Saxophone Quartet is not a combination heard often outside of jazz performances; with orchestra, they provide a unique sound, but as a solo ensemble, the sound becomes concentrated and the parts and registers more important.  This is Prism's 19th season in Philadelphia, and they present works by composers affiliated with the University of Michigan, as students,
graduates and faculty, as well as commission award recipients.

Keen, by Roshanne Etezady, takes inspiration from wordless Middle Eastern
laments.  A single note starts, is ornamented, yet returns, taking place
four times over, thus creating an echo effect. But the note is not always
the same in each part, and can be a quiet haunting tone or a loud shriek. 

The composer explains that she intends to impart a "flavor" of something
exotic, and there is greater variation in the theme as the piece progresses.

Breath Beneath, by Kristin Kuster, evokes the hum of a dense city, by playing softly in the instruments' lowest register; the composer envisions this as a subterranean sound inaudible at street level, as well as a
virtuosic-level skill for the performers. Not unlike the previous piece, this, too, begins with single notes, but each part takes off melodically while remaining together rhythmically. When held, the notes, indeed, feel like a hum that would blend invisibly with a city's normal noises.

For The Ghosts of Praha, Eliza Brown has written a folk tune she manipulates to create a structure resembling the layout of the city itself. Each section begins far away and approaches the melody gradually, moving from new to old. The composer explains that ghosts move through the night, reaching the castle on the hill as the sun rises. Again, we have the image of the city, modern, raucous and jazzy, in an Ives-ian way of overlapping
tunes and rhythms that eventually achieve a four-part harmony.

Joshua Penman is interested in the blend and contrasts of electronic trance music with the Balinese gamelon. The Pilgrimage of Metal and Water has grown out of the interlocking melodies he has played on that instrument. Penman says he has tried to create a ritual for an imaginary culture. The sound is hollow, crescendo, decrescendo, evoking the ringing of a metal gong under a sax melody that then becomes rapid and buzzy, with accents in
different registers. Perhaps the tran ce effect comes from the hints of Philip Glass, but this has much more texture.

Vincent Haikhel, in B-List, goes the way of improvisation, He has specified registral placements, but no specific pitches, and each part is played independently. The result is more a set of sound and rhythmic effects than music, resembling the earlier heard big city atmosphere.

In Saxophone Quartet No. 1, Andrew Mead's first movement is structured as
four miniature concertos, the second as duos, the third as trios and the fourth treats the quartet as a single instrument. In fact, in the first movement, the four concertos are played concurrently, so it is difficult to discern if this would be interesting individually. When divided as solo over trio, the sound becomes more coherent, and phrases recur. The movement of duos has lots of fast runs; the third movement is trios accompanying a
solo, and the final section was mostly unison, with complex rhythms.
 

(Reposted from Penn Sounds 6/25/04)
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18-year-old Armenian wunderkind tosses off the Sibelius with a dazzling display of sheer virtuosity and delivers a much deeper, more sober reading of his fellow countryman's bouncy  masterpiece than we are accustomed to hearing.  Eye-opening performance and a performer to watch.

Re-issue of an inspired 1978 
performance of the symphony many consider Shostakovich's best by conductor Kurt Sanderling with the Orchestre national de France. Composed immediately following Stalin's death and premiered on 17 December 1953, this massive work seems to sum up the experience of the Soviet people under the dictator's tyranny,  especially in the terrifying Allegro which evokes a machine that grinds men down, before a more optimistic finale that the composer conceived in the spirit of Haydn.

Tony Banks, founder of the rock band Genesis, goes "classical"  with this seven-movement suite, each of them an orchestral sound picture using its title to set the mood.  The result is an extremely well-recorded bag of ambiant musical noodles that are less frivelous than they might have been and, in any event, less painful to the ears  than listening to Phil Collins sing.
 

During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II,  Herman D. Koppel, who was Jewish, and his family had to flee to Sweden, where they met a childhood friend of Koppel who had become a baroness. In her house Koppel could compose in peace and quiet. The Third Symphony is dedicated to her.  Despite his own safe surroundings, Koppel’s experience of the war, and of the execution of his Polish-Jewish family in German concentration camps, had a profound impact on his works from this period.  These are works of anguish that explore the depths of the composer's emotions--a final liberation from the bloodless influence of his teacher Carl Neilsen--and the birth of major, overlooked 20th century music figure.

One of many important large-scale fragments left uncompleted by Schoenberg at his death, the oratorio Jacob's Ladder was finished by Winfried Zillig, once a student, at the behest of Schoenberg's widow after his death.  Schoenberg wrote the libretto between 1915 and 1917 based on the book of Genesis, overlaid with elements from Strindberg's drama Jacob Wrestles, and Balzac's novel Seraphita. He wrote a large of chunk of the music shortly after but was called to the army and never got around to finishing it.  This is a brilliant, committed performance that captures a little-known masterpiece by one of the 20th century's greatest composers at the height of his creative powers.

When composing his music for Belisa, Poul Rovsing Olsen was deeply inspired by Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's drama and by the passionate and demanding character of Belisa herself. The opening scene of the opera is the wedding night of Belisa and Don Perlimplin, where the young bride takes 5 lovers in front of her decrepit groom that is sound asleep. The drama develops from stylized opera buffa into the ambiguous and surreal with an unexpected ending, and Poul Rovsing Olsen's music reflects Lorca’s drama like a sensuous kaleidoscope with French and Oriental overtones. 

Beth Anderson's unabashedly romantic "swales" are as pure as a Kentucky mountain spring,  frisky as a new-born colt rolling in bluegrass, and infectious as a third-grade measles outbreak.  They are light, without being lightweight, and conquer the ear by their deceptively easygoing charm.  If you like Paul Schoenfeld's brand of Americana, you'll like these pieces a lot.
 

No one has done more to champion guitar music by contemporary composers than the brilliant guitarist and co-founder of Bridge Records, David Starobin.  This CD includes solo and chamber works written between 1992 and 2000  by Gunther Schuller, Michael Starobin, Richard Wernick, Melinda Wagner, David Liptak, and Paul Lansky--all in premiere recordings. Volume Six also contains George Crumb's "Mundus Canis"--with the composer performing (and whispering and yelling) on percussion. To conclude the disc, Elliott Carter's fantastically inventive sextet, "Luimen" is performed by Speculum Musicae, New York City's virtuoso new music band.