Nostalgic Bassoon-writing
Posted by Christian Carey in File Under?, classical, contemporary classical, innova
Justin Rubin
Nostalgia
Innova CD 738
Justin Rubin chairs the Composition program at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He’s been fortunate to find advocates for his music among his faculty colleagues at UMD. In particular, bassoonist Jefferson Campbell has commissioned and championed a number of his recent works. They comprise most of the program on Nostalgia, Rubin’s Innova disc.
In this postmodern era, many composers, even the Neoromantic ones, eschew overt nostalgia or sentimentality. They prefer to compose quasi-tonally, but in a passionate or heroic vein. One can understand why ‘heart-on-sleeve’ signatures might be approached with care. But Rubin’s music manages a tenuous balance: channeling the nostalgic without ever cloying. This is certainly abetted by Campbell’s sensitive, seamlessly accurate playing. He strikes just the right tone on the title work, allowing its gentle melodies to be poignant but never overwrought. He performs with considerably incisive flair on the wide-ranging and intriguing solo piece Recitative Styrienne and with percussionist Gene Koshinski on a series of elegantly neoclassical Bagatelles for Bassoon and Marimba.
Un Temps Calme, on the other hand, is in a more contemplative vein, channeling the language of Messiaen and supplying Campbell with long, supple melodies of considerable loveliness. Also noteworthy is the Hindemith-tinged Variations on ‘Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,’ a piece based on an old Lutheran chorale. Clarinetist Patrick O’Keefe and pianist Shannon Wettstein are a nimble pair. Alongside Koshinksi, they also provide a sterling rendering of the shimmering, all-too-brief trio Il Momento Iussureggiante per tre musicisti.
Rubin is a composer whose oeuvre already suggests that, musically speaking, one can put new wine in old bottles without detriment.
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