CD Review

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Nico Muhly – Alice Goodman – The Street (Favorites 2022)

Nico Muhly – Alice Goodman

The Street

Parker Ramsay, harp; Rosie Hilal, narration;

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, Director of Music

King’s College, Cambridge, 2xCD

The Street, Nico Muhly’s first collaboration with Alice Goodman, a librettist best known for her work with John Adams, presents a modern retelling of the Stations of the Cross. The first CD sets the mood for the drama to come, with performances of the Bach C-minor Partita No. 2 and the instrumental version of The Street by harpist Parker Ramsay. Ramsay is a gifted performer – his recordings include a fluent rendition of the Goldberg Variations. His interpretation of the partita revels in glissandos and ornaments, both befitting the harp. The Sinfonia displays luxurious rubato, while the Allemande, Courante, and Rondeau jubilantly dance. The isolation of polyphony is particularly clear in the Sarabande, and the Capriccio provides a virtuosic conclusion.

Playing a solo harp version of The Street, Ramsey brings out the pathos of the Stations of the Cross in a supple emotive performance. On its own, the harp is compelling and communicative; even more so as part of the full version which follows. 

Goodman’s text moves between ancient and contemporary voices who describe the barbarity of Jesus’s tormentors and the varied responses of the crowd and his followers. I found this distillation of a ritualized text at the core of Lenten observances as part of a modern discourse to be affecting. It describes the capacity for good and evil that the everyday person, meaning all of us, wrestle with today. Rosie Hilal’s narration is exquisitely enunciated, providing each of the stations with its own narrative resonance. Muhly’s incorporation of chant melody, performed by the Choir of King’s College, directed by Daniel Hyde, supplies a liturgical anchor that complements the instrumental and recited portions of the piece. The choir provides its customary sonorous delivery, allowing the chant lines to breathe and take on a gradual portentousness. 

Muhly began his musical career as a chorister and his affinity for liturgical music is on display here, as is his expert writing for the harp. It is one of the composer’s most compelling works to date. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Piano

Philip Golub – Filters

On October 28, 2022, Greyfade released Filters, a debut album of solo piano music by Phillip Golub. Based in New York, Golub has been performing for decades in both classical and improvisational settings. In Filters he explores the intersection of musical repetition and improvisation. The album consists of four piano ‘loops’, each about 8 minutes long. Each loop is a series of repeating phrases that maximize expression by the performer while severely limiting harmonic and rhythmic changes. Careful listening allows discernment of the unique contributions of the performer without distraction. As Golub writes: “When we know the repetition is not mechanical, there’s a certain feeling of needing to stay very focused with the performer, to be there with them.”

How does this sound? The piano phrases are simple, consisting of a few notes and chords played at a moderately slow tempo. The phrasing seems halting, even syncopated at times, and are not constrained to a strict beat. The pitch set is limited with only a few changes as the sequences proceed. There is a generally reflective feeling in these loops, marked by an absence of technical flash or drama; a sort of unsettled rumination. The phrases are similar upon repetition, but never identical – always with the same interior feel, but never tedious. At first this seems to be a variety of classic minimalism, but the variations in the cells are more subtle. Steve Reich wrote that his minimalist phrasing was varied by adding or subtracting a note or two in the cells after a certain number of repetitions, allowing the overall pattern to dominate while introducing variations gradually.

Golub takes this one step further in that the variations are introduced by the performer in the playing and not by the composer in the scoring. There are small changes to the timing of the rhythms, a change of emphasis on the individual notes and very slight differences in tempo. All of this results in subtle alterations of the musical surface and micro-acoustic detail – in other words, the variations are all driven in the moment by the pianists ‘touch’. The loops presented in Filters are just eight minutes long, but they are meant to be played as long as desired. Each 8 minute loop in the album is an edited subset of a 45 minute recording and some of Golub’s live performances have extended for several hours.

More specifically, Golub writes: “Each loop on Filters contains two ‘streams’ of music. The outer stream consists of a single high note and a single low note on the piano, always struck together. The inner stream is a succession of simple major or minor triads — with an occasional suspended fourth or added seventh — that continually re-contextualize the color of the pitches of the outer stream. Something mysterious and magical happens here that is unique to the resonance, decay, and overtones on pianos. I think that this blending of the louder outer stream with the quieter and denser inner music is at the core of the effect.”

Each of the loops, while similar in construction, have their own distinctive emotional character. Loop 1 is typical with a quietly moderate tempo and repeating phrases. These are very similar, but are heard to be slightly different in each sounding. The small variations in the phrases are not obvious, but invite close attention so that the repeating sequences engage the listener and are never boring. There is a warmly introspective feeling that is also welcoming to the ear. Loop 3 is similar, having the same reflective feeling with perhaps a bit of optimism. Loop 4 has a more ambiguous feel; its character is full of uncertainty and questioning. The most contrasting track, Loop 5, is pitched in a somewhat higher register and includes enough dissonance to produce a sense of disquiet in the listener. A bit elliptical and mildly frustrating at times, Loop 5 a departure by being more anxious than introspective.

Filters is a cutting edge album that illustrates how the performer can exert the critical creative input from within the confines of a strictly minimalist framework. The subtle variations in the repeated cells of these loops arise in the moment from the inventive touch of the pianist and are not the result of formal structures. With Filters, Phillip Golub has restored creative primacy to the individual musician, even within the heart of a highly process-oriented music.

Filters is available directly from Greyfade.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Choral Arts Initiative – Jeffrey Derus – From Wilderness (CD Review)

Jeffrey Derus

From Wilderness – A Meditation on the Pacific Coast Trail

Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, conductor; Kevin Mills, cello

Navona CD/DL

 

With From Wilderness, Jeffrey Derus has written a soaring and eclectic full length work for Choral Arts Initiative, an ensemble committed to new music with nearly twenty commissions and seventy premieres under their belts. Their previous recording, music of Dale Trumbore, supplied significant exposure for her laudable choral works. One imagines that From the Wilderness will do the same for Derus.

 

Derus has an intimate connection with the environs of the Pacific Coast Trail. He takes the listener on a musical journey that includes choral movements with cluster chord modal harmonies, meditative crystal singing bowl interludes associated with the chakras, solo turns as spirit animals by soprano Anna Kietzman, alto Genie Hossain, tenor Taylor Jacobs, baritone Kirk Averitt, and bass Timothy Cervenka, and powerful cello solos from Kevin Mills. Many composers juggling this many elements might make a less than compelling mashup of them. Derus instead highlights the pathway along his spiritual journey in a keen synthesis of these various elements. 

 

The composer doesn’t try to programmatically depict nature along the trail. His impressions and, more importantly, the cathartic response Derus has to journeying are the main topics of From Wilderness. The use of singing bowls is quite beautiful, creating clusters of harmony that presage the use of similar harmony in the voices. “Cajon Pass” is a case in point, with rich verticals and cascades of vocal overlap. Choral Arts Initiative performs with a powerful sound, strongly resonant from top to bottom. Mills plays a poignantly lyrical solo on “Sierras 1,” soon augmented by upper voices creating glinting shards of sound. There is then much interplay between cello and the upper and lower voices ricocheting back and forth. When all come together, with the cello playing in the altissimo register, it is a glorious sound. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Kirk Knuffke Trio (CD Review)

Kirk Knuffke Trio

Gravity Without Airs

Kirk Knuffke, cornet; Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass

Tao Forms

Cornetist Kirk Knuffke plays his instrument with equal versatility to the more common trumpet, presenting a wide range of compass, dynamics, and articulations that leave his work continually fascinating. On Gravity Without Airs, a title taken from Marcus Aurelius, he joins with pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist Michael Bisio. Many of the compositions on the recording are Knuffke. The other pieces are spontaneous improvisations. There is a permeability between composed and improvised selections. Knuffke brought the music to the recording date without sharing it with his collaborators first. Reading from the stand provided inspiration for the subsequent free play, making Gravity Without Airs of a piece. 

The title track is an odyssey that reveals the simpatico nature of the trio. Knuffke unthreads long phrases of melody. Partway through, this is replaced by shorter motives that Shipp responds to in counterpoint. Soon things get fiery and move uptempo, with Bisio pressing forward with a walking line. Shipp supplies cascading descending chord progressions to counterbalance Knuffke’s flights aloft. A syncopated repeated chord provides a little bit of space before the descending progression is resumed, this time with Knuffke following Shipp’s suit and changing the direction of his own lines downward. Ostinatos from Bisio and Shipp provide accompaniment to altissimo playing from Knuffke, closing out the piece far away from its beginning. 

Another piece on which they stretch out is “Birds of Passage.” It has a dramatic opening, with Bisio playing glissandos, Shipp dissonant chords that at times near clusters, and Knuffke wailing in his upper register. His facility with sixteenth notes is impressive and his soloing moves in different tempo relationships to Bisio and Shipp. All of a sudden, the storm subsides to a single repeated note from Shipp, who shortly begins to create a slow, single line solo over spacious voicings. Knuffke rejoins, channeling the early jazz tradition of the cornet with flourishes that eventually move back into greater angularity. Shipp continues to develop repeated note ideas while Bisio explores smaller ranges of sliding tones. The trio moves downward, Bisio inhabiting the bass’s low register, Shipp creating whorls of harmony, and Knuffke eventually responding with a mysterious, lyrical solo. The piece ends with an enigmatic twist.

“Sun is Always Shining” takes the trio into more hard bop terrain. Knuffke plays keening lines over fifths and octaves repeated by Bisio and fluid countermelodies; tangy harmonies, and oscillations in the bass register are contributed by Shipp. “Another River” moves the trio away from bop to free playing with incisive attacks and angular overblowing from Knuffke eliciting adventurous playing from his colleagues. The group excels at intensity, but their ballads are sumptuous too. The slow sustain of “Paint Pale Silver” provides a miniature utterance akin to the Wandelweiser group. 

Knuffke, Shipp, and Bisio know each others’ playing well, and it shows on Gravity Without Airs. That said, they demonstrate that they still share musical terrain to explore. Recommended.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, Los Angeles

Jack Curtis Dubowsky – Bolsa Chica Calm

Jack Curtis Dubowsky has been a familiar presence in Los Angeles contemporary music for many years. He may be best known for his original scores for vintage silent films, as well as for performing them live while projecting the movies in various outdoor venues around town. Dubowsky has also scored feature films, orchestral and chamber works, as well as choral music including the acclaimed Harvey Milk: A Cantata. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the author of three books.

Bolsa Chica Calm is Dubowsky’s latest electro-acoustic album, and he writes that this music “…references ambient, environmental, and experimental music, from vaporwave to Wendy Carlos’ Sonic Seasonings.” The album comprises two 30-minute pieces – Bolsa Chica Surf and Bosa Chica Rain – both inspired by the composer’s avid passion for surfing and the Orange County coast.

Bolsa Chica Surf opens the album and appropriately begins with the calming regularity of waves lapping on the beach. Synthesized instruments soon enter in their turn, with gentle harmonies and simple melodies. The new phrases are independent and repeat so that each entrance adds a new layer of sound to the growing texture. Some high-pitched electronics whirl in the air, and might be sea birds calling across a beach. The soft, pulsing undercurrent of the surf forms a foundation on which the instruments are heard, and this produces a pleasing California sensibility. The repeating phrases of the music complement the patterns in the surf – seemingly the same but each having individual differences. This synchronization of the musical with the natural engages the listener in the same way as standing on a beach watching the waves roll in – all similar in form but separately distinctive.

As the piece continues, a harp is heard repeating a simple ascending phrase, accompanied by lower register electronics and the surf sounds. Three-note bell tones are soon heard dominating at the top of the texture. The tempo has increased slightly and there is a more purposeful feeling as the acoustic instrument sounds enter, each with its own repeating phrase. This pattern produces a feeling of quiet meditation on the beach, even as the piece is one long crescendo, building as instruments join in with new sounds.

At about the halfway mark everything fades to a moment of silence, then a new piano phrase is heard with the harp. There is a steady repeating phrase in each voice with only elementary harmony in the simple piano chords. A cello begins with rich deep tones in slow, stately passages. A flute enters on top, arcing above and there is a more conventional feel to this section with familiar instrumentation and fewer electronics. At 24:33 a distinctive electronic voice enters with sustained tones, changing the mood a bit. Towards the finish the percussion enters, and the feeling becomes one of expectation. A broad tutti chord is a final flourish, and then only the surf sounds continue for a few moments more.

Bolsa Chica Surf is a minimal, but pleasant rending of a quiet day on a California beach. The patterns of the waves and the music imitate one another and merge in the ear to form a continuum of music and nature. This is not dramatic or technically flashy, but is rather a peaceful echo of nature that leaves room in the mind of the listener for quiet meditation.

Bolsa Chica Rain is similarly structured, but evokes an entirely different range of emotions. The sound of a steady rain softly drumming on a metal roof is accompanied by some marvelously liquid percussive sounds. Violins and a cello join in with a mournful melody that perfectly captures the disappointment one feels at having to change outdoor plans because of the weather. At about 3:00, what sounds like a dulcimer enters with repeating phrases that float above sustained tones from synthesized horns. A wood block adds a strong beat as the rain has now receded into the background. Repeating bell-like phrases are heard at the top of the texture and a series of descending notes by the keyboard add to the layers of sound. By 7:00 these sounds have faded and after a momentary pause, the keyboard issues a run of solitary chords that create a slightly more somber mood – like when you feel trapped indoors by the rain. Electronic tones now offer a slightly brighter feel and new layers appear in simple, but uplifting passages. The strings enter again, now providing real optimism as if you have found something interesting to do indoors. As Bolsa Chica Rain continues on, it imparts that sense of liberation you might feel upon realizing that being stuck inside all day because of the rain isn’t so terrible after all.

The architecture of both pieces in Bolsa Chica Calm is similar; they are built up with layers of changing and independent phrases as various instrumental groups enter and fade out. This makes for accessible and engaging music without being boring or repetitive. The patterns in the music mirror the patterns of nature, and this imparts a welcoming sense of serenity. Bolsa Chica Calm is just that, and much needed in our often frenetic lives.

Bolsa Chica Calm is available for download here.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Julia Hülsmann Quartet on ECM (CD Review)

Julia Hülsmann Quartet

The Next Door

Julia Hülsmann, piano; Uli Kemperdorff, tenor saxophone; Marc Muellbauer, double bass; Heinrich Köbberling, drums 

ECM Records

 

Since their 2019 debut recording, Not Far From Here, the Julia Hülsmann Quartet has spent a lot of time touring and gigging, refining their sound and improvisational aesthetic. The group’s latest recording, The Next Door, is primarily comprised of originals by quartet members, alongside a scintillating rock cover. The addition of tenor saxophonist Uli Kemperdorff to Hülsmann’s long standing trio with bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling has been a winning choice. Kemperdorff’s florid runs contain a sunniness that buoys the musical atmosphere. Muellbauer often finds voicing for bass lines that eschew roots in favor of higher overtones, allowing his playing to blend with the chordal choices made by Hülsmann. Köbberling’s gifts are versatile. He knows when to press the players forward and instead to focus on fills and syncopation. 

 

The album opens with “Empty Hands,” in which polymetric chordal planing in the piano is abetted first by a bass solo and then doubled melody with Kemperdorff. Hülsmann then plays a solo with undulating twists and turns and a change of mode midway. Kemperdorff’s solo turn is also filled with arpeggiation at rapid speed. Köbberling begins to assert himself in the last few choruses of saxophone soloing, which is followed once again by a doubling of the head, a bit more ornamented and ended without a button (a welcome way and underutilized way to stop). 

 

“Made of Wood” is a standout track. Beginning with a saxophone solo, the head appears afterwards, once again doubled by saxophone and piano, a texture that the group takes as formative. Muellbauer and Köbberling work in an offsetted way against the melody instruments, finding holes for fills and bass riffs between phrase barriers. Hülsmann plays a lithe single-line solo which gradually is embellished with chromatic harmonies. Kemperdorff’s second solo turn is abbreviated in favor of a duet with Hülsmann. A brief denouement closes the tune.

 

“Wasp at the Window” features a multi-stop bass solo with percussive slaps to open. Kemperdorff then plays moto perpetuo scales that give us the dangerous little insect in motion. Hülsmann provides the wasp with a bit more of a swinging, jaunty swagger and the intricacies of the group’s rhythmic palette suggest the way the guest might nervously be perceived. It is a charming use of programmatic playing. “Jetz Nocht Nicht” is a set of imitative duets between saxophone and piano that could are an appealing but knotty musical puzzle. There is a reprise later in which the entire quartet gets to add their own strands to the counterpoint. 

 

Hülsmann contributes five compositions to The Next Door, and shares writing duties with other members of the quartet. “Lightcap” is by Köbberling, and is a reference to the bassist Chris Lightcap, with whom the drummer played in the nineties. Kemperdorff plays a rangy and fiery solo over wide spaced changes. Köbberling shifts the underlying pulsation several times, asserting himself in his own piece. The last section is a funky outro that, as before, avoids punctuation at its close. “Post Post Post,” the drummer’s other composition, has an ambling melody that appears in various incarnations throughout the group’s haunting improvisations.

 

Kemperdorff’s “Open Up” is a hard swinging tune with bent notes and a sturdy harmonic background that gives Hülsmann plenty of room for substitutions. The rhythm section revels in playing in this trad-mod context. Both saxophone and piano solos are expressive and virtuosic in technical demands. Octave lines shared between piano, saxophone, and bass open “Polychrome,” a Muellbauer composition, which are followed by a pensive piano interlude that takes as much from Webern as from post-bop. Kemperdorff plays with extended scales that encompass the fully chromatic in several different patternings. Muellbauer provides grounding to this fiendishly difficult progression. 

 

Hülsmann frequently uses water imagery, and “Fluid” takes the idea of a crescendoing arc, topped by waves of melody, as the formal design for this affecting ballad. When the pianist takes her solo, we move from the motile water music to equally lithe but swinging music for the quartet. Scalar passages bring back the sense of water’s flow, followed by cascading runs by Kemperdorff that also draw fluid to mind.” A final section of flowing arpeggios and muscular drums brings the piece to a close. Muellbauer makes a clever amalgam in the bossa nova “Valdemossa,” combining the traditional dance’s gestures with the chord progression from Chopin’s enigmatic Prelude in E-minor. The combination works beautifully, with Hülsmann leading in to her neoclassical side while Kemperdorff underscores tango rhythms in his solo turn. 

 

A pop cover is often found on Hülsmann’s recordings. Here it is Prince’s “Sometimes it Snows in April.” It first appeared on Under the Red Cherry Tree, and the song’s long intro and quirky harmonic shifts are reflected in the quartet’s faithful and affecting recording. The Next Door shows a group that has developed its sound exploring different musical pathways with authority. Recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Christopher Trapani – Horizontal Drift (CD Review)

 

Christopher Trapani

Horizontal Drift

New Focus Records

 

Christopher Trapani’s latest portrait recording for New Focus features pieces for solo instruments, several with electronics. The composer’s work with microtones and hybrid tuning systems is spotlighted. Trapani has a compendious knowledge of microtonality, and he brings it to bear eloquently in the programmed pieces.

 

The album’s opener, Târgul, is written for vioara cu goarna, a Romanian variant on the stroh violin, a violin with an added horn to provide greater projection. It also can provide fascinating timbres, as Maximilian Haft’s performance illuminates. Dan Lippel plays the title track on quarter tone guitar, abetted by real time electronics edited by a Max patch. It is a standout piece, with sinuous passages of quarter tones and glissandos followed and morphed by electronics. The use of complex arpeggiations is riveting. 

 

Linear A is performed by clarinetist Amy Advocat. It uses still another tuning, the Bohlen-Pierce scale, which repeats at the twelfth instead of the octave. The electronics provide clarinet duets that make the already surreal environment of the scale enhanced by buzzing overtones. Lots of florid playing, which Advocat executes with aplomb. 

 

Lost Time Triptych is an amalgam of influences. Written as a companion piece for Gerard Grisey’s Vox Temporum, it has three detuned pitches that play a pivotal role in the music. Each of the Triptych’s movements is subtitled with a phrase from Bob Dylan. Marilyn Nonken plays the piece with detailed balancing of its intricate harmonies and supple dynamic shading. Forty-Nine, Forty-Nine is for a 31-tone equal tempered Fokker organ that is controlled by MIDI rather than an organist. With a feisty analog demeanor, 

 it is reminiscent of some of the electronic pieces from the Columbia-Princeton Center, 

 

The recording closes with Tessaræ, a piece written for the viola d’amore. This instrument has sympathetic strings, and Trapani deploys it to emulate folk music from Turkey and India that also has instruments with sympathetic strings. The viola d’amore’s capacities for harmonics and drones are set against a mournful mid-register melody. It is an affecting work that demonstrates Trapani’s capacity for emotional writing as well as technical innovation. Marco Fusi plays with a strongly delineated sense of the counterpoint employed in the piece.

 

Horizontal Drift is a compelling recording, demonstrating Trapani’s craft and imagination in equal abundance. Recommended. 


by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Tony Williams – Play or Die (CD Review)

Tony Williams

Play or Die

Tony Williams, drums, percussion, vocals; Tom Grant, keyboards, synthesizer;

Patrick O’Hearn, electric bass.

M.I.G. Music GMBH

 

Recorded in Stuttgart in 1980 and limited to 500 copies that weren’t widely distributed outside Germany, Play or Die, led by late drummer Tony Williams, is a unicorn record that is finally receiving a reissue. Joined by keyboardist Tom Grant and bassist Patrick O’Hearn, Williams leans in on one his most fusion focused recordings. Sharing the composition duties with O’Hearn, Play or Die includes two originals by the drummer, one by the bassist, and a “Jam Tune” credited to the trio. 

 

O’Hearn’s contribution, “The Big Man,” features a low-range and wide-ranging melody on the bass guitar, one that could well stand beside “Walking on the Moon” as a memorable bass hook. Meanwhile, Tom Grant supplies ska chord stabs and synth filigrees and Williams goes his own way, playing powerfully with myriad virtuoso fills.

 

Williams begins “Beach Ball Tango” with a roll-filled solo. When the others join, O’Hearn once again provides a tuneful melody, but it is Grant who leads the fray with a mono-synth line and rhythmically charged ornaments. Another solo from Williams frames the piece and is followed by a return of the head to close. 

 

 The jam tune is a workout over a funky groove that gives each musician a chance to spread out in their soloing. The now-vintage synths played by Grant timestamp Play or Die on the cusp of the 1980s. His soloing, too, reflects giants from that era, ranging from David Sancious to Herbie Hancock. The number of keyboards Grant must deploy in a single tune are reminiscent of the formidable racks one saw in front of Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz, and Geoff Downes in seventies prog settings. Doubling O’Hearn’s bass line in his left hand, Grant plays an energetic solo in his right. Williams is right there alongside them, propelling the activity energetically. 

 

“Para Oriente” is a syncopated mid-tempo tune with a bluesy cast and an interesting modulation in the bridge. Not to slight percussionists, but it is impressive how Williams combines bluesy progressions and prog harmonies into a single piece. O’Hearn takes a fleet-fingered solo followed by yet another section that introduces a new motif and heady solo from the keyboards. When the original material returns, the unorthodox development and reentry make it seem transformed. 

 

One doesn’t think of Williams as a singer, but his vocal turn on “There Comes a Time,” which is haloed by overdubbed vocals in the chorus, is lyrically soulful. The chord progression supplied by Grant and O’Hearn, over which Williams sings and plays, includes lots of substitutions that feel tangy against the vocal melody. 

 

Unicorn records always make one wish for more: another LP from the group, a longer life for Tony Williams. While those dreams are unachievable, we have Williams’s widow to thank for working with M.I.G. Music to reissue this extraordinary recording. Ready, just as in 1980, to blow  listeners’ minds.

 

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey
CD Review, Cello, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Gity Razaz – The Strange Highway (CD Review)

 

Gity Razaz

The Strange Highway

Francesca de Pasquale, violin; Katharine Kang Litton, viola;

Ingbal Segev, cello; Scott Cuellar, piano

All-American Cello Band; Metropolist Ensemble, Andrew Cyr, conductor

BIS Records

 

Born in Iran and now residing in New York, over the past fifteen years composer Gity Razaz has created a number of well-crafted works. The Strange Highway, her first portrait CD, includes chamber music, ensemble works, and electronics in live and studio recordings.

 

The title piece, composed for cello octet and played by the All-American Cello Band for Dutch radio, was inspired by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaňo’s eponymous poem. It features outer sections of considerable intensity, with forte tutti ostinatos pressing the action forward. The central section begins to dissolve into solo lines and fragments of the ostinatos, only to bring lush harmonies to the fore. The final section reprises the intensity and material of the first.

 

Over the course of Duo’s two movements, the first angst-filled and the second boisterous, Razaz deconstructs and varies a single melody. The transformation from the cadenza passage of the first movement leading into a repurposed dancing melody for the second is well conceived. Violinist Francesa de Pasquale brings a limpid tone to the cadenzas and bright tone and incisive rhythms to the latter half of the piece. Pianist Scott Cuellar provides sonorous accompaniment to the opening and stands out in the muscular stabs of the fast section.

 

Razaz describes her solo viola work “Spellbound” as a soliloquy that features a melody that “hints at Persian music.” Katharina Kang Litton plays it with intensity and a fluid rhythmic sense. “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” is the title of a Salvador Dali painting. It is also the inspiration of the final piece on The Strange Highway. The myth itself has captivated Razaz and is an equal part of her considerations when composing the piece. The latter seems more resonant; not much surrealism is heard. An evocatively scored tone poem, “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” is crammed full of vividly orchestrated, lively motives. The Metropolitan Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr, played this live at Le Poisson Rouge. They provide a detailed rendering of the piece. I was glad not to hear the tinkling of glasses in the background (how did they manage that?).

 

Cellist Ingbal Segev commissioned “Legend of Sigh” from Razaz. The work is the most extended on the recording – nineteen minutes in duration – and features atmospheric fixed electronics with overdubbed cello. The best parts of the piece make a “super-cello” out of overdubs, somewhat reminiscent of the textures in The Strange Highway’s central section. Descending glissandos are used to heighten tension throughout “Legend of Sigh’s” midpoint. As a foil, modal ascending passages provide a measure of consonance to the proceedings. A blustery section in the middle energizes both the cello and supplies clarion electronics. This is succeeded by an overdubbed ostinato accompaniment and high-lying sustained lines with bell-like electronics.

 

The second movement displays Segev’s abundant technical skill with a fleet cadenza followed by overdubbed pizzicatos. These two materials morph into the afore-mentioned “super-cello” texture in repeated sections accompanying triumphant ascending scales. Electronics return to accompany a poignant interlude. A sumptuous theme is then accompanied by all of the elements, including a new texture – cello choir playing arpeggiations – that affords a departure at the piece’s conclusion, with a little tag of electronics as an outro. A varied and compelling piece, “Legend of Sigh” is the most forward-looking offering on the recording. Razaz would do well to develop her creativity in this pocket.

 

Quite a promising portrait recording. Let’s hear some of Razaz’s operas next!

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Bryan Senti – Manu (CD Review)

Bryan Senti

Manu

Naive

 

Violinist/violist and composer Bryan Senti currently lives in LA, but his connections range widely. He’s scored films and television for the BBC and played on post-classical releases by Dustin O’Hallorn and Peter Gregson. Senti’s recording Manu demonstrates musical versatility and arranging talent.

 

Given his background, it is little surprise that there is a cinematic quality to Senti’s approach to scoring. That said, the pieces on Manu aren’t sound files from the cutting room floor; they hold together as post-classical compositions. The recording’s pieces use a cohort of strings. The title track at its outset features hocketing between various members of the ensemble, which eventually coheres into an ostinato in the bass with percussive interjections and dolphin tones above. “Icaro’s” melody is plucked out against sustained violin lines and a chaconne in the bass. “Mantra” (see video below) is the most impressively layered piece on the album and is considerably catchy.

 

There’s gravitas on Manu as well. “Humo” features Senti as soloist and is reminiscent of Arvo Pärt’s austere minimalism. Like several of the pieces here, the tight arrangement is compelling but one wishes it might linger longer. “Telar” and “Via,” which close the album, are more expansive. The former has a steady beat, percussively articulated, and downward glissandos in the altissimo register against mid-register repeated notes and a rangy bass part. Gradually, a forward moving harmonic progression presses the music towards its conclusion. A coda winnows down the texture to high violins and attenuations of the mid-register and bass.

 

“Via” has a repeating tune that is somewhere between a motive by Philip Glass and a Celtic reel. The texture shifts in a number of ways throughout the tune, at some points underscoring glissandos and altissimo register doublings of the tune, at others planing in the middle register. The violin motive returns several times, with its rhythmic values moving from sustained notes to sixteenths. It is ultimately overlaid in presentations at three different speeds, an impressive demonstration of contrapuntal chops by Senti. The coda features rich modal harmonies followed by a spare outro.

 

Senti demonstrates tremendous facility in scoring strings. Hopefully he will get a full orchestra involved for his next release. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey