth Quartet; but the piece still reverberates with echoes of his modernist proclivities rather than the spirit of a Neo-Romantic. The Orion Quartet does a sterling job throughout and one is doubly grateful for the part they played in coaxing another quartet out of an imaginative octogenarian composer.

Marcin Wasilewski Trio

January

ECM Records (www.ecmrecords.com)

It currently feels hotter than Hades here in NY, but nothing is helping me to “think cool” better than January, Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski’s second CD as a leader on ECM. Joined by frequent collaborators bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal Miskiewicz, Wasilewski presents compelling originals alongside a number of beautiful compositions penned by ECM labelmates such as Gary Peacock, Carla Bley, and Tomasz Stanko.

I first heard Wasilewski’s trio backing up trumpeter Stanko at Merkin Concert Hall, touring in support of the ECM recording Soul of Things. Stanko had worked with them since the early nineties when they were in their teens; although still relative youngsters in 2003, they were quite a formidable performing unit. The intervening years have only honed the intense rapport share by Wasilewski, Kurkiewicze, and Miskiewicz, who have found a niche: creating rich interpretations of harmonically intricate, atmospheric material. Originals such as “The First Touch” and “Cinema Paradiso” display a patient interaction; the trio forming well-coordinated points of confluence, each member finding space for solo departures. It’s worth noting the outstanding sound, an ECM hallmark to be sure, but one which highlights the resonance of Kurkiewicz’s arco playing and Miskiewicz’s delicately textural drumming.

Wasilewski’s playing on Peacock’s “Vignette” is a lesson in legato phrasing; yet the delicate shadings and Neo-Romantic ebb-and-flow of the tune still maintain considerable rhythmic swing. The trio as a whole gets to explore a feast of playful syncopations on Carla Bley’s “King Korn.” Their mentor Stanko’s “Balladyna” receives a lovingly rendered, poignant performance. As fine as these covers are, the pianist’s own composition, “January,” is a thoughtful ballad on which one can hear the trio at its finest: creating a spacious performance that retains focus and, where necessary, employs pointedly determined playing. January suggests that the future of Polish jazz looks very bright, and consummately cool, indeed.