Choral Music, File Under?, Twentieth Century Composer

Penderecki’s Passion: a new recording

Krzysztof Penderecki

St. Luke Passion

BIS Records

Sarah Wegener, soprano; Lucas Meachem, baritone; Matthew Rose, bass

Sławomir Holland, speaker

Warsaw Boys’ Choir; Kraków Philharmonic Choir

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Kent Nagano, conductor

Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (1966) garnered international acclaim that raised the composer’s stature substantially. Penderecki had a long relationship with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, appearing with them a number of times as a guest conductor from 1979-2015. The orchestra gave the Canadian premiere of St. Luke Passion with Nagano conducting. This live recording was made at the Felsenreitschule Salzburg Festival in July, 2018 with the composer in attendance. 

At the time of its premiere, there also were undercurrents of criticism on two fronts. The musical avant-garde pilloried Penderecki for his eclecticism, which ranges from triads to twelve-tone rows (two are used in the piece) to cluster chords and a prominent use of the B-A-C-H motive. In retrospect, one can evaluate the work as a precursor to the polyglot postmodern assemblages of the 1970s. Others decried the use of such devices in a liturgical piece of music. Despite these critiques, the work has weathered well. 

Throughout, there is a powerful sense of declamation by both the soloists and chorus. Soprano Sarah Wegener’s voice supplies thrilling high notes with abandon while baritone Lucas Meachem displays a richly powerful voice and bass Matthew Rose an impressive lower register. Perhaps most impressive is Slawomir Holland’s potent delivery as a speaker. The choruses are superlatively well prepared, their singing mixing thick chords and stentorian high notes as well as swirls of group spoken word passages. Concomitantly a fluidity between styles and idioms prevails.Sprechstimme morphs quickly into detailed harmony, micropolyphony mixes with quotation and tonal signatures. 

Nagano leads the Montréal musicians through an assured and nuanced account of the score. In the wake of Penderecki’s passing, this recording comes at a propitious time to reevaluate his compelling early work. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Review: Alex Wand – Carretera

Alex Wand

Carretera

In the fall of 2018 composer Alex Wand assumed his Alejandro Botijo persona and began a cycling trip from Los Angeles to Michoacán, Mexico. Alex explains: “I create aliases for myself that highlight certain qualities of my person. I think of them like archetypal, mythological people that help me realize existing aspects of myself. For example, Alejandro Botijo helped me bypass the physical limitations of my body, feelings of loneliness, fear of being hit by a truck, along with many other vulnerabilities that come with cycling over 2,000 miles alone.”

The bicycle trip took him along the migratory path of the monarch butterflies and Alejandro recorded his impressions with field recordings and music from that perspective. The monarch butterfly is the only species of butterfly known to make a two-way migration during the year. Towards the end of October they make their way south, spending the winter in Southern California and Mexico, heading north again in March to spend the summer in the US and Canada. At the conclusion of the trip, Wand/Botijo created a summary of his experiences and the result is Carretera, a series of miniature musical impressions of the journey south.

From the liner notes: “These compositions investigate migration from the monarch’s perspective. The field recordings and spoken word are meant to be ways of listening-with the monarchs by capturing moments of stillness and space on their journey, as well as outlining myriad challenges such as predators, pesticides, and habitat degradation. Alejandro loops, time warps, and pitch shifts the musical sounds to express overlaying temporalities and to articulate the repetitive aspects of migration. With these elements, the music seeks to trace the experience of the monarch/cyclist on their journey to the oyamel forests of Michoacán.”

High Desert, the first track, describes Botijo’s first stage of his trip south from Los Angeles. Single bell-like tones are heard accompanied by a sputtered rushing sound, as if cycling alongside a busy desert highway. Wand provides spoken commentary with his calmly enigmatic voice, repeating a list of the hazardous contents of the roadside along with the beauty of the landscape. There is a swirling mix of headlights, broken bottles and nails together with vivid red and purple sunsets.

Baptist Church follows, and this has lighter tones combined with a softly hopeful tremolo. The vocals begin with “There’s a Baptist Church at the border town where the railroad used to pass through. There’s an old building where the railroad workers used to spend the night.” A series of stronger tones are heard at irregular intervals, invoking the presence of railroad tracks. As the text is repeated, more details are added so that gradually the feeling becomes one of sanctuary – a place that a migrating butterfly – or cyclist – might find rest for the night.

Depredadores is next, full of aggressive percussive beats and active rhythms. The text is now in Spanish, a list of words and names accompanied by low video game sounds. Only a minute and a half in length, Depredadores nevertheless captures the sense of crossing into Mexico by way of a gritty border town. Texaco follows with the sound of mystical drums and cymbals. The text speaks of an abandoned gas station, a barbed wire fence, farmland and a chili factory. Deep guitar chords paint a grim and desolate picture of what could be an agricultural town in northern Mexico.

Mercado, on track 5, however, is very different. A lovely groove comprised of light electronic tones is heard and soon accompanied by animated street sounds and the chatter of voices in Spanish. Clearly we have traveled farther into Mexico and have finally arrived at a warm and welcoming village. Repartiendo el Pan follows, opening with a sweet repeating guitar phrase and the sound of chirping birds. Children are heard playing, and wind instruments enter with a happy bounce. The piece ends with a short fragment of a pop song sung in Spanish, continuing the hospitable feeling that carries over from the previous track. Clearly we are deep into Mexico.

Stream, track 7, is just that: the sounds of rushing water accompanied by electronic rhythmic phrases. There is no spoken narration or human sounds. Restful, calming and most definitely rural. Carretera follows and this opens with an active, bouncing synth and repeating guitar lines that radiate an upbeat and optimistic feel. A series of spoken place names and Spanish nouns are heard, adding an intimacy to the music and creating an emotional sense of homecoming.

The final track is I Wish I Could Disappear, and this features sunny, repeating guitar lines accompanied by the sung and spoken words of the title. This is a final summing up of the emotional changes triggered by the long journey. From the northern border lands to a place deep in the Mexican interior, there is a real sense of longing in this music for a simple communal life that is in harmony with the natural environment. Perhaps it is this – and not just the climate – that draws the monarch butterflies back each winter.

Carretera is an engaging and succinct depiction of a long emotional journey, as seen from the eye level of a migrating butterfly. Like the monarch, we long for a place where we can be part of a welcoming community – Carretera completely and elegantly captures this sensibility.

Carretera is distributed for digital download via Bandcamp and a vinyl disk may be ordered. There is also a companion film Camino de las Monarcas, that is available for download.


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

Anna Höstman’s Harbour (CD Review)

Anna Höstman 

Harbour 

Cheryl Duvall, piano 

Redshift Records, 2020 

Harbour, a recital recording of Anna Höstman’s piano works played by Cheryl Duvall, reveals an emerging composer who both synthesizes her research interests – she has written about Feldman and Linda Caitlin Smith – while developing a significant voice of her own. Thus, gradually developing fields of sound remind listeners of the aforementioned composers, but Höstman’s gestural palette is significantly different. Examples of this include the ornaments on “Allemande” and the blurring gestures of “Yellow Bird.”

The title piece is a twenty-five minute long essay that begins with flourishes that remind one of Messiaen’s birdsong, as well as gliss-filled descending lines, set against a slow moving series of polychords. Registral expansion affords these three elements considerable latitude and points of intersection. The verticals take on a reiterated ostinato that alternates with linear duos and the glissandos, allowing for the music to gradually grow more emphatic in demeanor. There is a long-term crescendo that allows for these elements to take on a certain bravura that transforms them, at least for the moment, into emphatic post-Romantic material. However, the sound soon scales back and Harbour returns to a quietly mysterious space.

Pianist Cheryl Duvall is an excellent advocate throughout, bringing a graceful touch and finely detailed shadings of dynamics and voicing to the music. Composer and pianist seem to be an ideal pairing on this consistently engaging release. 

-Christian Carey 

Anna Höstman 
by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?

Rhodri Davies – Transversal Time

Rhodri Davies

Transversal Time

Ryoko Akama: electronics

Rhodri Davies: pedal harp, electric harp

Sarah Hughes: zither

Sofia Jernberg: vocals

Pia Palme: contrabass recorder

Adam Parkinson: programming

Lucy Railton: cello

Pat Thomas: piano, electronics

Dafne Vicente-Sandoval: bassoon

Confront Recordings

Co-commissioned by Huddersfield Festival, Chapter, and Counterflows

 

Multi-instrumentalist Rhodri Davies created the piece Transversal Time in 2017. This recording is of its performance at Chapter, captured by Simon Reynell (also known for his own label, Another Timbre). The assembled musicians are a who’s who of today’s experimental cohort and Davies gives them imaginative prompts for the music they are to play. These involve a variety of time systems – standard time, decimal time, and hex time – creating a layering of tempos.

 

The tone colors elicited are particularly attractive and, while often blended, each performer gets a standout moment. Sofia Jernberg’s wordless vocals play a role early on, then electronics from Ryoko Akama, Adam Parkinson, and Pat Thomas create sine tones and glissandos that are then imitated as sustained pitches and slides by the rest of the ensemble.  Later, birdlike chirps become an extended call and response. The prevailing dynamic level is piano and there often is a delicate sensibility to the proceedings.

 

The incorporation of contrabass recorder, played by Pia Palme, and bassoon, provide a sturdy grounding for the rest of the treble instruments. A lengthy percussive interlude by Davies, Lucy Dalton, and Thomas combines harp, cello, and inside-the-piano work. Davies alternates between pedal and electric harps and is very much a member of the ensemble rather than a soloist. That said, one can hear the harp as an instrument that urges the various time streams forward and in that sense Davies is a master of ceremonies. Gradually, electronics and then the rest of the ensemble are reincorporated, the different speeds creating a hocketing effect. A coda of soft sustained notes and electronic smears is a fitting denouement.

 

Transversal Time lasts thirty-eight minutes, but is so absorbing that it feels like it passes in a blink of an eye. The interwoven textures reward multiple listenings, and the recording comes highly recommended.

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

CD Review: John Luther Adams – Lines Made By Walking

Cold Blue Music has released Lines Made by Walking, a new CD of string quartet music by composer John Luther Adams. Two three-movement pieces are featured, performed by the acclaimed JACK Quartet. As with his earlier string quartet pieces, this new album further explores the intimate relationship that Adams, an avid hiker, has with the wild terrain that inspires him. As the composer writes: “Making my way across these landscapes at three miles an hour, I began to imagine music coming directly out of the contours of the land…” Those who appreciated Adam’s earlier string quartet music CD The Wind in High Places, will find this new album to be a further articulation of his strong environmental sensibility.

The opening movement of Lines Made by Walking, the first piece, is “Up the Mountain” and this immediately establishes the deep connection between the land and the music. From the start, deep cello tones rise up in warm arpeggios. The other strings enter in similar fashion in their higher registers. All the strings reach their upward pitches at different times and in different combinations, so that the interleaving layers of sound create a convincing sense of ascent. The mixing and repetition of the phrases create some lovely harmonies and the result is purposeful and unhurried, as if walking a favorite mountain trail.

The second movement, “Along the Ridges” has similar phrasing and feel, but the mix of notes is not as evocative of the vertical, and a slower tempo suggests a more leisurely amble. Not as purposeful in its repetitiveness, there is a more introspective feeling in this movement. Thin violin lines at times soar high above the lower strings, while at other times there are moments of lush four-part harmony. The settled feeling here is comforting and meditative, as if looking down from a great height on a quiet village below. “Down the Mountain”, the third movement, begins in rarefied air with high violin tones flaring out followed by notes that fall in pitch. The lower strings enter in a similar pattern and the layered, repeating phrases are interwoven to form a cascading stream of descending tones. Appropriately, this sequence is the reverse of the opening movement, but still maintains the warm sense of place, especially in the final minute.

Lines Made by Walking, portraying as it does the ascent and descent of a mountain, calls to mind MacLaren Summit, an earlier string quartet piece by Adams that describes a remote mountain in the wilds of Alaska. In MacLaren Summit, the music suggests a more challenging environment and climate. The familiar high violin phrases are more active and needle sharp, suggesting a bitter cold. Overall there is a more distant and isolated feel, yet there is at the same time a welcoming oneness with nature that is clearly heard again in Lines Made by Walking. Adams continues to write music that is accurately descriptive of rugged landscapes without being adversarial toward them. The JACK quartet understands this perfectly and supplies just the right touch throughout.

The second piece in the album is Untouched, and this is only the second string quartet composed by Adams, at age 58. All of the instruments are played on natural harmonics or open strings throughout, and this allows the sustained overtones to interact and languidly mingle. The first movement, “Rising”, opens with deliciously low cello tones accompanied by lofty violin pitches. The feeling is open and airy, as Adams describes in the liner notes: “I stood on the tundra, holding a small Aeolian harp on top of my head, dancing with the wind, turning like a weathervane. Music seemed to flow out of the sky – across the strings and down through my body, and into the earth. From that beginning, I’ve discovered a broad harmonic and melodic palette derived from superimposing the harmonic series on itself at different intervals…”

As “Rising” progresses, it proceeds in a series of stages or waves, each with a slightly higher pitch set. This gives a sense of progression, but the gently rocking rhythms and harmonies also radiate a warmly accessible hospitality. The phrases are comprised of notes that move broadly upward and by the end of the movement, the cello drops out, liberating the violins to rise to extreme heights. The second movement, “Crossing”, features a more horizontal feel; the notes follow different patterns but carry the same organic feeling that springs from the harmonic series. In the fluid texture it is possible to imagine an ephemeral melody arising out of the repeating lines of notes. The cello is not as deep or rich here, and the violins sparkle in a stratospheric register. A somewhat slower tempo at the finish lengthens the tones before fading at the finish.

“Falling’, the final movement, begins with almost painfully sharp high notes in the violins, and as the lower tones enter the harmony restores the congenial atmosphere of the earlier movements. The tones gradually fall in pitch and the music becomes more inward and nostalgic. The notes seem to dance and flicker like firelight, adding to the meditative feel. Deep cello tones at the finish produce a sense of vast grandeur, perhaps a tribute to the drama of the Alaskan wilderness.

Lines Made by Walking affirms Adam’s embrace of the natural environment and extends his creative powers through a masterful deployment of the harmonic series.

Lines Made by Walking is available directly from Cold Blue Music, Amazon and from numerous CD retailers.





by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

EP Review: KOAN Quartet – Johanna Beyer – String Quartet IV


The Koan Quartet has recently posted the premiere commercial recording of Johanna Beyer’s String Quartet IV. The German-born Ms. Beyer is one of the lesser known composers of experimental music and was most active during the 1930s. She is associated with contemporaries such as Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Carl Ruggles and others of that era. Her enduring legacy recently surfaced in an educational workshop that examined the transformative potential of new digital entertainment, including nouveaux casino en ligne, revealing unexpected parallels between her trailblazing approach and modern online platforms. Her music has been described as economical and well-balanced with a dash of the whimsical, as well as having a solid commitment to experimentation. Beyer’s 1938 work, Music of the Spheres, was the first piece for electronic instruments to be scored by a woman. Some of her work prefigures later musical developments, including tone clusters, pitch-based rhythmic processes and repetitive elements as subsequently employed by the minimalists.

Ms. Beyer died in 1944 and her legacy had largely been forgotten, but an extensive editing and recopying of scores by the Frog Peak/Johanna Beyer Project has brought her work back into current view. There is now a good selection of her works available. The Koan Quartet has, for the first time, recorded Beyer’s String Quartet IV, a piece thought to have been composed in 1943, and not known to have been performed during her lifetime.

The most prominent feature of the string quartets of Johanna Beyer is that they typically consist of short movements. String Quartet IV is just 12 minutes spread over four movements. For all their economy and brevity, however, nothing is lacking. Where Haydn might take several minutes to work out the arc of a single movement, Johanna Beyer expresses her musical ideas fully, yet succinctly, and the listener does not feel in any way short-changed.

“Movement I – Moderato” of String Quartet IV opens with playful variations on what sounds like a children’s melody, confirming Beyer’s longstanding attraction to the lighthearted. The brief form and structure are solidly and carefully detailed here by the Koan Quartet. Dissonance in the counterpoint – normally a distinguishing feature of Beyer’s music – is not as prominent here as in, for example, her String Quartet II. The sound is nevertheless full and elegant, especially in the dramatic finish of this movement.

“Movement II – Larghetto”, opens with a mournful solo – slow, deliberate and spare. There is a somber, expressive feeling to this, especially in the lower strings. There is also a faint echo of the melody from the first movement, but subdued and with a solemn feel. The pizzicato phrases that come and go throughout this movement are cleanly played by the Koan Quartet against the sustained tones of the melody. “Movement III – Andante” begins with a low cello solo, followed by strongly declarative and march-like tutti theme. There is a sense of purpose and action here making a good contrast to the second movement. A stretch of warm harmony precedes a return to the strident rhythms of the theme as this movement finishes.

“Movement IV – Presto” has an active and busy feel, and is filled with rapid tutti passages. The characteristic Beyer dissonance in the counterpoint is more in evidence here and nicely emphasizes the sense of movement. This final movement is nicely complex, but not overwhelmingly so and provides a spirited finish to the entire piece. String Quartet IV is an appealing work whose charm is enhanced by its modest scale. Perhaps miniature string quartets, such as the gems composed by Johanna Beyer, deserve greater consideration in the experimental repertory. The Koan Quartet has made some history here with the first commercial recording of String Quartet IV, and their fine playing has rightly increased their reputation as a reliable source of historically valuable performances.

Koan Quartet is Eric KM Clark and Orin Hildestad, violins; Cassia Streb, viola; and Jennifer Bewerse; cello.

Joanna Beyer: String Quarter IV is available as an EP digital download at Bandcamp.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, File Under?

Ralph van Raat plays French Piano Rarities (CD Review)

French Piano Rarities

Ralph van Raat, piano

Naxos 8.573894

I was fortunate to hear the US premiere at New York’s Weill Recital Hall by Ralph van Raat of Pierre Boulez’s early work Prelude, Toccata, and Scherzo (1944). Composed when he was just nineteen, the piece is a substantial one, twenty-seven minutes long. Unlike Boulez’s works from 1945 onward, as is evidenced by a recording here of 12 Notations from that year, the piece predates his fascination with Webern and total serialism, instead seeking a rapprochement between tradition and Schoenbergian dissonant harmonies. Van Raat’s recording of the work for Naxos is authoritative, details large and small shaped with impressive care and bold playing. 

“Prelude, Toccata, and Scherzo” serves as the centerpiece of the French Piano Rarities recording, but it is accompanied by fascinating fare. In addition to the aforementioned, a late Boulez piece, Une page d’éphéméride, is also included, resembling late Stravinsky in its use of small repeating collections in post-tonal fashion. Olivier Messiaen is represented by three pieces, Morceau de lecture á vue from 1934, with strong polychordal verticals, two movements from the piano version of Des canyons aux étoiles…, filled with birdsong and color chords, and La Fauvette passerinette from 1961, a rapid birdsong essay.

Three earlier works by French masters are included: a gently ephemeral Menuet from mid-career Maurice Ravel, and two late pieces by Claude Debussy: Étude retrouvée and Les Soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon. They all prove that, past the well-worn selections one frequently hears on recitals, there are many underserved pieces that hardly deserve to be “rarities.” 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

CD Review: Luminous

LUMINOUS

Kirsten Ashley Wiest, soprano
Siu Hei Lee, piano

Centaur Records

Centaur Records has recently released LUMINOUS, a new CD of contemporary art songs featuring coloratura soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest, accompanied by pianist Siu Hei Lee. Three original pieces by composers Jeffrey Holmes, Jack Van Zandt and James Erber were written specifically for Ms. Wiest’s extraordinary voice and explore the eternal contrast of darkness and light. Also included is the technically challenging Mysteries of the Macabre by György Ligeti.

The opening piece, Fragments, by Jeffrey Holmes is a four-movement work based on Latin texts compiled by the composer. The first movement, “Horumque Visum Contegas”, opens with strong piano chords that are dark and brooding, like a blustering winter storm. The entry of the solo voice is nicely sustained and adds a touch of the mysterious. As the piano re-enters, a palpable element of tension is felt. The vocals are precisely balanced against the churning piano passages and the crescendo at the finish is both chilling and disquieting. The second movement, ”Fera Pessima” or ‘Wild Beast’, extends the sense of distress, with the voice dominating in the higher registers. There is primal drama here, yet Ms. Wiest’s voice propels the narrative with a radiant translucence and artful control.

“Stella Maris”, or ‘Star of the Sea’ is the third movement and the piano opening is more subdued. There are no crashing chords or strong gestures, and the soaring arc of the voice is calming, if somewhat tentative and suspenseful. The agitation and dynamic build towards the finish and the piano roils as if a turbulent sea. The vocals quietly trail off at the conclusion.

“Qui Lux es et Dies…”, or ‘Who Thou art the LIGHT and the Day,’ is the final movement, opening with a quiet string of piano notes, followed by simple, declarative chords. The voice enters with a questioning feel, and there is almost a sense of resignation in this. The piano gradually becomes more assertive, and the voice rises to dominate above the now stronger piano chords. With all the changes in dynamics and tension in vocal line, Ms. Wiest’s voice remains resolutely under control, never compromising her delicate, yet pure sound. Throughout its four movements, Fragments delivers a sharp sense of darkness and destiny and the interplay between the piano and voice is masterfully arranged and precisely performed.

The next piece is Phoenix, by James Erber, a two movement work with texts from love sonnets written by 16th century philosopher Giordano Bruno. In the first movement, “Unico augel del dol”, the opening piano line is halting and angular while the voice enters and soars above this with a beautiful melody. The feeling is uncertain and tentative in the piano but brightly confident in the vocals.

“You have fixed terms,
Of long life, and I have a short course”

The peculiar and independent piano line continues in the second movement, “Bench’a tanti martir” based on the second sonnet. The voice enters in a middle register, adding new colors and a warm expressiveness to the text. The piano accompaniment works with the vocals in a counter-intuitive way, there are no great chords or thick harmonies to surmount but there are some impressive leaps in pitch, all capably managed by Ms. Wiest. Towards the finish there is some lovely humming – thin, light tones are heard, with an almost electronic purity. The confidence in the vocal phrasings and the clear singing against the sometimes jagged piano passages makes this performance of Phoenix both elegant and impressive.

Apples and Time Crack in October, by Jack Van Zandt is next, a four-movement piece based on texts from Los Angeles-based poet Jill Freeman. The first movement, from which the entire work takes its title, opens with a rapid series of piano phrases and a strong entrance by the voice. Impressive vocal agility and precise pitch control are evident here while the piano is full of energy, like the wind on a blustery fall evening. The piano swirls and gusts below the soprano voice that sings knowingly of autumn secrets and vivid images.

“Who knows what witch
or wolf lies ‘round the
corner of November.”

“A Poem Sat”, the second movement consists of quiet piano chords and simple melody lines throughout. Somber and restrained, the vocals remain in check, and even the high notes and crescendos are refined and stately, without excess. This movement provides a fine contrast with the first, imparting a sense of calm and introspection. “The Nightingale” follows, and you can hear the active chattering of birds in the piano entrance. Smooth vocals glide over this, mostly in middle registers and only occasionally reaching for the heights. A brisk theme in the piano is heard when the text turns to “Children running, falling in streams calling ‘mother.’ Clearly this is music of a more innocent time. A singularly mechanical feeling is heard in the piano line as the text concludes:

“I must break
this beautiful
mechanical bird
before you wake.”

The final movement, “Helen’s Invocation”, is the piano version of an aria from A Thousand Ships, an opera by Van Zandt and Freeman inspired by the epic tale of Helen of Troy. Slow, ominous notes and chords bubble up from the lower registers of the piano at the beginning and the strong entrance of the voice adds a touch of mysticism. The rolling piano lines recall Homer’s ‘wine dark sea’ as the vocals become steady and purposeful, effectively drawing Helen into the center of the drama. Long, soaring vocal lines fly upward, and a sense of the heroic takes hold as the movement proceeds. The imagery in the music and the text are artfully combined, and the singing is both confident and agile.

The final track is Mysteries of the Macabre, by György Ligeti and this is probably the most abstract and vocally demanding piece on the CD. Mysterious whispering, rapping on the piano, vocalise and other unexpected sounds form the foundation of this piece. Sudden vocal jumps, disjointed rhythms and darting runs add to the overall complexity and pose formidable challenges to the performers. Ms. Wiest and Siu Hei Lee navigate all of this with assurance and style, however, and it is good to know such exceptional talent is part of our musical community.

Special mention should be made of the sound engineering by Alexandria Smith and the mastering by Talley Sherwood. The colors and nuances in Ms. Wiest’s voice are all clearly heard and a new appreciation of her gloriously translucent tones, precise dynamic control and purity of pitch are gained in this recording that might otherwise be missed in the concert hall.

LUMINOUS is available directly from Centaur Records as well as Amazon Music.






by Paul Muller
Contemporary Classical

Podcast: JoVia Armstrong

JoVia Armstrong is an accomplished musician from Detroit, winner of the 2014 Best Black Female Percussionist of the Year, given by the Black Women in Jazz Awards. She is a member of the jazz group Musique Noire and has appeared with a wide variety of artists and has also toured with the J.C. Brooks Band.

In this podcast, JoVia describes her early musical education in the Detroit public schools, her experiences as a music major at Michigan State and her subsequent career as a professional musician based in Chicago. The story of the challenges she faced and overcame along the way is both inspiring and uplifting.

Paul Muller and Jim Goodin host.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Flute, Strings

Spektral Quartet – Experiments in Living

Spektral Quartet

Clara Lyon (violin), Maeve Feinberg (violin),

Doyle Armbrust (viola), Russell Rolen (cello)

Experiments in Living

New Focus Records (digital release)

The Spektral Quartet takes advantage of the open-ended playing time of a digital release to create effectively a double album for their latest recording, Experiments in Living. While double albums often suffer from a bit of flab, this one doesn’t have an extraneous moment. It is a well curated release that attends to meaning making in contemporary music with a spirit that is both historically informed and deeply of this moment.

A clever extra-musical addition to the project is a group of Tarot cards that allow the listener to ‘choose their own adventure,’ making their way through the various pieces in different orderings. These are made by the artist/musician øjeRum. The tarot cards may be seen on the album’s site. 

It might seem strange to begin an album of 20/21 music with Johannes Brahms’s String Quartet Op. 51, no. 1  in  C-minor (1873). However, Arnold Schoenberg’s article “Brahms as Progressive”  makes the connection between the two composers clear. It also demonstrates Spektral’s comfort in the standard repertoire. They give an energetic reading of the quartet with clear delineation of its thematic transformations, a Brahms hallmark. 

Schoenberg is represented by his Third String Quartet (1927). His first quartet to use 12-tone procedures, it gets less love in the literature than the oft-analyzed combinatorics of the composer’s Fourth String Quartet, but its expressive bite still retains vitality over ninety years later. Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet (1931), an under-heralded masterpiece of the 20th century, receives one of the best recordings yet on disc, its expressive dissonant counterpoint rendered with biting vividness.

Sam Pluta’s Flow State/Joy State is filled with flurries of glissandos, microtones, and harmonics to create a thoroughly contemporary sound world punctuated by dissonant verticals. One of Pluta’s most memorable gestures employs multiple glissandos to gradually make a chord cohere, only to have subsequent music skitter away. Charmaine Lee’s Spinals incorporates her own voice, replete with lip trills and sprechstimme that are imitated by string pizzicato and, again, glissandos. 

Spektral is joined by flutist Claire Chase on Anthony Cheung’s “Real Book of Fake Tunes,” which combines all manner of effects for Chase with jazzy snips of melody and writing for quartet that is somewhat reminiscent of the techniques found in the Schoenberg, but with a less pervasively dissonant palette. Cheung’s writing for instruments is always elegantly wrought, and Chase and Spektral undertake an excellent collaboration. One could imagine an entire album for this quintet being an engaging listen.  

The recording’s title track is George Lewis’s String Quartet 1.5; he wrote a prior piece utilizing quartet but considers this his first large-scale work in the genre. Many of the techniques on display in Pluta’s piece play a role here as well. Lewis adds to these skittering gestures, glissandos, and microtones the frequent use of various levels of bow pressure, including extreme bow pressure in which noise is more present than pitch. The latter crunchy sounds provide rhythmic weight and accentuation that offsets the sliding tones. Dovetailing glissandos create a blurring effect in which harmonic fields morph seamlessly. The formal design of the piece is intricate yet well-balanced. More string quartets, labeled 2.5 and 3.5, are further contributions by Lewis to the genre. One hopes that Spektral will take them up as well – their playing of 1.5 is most persuasive.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey