Piano

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Piano

Alvin Lucier – Music for Piano XL

Grand Piano Records, a Naxos recording label, has released Music for Piano XL, a CD premiere of experimental music by Alvin Lucier performed by award-winning French pianist Nicolas Horvath. Music for Piano XL extends Horvath’s exploration of contemporary composition that has featured works by Philip Glass, Dennis Johnson and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as the piano music of Erik Satie and Claude Debussy. Lucier’s Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL is the formal title of the single track on this CD, and it is exactly that, with a duration slightly over an hour. Horvath writes that the listening experience is “immersive, intense and enigmatic…”

Alvin Lucier (b 1931) is an American who is noted for incorporating acoustical phenomena as an integral part of his compositions. Perhaps his best known work is I am Sitting in a Room, from 1969. in which a recording of those words is played and re-recorded in a large open room. With each recorded iteration, the sounds of the words are rounded off as the acoustic of the room imposes and reinforces its characteristic resonances. Eventually, a sort of ghostly image of tones is all that remains, stripped of intelligibility but filled with a deep sense of introspection.

Auditory perception forms another important aspect of Luciers work. In these pieces, the listener is often surprised and enlightened by the differences between the sound heard by the ear and the perception formed by the brain. I once attended Lucier’s Outlines of Persons and Things (1975), a sound installation that projected a pure electronic tone from two strategically placed speakers in a reverberant acoustic space. Listeners were invited to walk through the space, altering the intensity and deflecting flow of the sound waves in the room. Special objects were also placed in fixed locations to scatter or focus the sounds bouncing off the walls and people. The result was that the electronic pitch and volume varied according to the position of the listener and in many places the differences over just a few feet were startling.

Lucier’s compositions for conventional instruments also incorporate acoustic phenomena, as Frank J. Oteri writes in the liner notes:

“Given Lucier’s fascination with the impact of resonance on various sonorities, it should be no surprise that many of his compositions featuring conventional musical instruments involve a piano. Curiously, though his music defies conventional concepts of melody, harmony, and rhythm and often explores intervals not easily produced on a keyboard, Lucier frequently composes at the piano in his home, sometimes listening intently to the sonic envelope of single tones as he strikes them over and over.”

Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL represents one of Lucier’s furthest inquiries into the idea that purely acoustic phenomena can sustain and propel a performance piece. The striking of a piano string combined with clean electronic tones gives rise to a variety of interactions and ‘beating’ when the pitches are closely matched. This composition is informed entirely by the character of these interactions – how they arise, persist and decay. The XL version on this CD was created specifically for Nicolas Horvath and has been expanded to over an hour from the original 15 minutes. This was recorded on one take, with the pianist having to continuously evaluate the sounds after striking each precisely notated keystroke and making suitable adjustments in timing or volume as the piece proceeds. The electronic oscillator continuously produces two tones that sweep over a range of four octaves and the distilled purity of these sounds is always in stark contrast to the warmer tones of the piano notes.

So how does all this sound? Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL opens with a steady electronic tone, establishing a clean, almost antiseptic ambiance. A single piano note is soon heard, followed by another, and these seem to be related in pitch to the electronics. This music requires close listening and it is only after a few piano notes are heard that the interactions with the electronic tones become conspicuous to the ear. The piano notes are heard in different registers to match changes in the electronic tones, with the lower tones often producing the most prominent beating interactions. The piano notes start singularly at first and are allowed to fully ring out. As the piece proceeds, two or more piano notes are occasionally heard together, and their interactions with each other – and with the electronics – create a new class of acoustic effects. There is no musical form, structure or melody in the playing, just a series of continuous electronic tones and separately sustained piano notes.

The intensity of the electronics seems to vary over the course of the piece, sometimes in the forefront and sometimes more like a background accompaniment. Similarly, Horvath varies the striking force on the piano keyboard to produce a note that will intersect with the electronics for maximum effect. When the electronics are the most dominant, the brain tries to reconcile the purity of the electronic pitch with the more familiar timbre of the piano. As the sounds interact, they tend to overlap and blur the differences so that the listener is left to decide if it is a sterile tone or a musical note that is being heard. The act of determining and evaluating one’s acoustic perception makes this an engaging and instructive work.

The piano notes and the electronics often change register, moving around between low, middle and higher pitches. Sometimes there is little or no observable interaction between the notes and tones. Often the lower registers produce the most perceptible beating, creating almost a rumble. When several piano notes are sounded together against a closely pitched electronic tone, a more complex series of interactions often results. In general, when the electronic tones and piano notes are both strong – and close in pitch – the interactions are most pronounced. But this falls along a wide spectrum of possibilities, seemingly different for each new combination of pitch and force. Towards the finish of the piece, a wobbly higher tone is heard softly accompanied by piano notes. The piano notes then cease while the electronic tone continues on for last two minutes, finally slowing and fading out at the finish.

Listening to Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL often feels like being in an acoustic experiment, but the listener soon learns to focus and evaluate each combination of notes and tones. The result is a better appreciation of how sounds and music are perceived, and what choices the brain must make to determine the dominant character of what is heard. This performance by Nicolas Horvath is disciplined and precise, providing just the right touch for the piano notes under each acoustic condition. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillator XL will surely add to Horvath’s reputation as a leading interpreter of the most unusual experimental forms in contemporary music.

Music for Piano XL is available from Grand Piano, Naxos, Apple Music and Amazon.

by Paul Muller
Ambient, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Piano

The Fall – Dennis Johnson’s ‘November’ Deconstructed

Lustmord

Nicolas Horvath

The Fall – Dennis Johnson’s November Deconstructed is a recent vinyl release from the Sub Rosa label featuring the combined talents of Lustmord, the film and video game composer, and pianist Nicolas Horvath. The Fall is based on Dennis Johnson’s November, a 1959 solo piano piece that prefigured minimalism and was an influence on La Monte Young’s The Well Tuned Piano. The Fall updates the original Johnson work, consolidating it and adding a suitably somber ambient track realized by Lustmord. Nicolas Horvath, the award-winning concert pianist who has specialized in minimalist piano works, plays an abridged version of November so that, as the liner notes state, the result is a reduction of “Johnson’s original November to its core element place[d] in a landscape of complimentary sound.”

Dennis Johnson (1938 – 2018) was a reclusive West Coast mathematician and composer writing music in the late 1950s and early 60s. His composing style was highly inspirational, similar to his thought processes in mathematics. Accordingly, November is a long, quiet piano piece with solitary notes, simple chords and generous amounts of silence. There is some repetition in this, but not the driving pulse or rhythms that would characterize the classic minimalism of later composers. November is perhaps more reminiscent of the music of Morton Feldman in its contemplative character and extended length of four-plus hours.

In 1962 Johnson began consulting full-time in mathematics, at one point working for Cal Tech, and he essentially abandoned his interest in music. Some years later, Kyle Gann acquired Johnson’s November sketches, along with an old cassette recording of the piece, and carefully transcribed a formal score. A few select performances of November have since been recorded.

Immersed in a soundscape that seemed to transport us to the essence of a fall evening, the performance unfolded with such a deft blend of elements that it could have been a musical interpretation of a meilleur jeux casino en ligne session. The ambient electronic tones and the methodical piano notes performed by Horvath evoked the same suspense and anticipation one feels when waiting for the roulette ball to settle into its slot. As I shared my impressions with an old family friend who’d recently discovered the thrills of online gaming, his nod was of both understanding and agreement. The piece resonated with him, echoing the tension between risk and reward, a feeling he’d come to know well in his virtual casino exploits. His anecdote, akin to an inspiring blog post, affirmed the universal language of music and chance, linking disparate experiences through a shared rhythm of emotion.

Track 2 continues this development with the piano and electronic accompaniment gradually increasing in dynamics and intensity. The piano line becomes more assertive and hopeful, and the renewed chirping of birds suggests a clearing of the storm. Toward the end of the track, however, the birds fall silent and the piano returns to the lower registers as the sounds of the wind rise, accompanied by rolls of distant thunder. Track 3 now turns grim with a low bass tone and the piano line deep in the lower register. Thunder is heard again, while the piano now includes simple chords and a mix of middle register notes. A feeling of uncertainty prevails as the background organizes into a more recognizably musical sound. The patter of raindrops is heard that strengthens into a downpour, adding to the sense of anxiety. In the final track the rainfall has ended and a sunnier piano line offers a bit of optimism. The birds are chirping again as if the storm has finally passed. There is a more settled feel in the piano and the deep bass tones in the accompaniment now add a renewed sense of confidence. As the piece concludes, the same gentle rustling of the wind as heard as in the beginning, and a feeling of normality is restored.

So what is the end result of this amalgam of 1950s minimalism and 21st century dark ambient? Purists might object to Lustmord’s presumption in establishing the context for the piece – the imagination of the listener might be better able to personalize the experience by hearing Johnson’s piano alone. That said, Lustmord’s autumn storm context in The Fall is certainly valid, if somewhat limiting. The ambient accompaniment is always in the service of Johnson’s piano line, and does not contend for dominance or attention. The colors are appropriate, subdued and artfully realized. The deconstruction of the hours-long November score to sixty minutes does no injustice to Johnson’s intentions, and the playing by Nicolas Horvath is true to the original. Will adding a dark ambient setting by a popular film and video game composer help to attract a wider audience for this music? It is probably worth doing the experiment to find out.

The Fall – Dennis Johnson’s November Deconstructed is available from Amazon, Discogs and other music retailers. This Limited Edition format is two white vinyl LP records.




by Paul Muller
CD Review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Best of 2020: Matthew Shipp

Matthew Shipp

The Piano Equation

Tao Forms CD

Jazz pianist Matthew Shipp turned sixty this year and celebrated in part with the solo release The Piano Equation. Shipp is an extraordinarily prolific recording artist, with dozens of releases as leader or co-leader and numerous more as a supporting musician; his solo catalog alone is extensive. Despite this embarrassment of riches, The Piano Equation is a standout recording, a state-of-the-art summary of the myriad playing styles at Shipp’s disposal. 

The title track shifts harmonic identities from modal changes to dissonant structures, all of them buoying an arcing, long-lined melody. “Swing Note from Deep Space” has a Monk-like vibe, with hard bop phrasing, buoyant walking bass, and filigreed passagework. In one of several multifaceted pieces on the recording,

“Void Equation” moves between pointillism and bluesy riffs and builds a fast-paced ostinato before returning to the fragmentary nature of its opening. 

“Piano in Hyperspace” is an intricate ballad with staccato vertical interjections providing a bit of grit to counteract otherwise limpid textures. Two other ballads, “Land of the Secrets” and “Tone Pockets,” show Shipp creating impressionist whorls of neo-traditional materials in a delicate contrast to his more modern offerings. 

Just as the pianist can play with considerable delicacy, Shipp also can let loose a tsunami of powerful free playing, as he does on “Vortex Factor.” “Radio Signals Equation” is a propulsive, swinging take on post-tonality, while “Clown Pulse” is a bumptious take on hard bop. Fleet and varied in terms of its surface, its asymmetrical blocks taking on a Stravinskyian cast, “Emission” is Shipp at his most distinctive. The album closer “Cosmic Juice” is another standout, with angular shifts between registers periodically suspended by minimal repetition and sepulchral low passages offset by treble register tightly voiced chords and shards of melodic material. 

The Piano Equation is just one of several recordings released this year by the sexagenerian Shipp. His energy and creativity is indefatigable and shows no signs of flagging. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, CDs, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, Percussion, Piano

Album Review – Nightflower

Elliot Cole – Nightflower

On January 25, 2019, Long Echo Records released composer Elliot Cole’s debut solo album, Nightflower. This album occupies the vague space between the generated and constructed, and lives up to its own claim in “defying the notion of computer music as inherently sterile or mechanical.” At the root of all these works, written entirely for human performers, are materials that were generated by a computer program of Cole’s design. The album opens with the kinetic, lyric, and mesmerizing Bloom, a trio for guitar, cello, and clarinet. Performances by Cabezas, Chernyshev, and Dodson are at times aggressive and urgent, tender and longing, and still when need buoyant and playful. These compositions are certainly not inherently sterile or mechanical, but the performers contribution to the human element in the music throughout this album is undeniable. After such a powerful opening to the album, Night (Corners) and Night (Flowers) disappoint in comparison. Billed as surreal, sprawling, and evoking Romantic piano nocturnes, the work instead scans as plodding despite Andrea Lodge’s carefully considered, introspective performance.

 

Flowerpot Music won me back over almost immediately, and is what I would consider to be the heart of this album. Cole is known for his percussion music, and the uninitiated will understand why after this five minute piece. The unique timbres of the flowerpots and the cathedral-like reverberation provide an immediate intrigue that gives space for Cole to play with pitch, duration, pulse, and repetition to great effect. The album closes with Facets, for solo piano. Like the “Night” pieces, Facets is also meditative and introspective, but a broader range of textures, dynamics, and tempi work to make a more engaging piece by comparison. Hanick’s performance expertly contextualizes these elements into a singular, cohesive arc, and is a fitting conclusion to this album.

 

Bloom

Gabriel Cabezas, cello

Stanislav Chernyshev, clarinet

Jordan Dodson, guitar

 

Night (Corners) & Night (Flowers)

Andrea Violet Lodge, piano

 

Flowerpot Music

Jacob Harpster, percussion

Matt Penland, percussion

 

Facets

Conor Hanick, piano

by Cortlandt Matthews
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Piano, Seattle

Piano Drop at Seattle’s Jack Straw

Destruction and reclamation, gimmick and avant-garde

One of the odder fads bequeathed to us by the 1960s is the ritual destruction of musical instruments. It’s a custom most famously associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. But what bursts out in popular culture often has precedents in the avant-garde, and the origins of this particular brand of onstage iconoclasm can be traced to the Fluxus movement, specifically its founder George Maciunas. In a nod to classical tradition Maciunas chose the piano, rather than the upstart electric guitar, as the foil for his aggression, directing performers of his 1962 Piano Piece #13 to nail down the keys of the chosen target (Sonic Youth famously performed the piece in 1999). Maciunas’s legacy was continued by fellow haute culture exponents Raphael Montañez Ortiz and Annea Lockwood, the former using an ax, the latter using an array of execution methods that included burning, burying and drowning.

The instrument (photo: Jack Straw)

It was Ortiz that provided the inspiration for the Pacific Northwest’s most famous entry in the klavierzerstörungen tradition. To help gin up publicity for a 1968 outdoor concert benefitting two local arts organizations (including the now defunct KRAB-FM radio), promoters arranged for a secondhand upright piano (purchased for $25) to be dropped from a helicopter. The stunt succeeded in its goal, with a few thousand young attendees journeying to a rural farm in Duvall (25 miles outside Seattle) for a day of folk, rock and choreographed demolition. In the event, safety concerns limited the plummet to a modest 50 feet, producing more of a dull thud than a thunderous clang. But it was still enough to obliterate the case, keyboard, hammers and dampers, leaving only the frame, soundboard and the top five octaves of strings.

The addled contraption lay half-buried in its grade-level tomb for 50 years before being exhumed by Jack Straw Cultural Center, the successor organization to KRAB-FM and a Northwest counterpart to New York’s Harvestworks and Roulette. The carcass was deposited on an exhibition table in Jack Straw’s New Media Gallery, where it was made available for the explorations of several West Coast musicians. The missing bass strings precluded performances of “under the lid” standards by such early masters as Cowell and Crumb, and the missing keyboard ruled out what could have been an intriguing variation on Lachenmann’s Guero. So the invited artists set out to create new works for this unique instrument, working under few restrictions other than an appeal to accept its deformed intonation and to limit the duration to a Cagean 4’33”.

Amy Denio (L) and friends (photo: Levi Fuller, Jack Straw)

Thus it happened that on February 23, 2019 a standing audience assembled around the beleaguered corpse to watch 16 composers and ensembles strike, stroke and probe its innards. The acts included a folk band and an oral history reminiscence (both evoking the hippie spirit of the 1968 event), but most of the new works were composed miniatures in the American experimental tradition. Many of them emphasized standard Cowell/Crumb on-string playing techniques, occasionally aided by digital effects or EBows. But Music for a Dropped Piano by Seattle’s ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist Amy Denio stood out in its use of bowed piano technique. And Aaron Keyt’s Piano Gusting saw four performers directing their breath through straws at clip-on contact microphones attached to the strings, the signal thence fed into small handheld loudspeakers, creating a chorus of metallic piano-like tones modulated by breath rhythms—one of the evening’s most remarkable sound experiences.

Two other composers found unexpected points of reference. Luke Fitzpatrick, a violinist by trade who recently resuscitated Partch’s Adapted Viola from decades of case-bound oblivion, levered his experience salvaging moribund instruments with his piece 3144. Attacking the Duvall piano with finger taps on the soundboard and plucks and strums on the strings, Fitzpatrick directly evoked the sound world of Partch’s plectrum instruments. Simultaneously he intoned the piano manufacturer’s stamp and serial number (“Ivers and Pond Piano Company No. 5, 3144”) using the same delivery he has developed for his performances of Partch’s Li Po Songs.

Hendrix immolating his guitar (photo: Ed Caraeff 1967)

Dave Knott also found an external reference, gently laying a small guitar (that had itself been dropped and detuned) on top of the piano’s remains like a vicarious empath, conjuring up images of saplings rising from the decaying nurse logs common in the nearby forests. While Knott strummed the baby guitar, his fellow Eye Music members David Stanford and Susie Kozawa played the doomed piano like a huge prepared autoharp.

The vaunted instrument destroyers of the 1960s tended to enlist their actions as anti-war agitations, or as demonstrations of the fragility of life and culture. But the performers showcased at Jack Straw embraced a different, more redemptive tradition, one closely associated with the Pacific Coast: that of reclamation. Whether it’s Cage, Harrison and Partch making percussion instruments from junk, or Edward and Nancy Kienholz building sculptures and installations from society’s discards, the tradition is one that regards art as a regenerative act that reminds us of the essential musicality and expressiveness in the tiredest and poorest things around us.

Piano Drop featured works by Jeffrey Bowen, James Borchers, Bradley Hawkins, Ski, Gust Burns, Austin Larkin, Brandon Lincoln Snyder, Bruce Greeley, Home Before Dark, Jay Hamilton, Count Constantin and Stanley Shikuma in addition to those mentioned in the review.

by Michael Schell
Concert review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Fred Hersch Trio Live at the Village Vanguard (concert review)

Fred Hersch Trio.
Photo: John Rogers.

Fred Hersch Trio

Village Vanguard

January 5, 2019

Sequenza 21

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – Beginning the new year with a six-night long residency at the Village Vanguard, pianist Fred Hersch had a lot to celebrate. His current trio, in which he is joined by bassist John Hebert and drummer Kevin McPherson, has been together for a decade. They have received a Grammy nomination for their 2018 Palmetto Records CD Live in Europe. In December, Palmetto released another recording of Hersch in a trio setting, this one from 1997 with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. 97 @ The Village Vanguard is the only live recording of this acclaimed ensemble. The CD also documents Hersch’s debut as a leader at the Village Vanguard.

 

Many celebrations include guests and Hersch’s residency was no exception. For the last three nights of shows, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, a Grammy nominee himself and a Guggenheim Fellow and MacArthur Award winner to boot, joined the trio. It proved to be a felicitous pairing. After the trio opened the set with Hersch’s meditative “Plainsong,” Zenón joined them on the pianist’s salsa original “Havana,” sending its sinuous melody soaring and building an exquisitely paced solo. Hebert and McPherson created a fulsome groove. McPherson’s ability to move from the pianissimo textural playing of “Plainsong” to the driving polyrhythms of “Havana” demonstrated versatility that turns on a dime. Hebert keenly targeted his playing too, moving between registers, engaging in melodic colloquy with Hersch, supporting the changes, and acting in concert with McPherson. All of this is even more noteworthy when one considers his uncanny ability to know exactly when and where to provide Hersch’s playing registral space.

 

Hersch’s music is often rhythmically intricate. In addition to the facility of the rhythm section, Zenón proved his mettle in the abstract phrasing and polyrhythmic environments of Hersch tunes “Snape Maltings” and “Skipping.” The latter tune elicited a verve-filled solo from Hersch. The pianist and saxophonist also made great foils for each other, one developing melodic breadcrumbs that the other had strewn in a previous solo. Zenón’s playing had a bite in the post-bop material, but was smooth and suave in the Lerner and Loewe’s “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” Zenón’s composition “Temes” was an engaging part of the set, and it was fascinating to hear Hersch go to town on material new to him, displaying  a vivid imagination.

Hersch frequently writes compositions in homage to other jazz artists. “Lee’s Dream” is a contrafact tune, using the changes of Nacio Herb Brown’s “You Stepped Out of a Dream” with a new melody. It is dedicated to Lee Konitz. “Monk’s Dream” is dedicated to Thelonious Monk. During his set at the Vanguard, Hersch had Monk in mind. The closer was a one-two punch of the pianist’s harmonically inventive version of “Round Midnight,” followed by the group playing a rousing rendition of “Let’s Cool One.” Obliged by applause to share an encore, Hersch chose Billy Joel’s “And So it Goes,” starting in eloquent simplicity and then transforming the tune with intriguing modulations into a Chopin-esque reverie. The sold-out crowd seemed delighted to share in the celebrations.

 

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concert review, File Under?, Minimalism, New York, Piano

Simone Dinnerstein in Recital at Miller Theatre

Photo: Lisa Marie Mazzucco.

 

Simone Dinnerstein in Recital

Miller Theatre – Columbia University

December 8, 2018

Published on Sequenza21.com

By Christian Carey

 

NEW YORK – On Saturday, December 8th, pianist Simone Dinnerstein made a return appearance to Miller Theatre to perform an intriguing and eclectic solo recital. The stage was set with subdued lighting, with electric “candles” placed throughout and, over the course of the evening, small shifts of color. Ms. Dinnerstein, dressed in elegant, flowing attire, created an atmosphere through her performance demeanor as well. The recital was announced with no intermission and the pianist paused from playing only once, midway through, to acknowledge applause and take a brief break. However, by otherwise starting each piece immediately after the final notes of the one it preceded, she communicated clearly that this was not to be an event in which musical continuity would be broken by applause between numbers. Thankfully the audience complied, mutually agreeing to allow the atmosphere to envelop them too.

 

Dinnerstein played two pieces by the Eighteenth century harpsichord composer Francois Couperin, one at the beginning and another right before the break. This is the first time she has programmed the composer. Her approach to Les Barriades mystérieueses was sonorous, eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies. Like the Goldberg Variations, the second piece required interlacing the hands to play everything on the piano keyboard that would have required two manuals on the harpsichord. Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Mallotins featured motoric clockwork and brisk filigrees that were an excellent foil for the Philip Glass work that immediately preceded it.

 

Mad Rush (1979), one of Glass’s best known piano pieces, was first composed for the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where the composer performed it for an appearance by the Dalai Lama. Arranged for piano, the piece is forceful and filled with contrasts. Its delicate passages were played with a spacious sense of breath by Dinnerstein, while the more emphatic central section in piece’s the repeating loop was performed powerfully with fleet-fingered accuracy. Last year, Dinnerstein’s account of Glass’s Third Piano Concerto was impressive; here, she made a further case for a place in the pantheon of Glass pianists. Contrast played a large role in Dinnerstein’s rendition of Robert Schumann’s Arabesque. Once again, she emphasized the breath between phrases, allowing the audience a sense of deft transition between the various emotive sections as they unspun.

 

Erik Satie’s Gnossiene No. 3 received the mysterious performance its ambiguous markings and lack of bar-lines evokes. One part cafe music and another modal Impressionist excursion, the piece was rendered with an evasive, lilting quality.

The pianist, in general, avoids overt and flashy displays of hyper-virtuosity, preferring instead to pick distinct places in which she allows her playing to be unrestrained. Dinnerstein’s performance of Schumann’s Kreisleriana provided several excellent opportunities for effusive virtuosity, and they seemed all the more special for the way that the pianist set them in relief against the more contemplative portions of the work. Fleet arpeggiations flew and the fugal passage in the final movement was a brisk cannonade.

 

Dinnerstein’s aforementioned penchant for allowing the music to breathe, as well as the atmosphere she created for her performance, encouraged a normally bustling New York audience to truly slow down and breathe themselves: a welcome respite during the busy holiday season. When the encore she favored them with was not some barnstormer but instead a reprise of Les Barriades, allowing the program to come full circle, it seemed entirely appropriate.

 

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

James Romig – Still (CD Review)

James Romig

Still

Ashlee Mack, piano

New World Records 80802

Composer James Romig has spent the past twenty years cultivating a body of work that embodies both rigorous structuring and a wide-ranging gestural palette. As is explained in Bruce Quaglia’s excellent liner notes for Romig’s first New World CD, Still, there is good reason for these two aspects to be so important to Romig. His training as a composer was with American modernists Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, while his background as a performer – a percussionist – included a number of works by minimalists such as Steve Reich.

Extra-musical touchstones also play a significant role as inspirations for the composer. A series of National Park residencies has provided him with natural beauty to contemplate while composing. Abstract Expressionist painters such as Clyfford Still, who is the titular reference point for Romig’s piece on this CD, also enliven his imagination.

Nowhere in Romig’s output to date is this confluence of influences more apparent than in Still, a nearly hour-long piece for solo piano. One can see the pitch material’s progression in a chart in the liner notes and note the comprehensiveness of its organization. Unlike Romig’s portrait disc Leaves from Modern Trees, where the pieces tend towards tautly incisive utterance, here the progression of pitch material evolves slowly in a prevailingly soft dynamic spectrum. Ashlee Mack, a frequent performer of Romig’s music, provides a sterling interpretation. Slow tempi are maintained no matter what local rhythms (some complex) ripple the surface texture. In addition, Mack voices the harmony skilfully, allowing the piece-long progression to be presented with abundant clarity.

One more composerly ghost lurks in the room: that of Morton Feldman. Also an appreciator of Abstract Expressionism, who created long single movement pieces that transformed slowly and remained primarily soft, Feldman could seem to be Still’s natural progenitor. While surface details and scale of composition are similar, there is a significant musical difference between Feldman’s paean to a painter like Philip Guston and Romig’s reference to Clyfford Still. As pointed out by theorists such as Thomas DeLio, the undergirding of a Feldman piece is indeed subject to an organizational structure. That said, his work seems more intuitive than Romig’s, which is methodical in the unfurling of its linear components and their constituent harmonies. Whether Feldman’s surface in any way inspires the depths of Still, I am not sure; it would be an interesting question to pose to Romig. Either way, Still is his most engaging and beguiling piece to date. One looks forward to hearing more works that accumulate Romig’s proclivity for parks, painters, maximalists, and minimalists; these many ingredients make for intriguing results.

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Piano

Reinier van Houdt at Dog Star 14

The 14th annual Dog Star concert series rolled into The Wild Beast at CalArts on June 9, 2018 and featured the Los Angeles appearance of the noted Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt. A fine crowd assembled in The Beast despite a brush fire that shut down two lanes of the local freeway. Four contemporary solo piano pieces were on the program as well as Concert for Piano and Orchestra, by John Cage.

Layers for Piano, by Nomi Epstein, opened the program and began with a series of soft, single notes followed by brief chords. A deep rumble was occasionally heard in the lower registers, but the opening pattern of a few notes plus a simple chord persisted as the piece proceeded. The phrasing was consistently spare but engaging, with a quietly mysterious feel. The emotional delivery was impressive given the economical use of sound and masterfully restrained touch by van Houdt. The soft nebulous edges of Layers for Piano artfully evoked a comfortable float on a feathery cloud.

More quiet music followed with Pythagorean Study for piano and electronics, by Andrew Young. Short two-note chords separated by silence were repeated, as if some signal were being transmitted. As the piece proceeded this muted pattern repeated, with the notes changing pitch or played in a different register. The overall effect was to create a wistfully nostalgic sensibility from just this simple construct. The soft keyboard playing by van Houdt was the critical element here, and the listening was like basking in a collection of warm memories. Also, by Jennie Gottschalk followed and this displayed a similarity to the Young piece in that it consisted of quietly simple chords. These included dissonance as well as a somewhat darker tone in the lower registers. Although carefully subdued, Also contained a slightly sinister feel that was enhanced by the accelerando towards the finish. Rapid high and low notes completed the drama at the ending.

Trapani, by Jerry Hunt followed, and this 1989 solo piano piece provided a lively contrast to the more reserved music heard in the program to this point. Strong tremolos rippled through the highest and lowest registers of the keyboard producing an agitated feel full of anxiety and tension. A great wash of notes continued with a distinctly fluid feel, like some darkly churning waterway in full flood. The dynamics rose and fell like a surging tide, cresting to an impressive level, only to pull back again. The texture was a mass of continuous motion, as if driven by waves on a stormy sea. The extended tremolos, the variations in volume and intensity were all skillfully executed by van Houdt, whose precise control over the keyboard never wavered. Trapani is an expressive and animated conjuring of the powerful natural forces at work all around us.

(more…)

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Chamber Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Piano

Quattro Mani at Weill Hall and on CD

quattromaniresctructurescdcover

Quattro Mani

November 15, 2017

Weill Recital Hall

Works by Gosfield, Moravec, Machover, Lansky, and Ben-Amots

NEW YORK – Since 2013, pianists Susan Grace and Steven Beck have been performing together as the duo Quattro Mani. Their recent recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall presented several New York premieres, including pieces by Annie Gosfield, Paul Moravec, Tod Machover, and Paul Lansky. Gosfield’s mix of dissonance with rollicking rhythms was winning in “Refracted Rhythms and Telepathic Static.” Lansky’s three Color Codas – “In the Red,” Purple Passion,” and “Out of the Blue” – indeed embodied multihued harmonies and sparking ostinatos. Moravec writes in an elegant, idiomatic style for the piano. His Quattro Mani contains a substantial amount of memorable material — dare one hope it is a sketch for a double concerto? The evening culminated in a scintillating performance of John Adams’ Hallelujah Junction, which was both fiery and superbly coordinated.

Quattro Mani’s latest CD recording for Bridge Records, Re-Structures, is an engaging outing. The title work, also heard at Weill Hall, is by Machover. Scored for piano and electronics, it juxtaposes frenetic acoustic virtuosity with correspondingly penetrating digital commentary. Lansky’s Out of the Blue, one of the Color Codas also on the New York program, is an attractive post-minimal exploration of small cells of material that gradually expand into boisterous passages in octaves and quick scalar runs.

The multi-movement work Cembal d’Amore, Book Two by Poul Ruders changes up the duo’s instrumentation: Beck plays harpsichord while Grace remains at the piano. Its corruscating textures, varying duplications and canons in a sequence of movements based in part on Baroque dance suites, revels in chromaticism and wry wit in equal measure. Yet another shift in approach is found in Életút Lebenslauf by György Kurtág. Basset horns, played by Andy Stevens and Sergei Vassiliev, accompany the pianists playing instruments tuned in microtones. Mysterious timbres bump elbows with thornily dissonant angularity in a piquant, unforgettable piece.

The CD’s closer is a bit more straightforward, but no less captivating. Tango for the Road by Ofer Ben-Amots is an eight-minute long exploration of traditional tango rhythms and gestures, with a few surprises and a left turn or two along the way. The piece gives Grace and Beck an ideal vehicle to showcase the supple phrasing and suavity they bring to bear whenever given a chance to swing.

Re-Structures is an adventurous exploration of many facets of 21st century piano music: highly recommended.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey